Author: John Hancock

Chicken Superpower: Eyesight

You’ve probably seen a chicken scratching the dirt and pecking the ground. It’s just dirt, but the hen seems to be so deliberate in her actions. What could be so interesting? It’s because she sees what you can’t. Eyesight is a chicken’s super power (at least during the day). Let’s explain.

Like humans, chicken eyes contain photoreceptors called rods and cones. Rods help to see at night, and cones see colors during the day. Chickens have very few rods, meaning their night vision is poor (worse than humans). Like humans, chickens have three types of cones to see red, green, and blue.

Here is where the super power comes in. Chickens have two EXTRA types of cones that humans don’t!

The first extra cone is an Ultraviolet or UV cone. UV rays come naturally from the sun. It’s what gives you a sunburn. Many insects, seeds, and shiny things reflect UV light, but grass and dirt don’t. Chickens see the UV reflection, so when you see a chicken scratching and pecking at the ground, it isn’t random. The ground is like a disco ball, full of shiny specks ready to be eaten. And chickens are naturally attracted to shiny things. You’ve probably seen them peck at your diamond ring or earrings. They’ll also swallow shiny things that shouldn’t be on the ground like nails, screws, foil, glass, and staples, all of which can be harmful to a chicken. After your next building project, clean it up! And here’s something interesting: feathers also reflect UV light, but male and female feathers reflect UV light differently, allowing a hen to recognize when the rooster is approaching!

The second extra cone is a double cone, which gives a chicken extra sensitivity to detect motion. Chickens spend much of their day searching for food. The cones help them see movement on the ground, like worms and insects. And since chickens are vulnerable to hawks and eagles, the double cone gives them early warning of movement and a little extra time to hide. If you want to see this in action, throw a piece of bread or something soft into your chickens and over their head. They’ll move and probably squawk long before it hits the ground.

Did you ever try to catch a chicken during the daytime and fail? You’re not alone. They see you coming and can detect your slightest movements! Here’s a pro tip: if you are trying to catch a chicken and you have it cornered, spread your arms out. Wiggle your fingers on one hand, and the chicken will see the motion and try to determine where you’re going. In that split second, use the other hand (that they’re not watching!) to grab them by the tail. It takes some practice but it really works!

Another reason they can see you coming is that chickens have a 300-degree field of view because their eyes are on the side of their head. Humans, with eyes in front, can only see about 180-degrees. Most of what a chicken sees is in monovision (one eye), but they have stereo or binocular vision (both eyes) in a 25 degree cone directly in front of them.

How about more super powers? Chickens can use each eye independently to focus on two different. And the left eye is far-sighted while the right eye is near-sighted. So a chicken can look for food with the right eye while watching for hawks with the left eye! Did you ever notice a chicken tilt its head to the right when it first sees you? Next time notice they’re using their left eye to look at you!

What about protecting those super powers? Did you ever see a chicken take a dust bath? Dust bathing looks like a chicken is having a seizure in the dirt. With all that debris flying around, how does a chicken protect its eyes? Well, it has an extra eyelid, called a nictitating membrane. It slides horizontally from the front to the back to protect and lubricate the eye. It’s also transparent, so the chicken can still watch for danger.

So the next time you’re looking at a chicken, remember to admire their superpower. A chicken might never become a Marvel superhero, but the amazing power of their eyes are difficult for us simple humans to comprehend.

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Beginners-Guide-to-Raising-Chickens

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We collect our eggs every day.  Big deal, right?  Why is that important?  Well, it’s part of our quality control.  We sell our eggs and we don’t want our customers to see anything unfamiliar when they crack one open.  We have roosters, so we assume that every egg is fertilized (although it varies from about 85% in the spring to 65% in late summer).  If the egg sits in the nest box, then nothing happens.  But if a hen decides it wants to be a mommy and spends a couple of days sitting on the egg, chick development begins.

For a fertilized egg to begin development, it needs the conditions found directly under a sitting hen.  That’s about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and 60-70% humidity.  After just 16 hours in those conditions, the first signs of development begins.  After 24 hours, there are the beginnings of a vertebrae, nervous system, head, and eyes.  It’s very tiny, weighing around .0001 grams, but it’s there. 

By the end of the second day, a heart is beating.  By the end of the third day, the nose, legs, and wings begin to appear.  Again, it’s thousandths of a gram, but it’s not what’s for breakfast!

Did you ever leave for a weekend trip and left your birds in the hands of someone who SWORE they’d feed them and collect the eggs, only to return and hear “I forgot!”?  If they didn’t collect the eggs, you might still eat them, but I wouldn’t recommend selling or giving them to anyone.  Occasionally we find a clutch of eggs hidden in the barn or under some plants.  We’ll eat barn eggs if they’ve been kept dry, but we first mark them to make sure they don’t wind up in a carton for sale.  Eggs found outside get wet from rain or morning dew.  Water destroys nature’s protective sealant, called the cuticle or bloom, which allows bacteria to enter the egg.  Those eggs get destroyed.   

Speaking of chick development, did you ever wonder how a chick gets oxygen when it’s covered in a hard shell?  Here are two words that might be new to you:  allantois and chorion.  The allantois is a membranous bag attached to the embryo’s belly and lies close to the inner surface of the egg shell.  The allantois develops on about Day 4, and fuses with another membrane which surrounds the chick and yolk called the chorion.  If you’ve ever candled a developing egg and saw blood vessels just under the shell, you’re looking at this fused “chorioallantoic” membrane. 

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The chorioallantoic membrane has a network of blood vessels within it. The membrane is against the inner surface of the porous shell, allowing gas exchange to occur.  Oxygen diffuses through the egg shell, through the capillaries in the membrane, and into the blood.  Carbon dioxide exits the shell, only in reverse order.  The chick’s beating heart pushes blood through its body as well as the chorioallantoic membrane.  The allantois stores nitrogen-containing waste.  When the chick hatches, it leaves these membranes behind, still attached to the shell. 

Hopefully that wasn’t too much learning in one day.  There won’t be a test on the chorioallantoic membrane.  But remember to collect your eggs daily.  And if you find one where it shouldn’t be and don’t know how long it’s been there, toss it!

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What I’m about to say, you intuitively won’t believe.  Here goes:  In Ohio, our flock will lay the least amount of eggs around Thanksgiving (late November).  See, you’re already saying that can’t be right.  You’re thinking the Winter Solstice (shortest daylight day of the year) isn’t for another month (around 21 December), and we haven’t even gotten to the coldest months of the year, January and February.  But it’s true.

When raising livestock, including chickens, it’s important to let the animals tell you their nature, and not make it up.  People say and post a lot of statements online about chickens that they either make up or they heard from someone else that made it up.  We fall victim to it because it sounds about right, or we compare humans to animals.  Like “You need at least 12 hours of daylight for a hen to lay an egg”.  We get eggs all winter, just not as many as in spring.  Or how about “If I’m cold, they’re cold”.  Chickens are built to survive most winters, just keep them dry and out of the wind. 

So back to the egg laying.  We let our flock teach us.  We have a mature flock of between 350 to 500 chickens (it varies throughout the year).  By mature, we mean we have some new layers, old hens, and all ages in between.  We have been keeping data of their egg production for nearly 3 years.  And every year, the curve looks the same.  It hits bottom right around Thanksgiving. 

If you have a small flock with only new layers, or only old hens that are the same age, your curve will probably look different.  First year hens produce very well right through winter.  After each year, a hen’s production decreases by about 20%, and mostly in the colder months.  If fact, most egg farms retire their hens after the first year of production (except “retire” means something very different!).  In the fall of a hen’s second year, they go through molt, which means they lose old worn-out feathers and grow new ones for winter.  Feathers and eggs are made of protein, so their body stops egg production in favor of growing feathers. 

Molt affects all hens differently, but can take 2 weeks to 2 months.  Some chicken owners with small older flocks report that they get their last egg in early fall, and don’t see another one until spring.  Molt is over around Thanksgiving (the low egg production point).  Since our flock is a mix of ages, the younger hens carry us through winter.  As daylight increases after Christmas, the older hens notice and start to occasionally lay.  From the chart, you can see how production increases significantly starting in the coldest months of the year, January and February. 

You’ll notice this year’s line (Green) gets flat starting in October.  We tried something different during molt.  We changed their feed to a high protein blend of 28% vs. 16%.  The results were pleasing.  Not only did it help regrow their feathers faster, but the egg production curve almost stayed steady.  So much so that the extra production more than paid for the additional feed cost. 

By the way, here is another tip:  when the weather is cold, give your hens whole corn just before sundown.  Whole corn has more nutrition than cracked corn, but either one will work.  Corn is low in protein (5-8%), but high in carbs and calories.  A chicken metabolizes its food about 6 hours after eating.  So corn will help a hen stay warm in the middle of the night, leaving her body with more energy to produce eggs.  Just don’t overdo it.  Corn should be a snack, not their primary diet.

So if you are disappointed that your flock is on strike and made you buy eggs from the store, it’s almost over.  By January, you should start to notice them coming back strong and filling your basket with delicious eggs!

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We visited The Ohio National Poultry Show in Columbus, Ohio.  This is the nation’s largest poultry show with about 6000 chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and guineas.  This video is a short compilation of what we saw.  We had so much fun!

Make your own wine at home.  It’s easy!  In this video, follow us over 6 weeks as we make cherry wine.  The same procedure can be followed to make just about any fruit wine.  Let us know if you’ve tried wine making and how it turned out!

Some people ask why we butcher turkeys the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and not closer to the actual day it will be eaten.  If it’s sold as fresh turkey, wouldn’t you want it butchered the day before?  It’s a good question that requires some explanation about something called rigor mortise.

After any animal is slaughtered, it goes through rigor mortise.  Rigor begins within 3 hours after the animal’s death, and lasts for at least 3 days when refrigerated at 40 degrees F.  After rigor passes, the muscle tissue relaxes and becomes tender.  You might have heard about “aged beef”, which is a carcass that is hung in a refrigerated cooler for several days before it is cut and packaged.  If meat were to be eaten during rigor, it would be very tough.  For poultry, there is a “3-3” rule:  A bird will avoid rigor and be tender if it begins cooking before 3 hours after it dies, or after 3 days.

We don’t worry about rigor with store bought meats since it takes several days to get to the store.  With frozen store-bought turkey, we normally thaw that in the refrigerator for several days, giving the meat time to relax.

So we butcher the Saturday before Thanksgiving so the meat will be relaxed and tender by Thanksgiving day.  To properly cook your turkey, make sure it is 165-175 degrees F in the center of the breast.  Cook at 325 degrees F and count on 15 minutes per pound.

One important note.  Our fresh turkey has no added fluid injections.  Almost ALL store-bought turkeys have an added brine solution to add weight and salt.  Sometimes the solution is up to 18% of the weight of the bird!  When  you eat fresh natural turkey (or chicken), you may notice the meat is a little more dense.  To me, it’s about the consistency of really good pork.  You may also notice it has a deeper flavor as well.  It’s what turkey SHOULD taste like!

So that’s why we butcher on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  You get a fresh and natural turkey that won’t be tough when you share it with friends and family!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s time to move our 5 week old bunnies to the growout pen on grass.  They are growing fast and are very healthy.

A weekly video of the animals on the farm. Recorded 20 October 2018.