Coming home to roost

I went to a friend's house for a bbq and was delighted to see 3 chickens moving about the yard. As I watched them eat grass, bugs, and worms, I immediately thought about the grain-based, vegetarian diet promintently advertised on supermarket eggs.  If chickens naturally forage for insects, why are factory chickens being denied a well balanced diet? 


Apparently they're easy to care for; they just need a coop, a yard, clean water, and an occasional pooper scooper. They walk about during the day and go home to roost at dusk. I truly enjoyed watching them. The only strange detail about this event was the Heinz hfcs ketchup that was prominently displayed alongside the TJs whole wheat rolls. 

The chickens were purchased at 14 weeks from a 4H-er in Pottstown for $10 and have each been laying one egg daily since they were 21 weeks old.  The eggshells are a pleasing palette, but it makes you wonder how much engineering goes into producing eggs of uniform shapes and colors - our cosmetic demands are a major contributing factor to the food production machine. 

For our needs 3 eggs per day would yield plenty of omelets and quiche.  Next spring our outdoor space clearly needs to be devoted to a bit of urban subsistence food production.