If author and farmer Jenna Woginrich had a motto , it might be this : “ Do n’t give up . Your landlords assure you that you ca n’t keep rabbit ? Do n’t give up . A foxy visitor slaughters half your flock in the wee hr of the morning ? Do n’t give up . You hit financial hardship and your farm is on the agate line ? Do n’t give up . ”
As a self - teach farmer having lived in three states on three farms over 10 age , tending to fauna and espouse her dream of sustainability , Woginrich has persist . In that decade , chickens have been at the very ticker of each step of her journey and every hardship that has fare her way . She has chosen rural neighborhood over urban ones to settle and work , each place with the slew in psyche . Chickens were her first livestock .
“ They come into my life and never left , which sounds uncomplicated , but it mean a lifespan of decision that accommodated them being a part of my story , ” she says .
In her first book , Made From Scratch(2010 ) , Woginrich calls chickens “ the most exciting backyard accessory since lawn flit . ” She credits her Muriel Spark of infatuation with the birds to her then coworker and chicken mentor .
“ [ She ] handle a full - time federal agency occupation and maintain a herd of boeuf cattle and 200 - plus laying hen , ” Woginrich aver . “ She rocked my macrocosm . I had grown up in a town and never even jazz Gallus gallus came in different strain and coloring material , much less the great unwashed in cubicles could go home to them . I was blissfully ignorant and excited . ”
Woginrich ’s first stack of three mature hen come from her former coworker ’s farm , after a few trial and tribulations with her attempted starter flock : one involving five Silkie dame in a incubator and a curious Siberian Husky ; another when a few hens turn down to lie ; and another when a hen vagabond off on her first morning , not to be seen again . Even with the initial setback , Woginrich persist , and before long she had laying razz .
Jenna Woginrich
“ Those first birds laid egg in a coop on the back pack of cards of my rented home , ” she says . “ It was bunt up against the window , so I could spread the kitchen windowpane in my slipper and reach into the henhouse through a backdoor and get eggs 10 feet from the skillet . I never felt so full-bodied . Those first wench were the collision I involve to always have a spate of stratum . ”
Woginrich eventually got her Silkies , too , and bestow a point in time - of - ballad pullet to her first small flock . By her first summer with chickens , Woginrich was flush with more than a dozen egg per hebdomad .
“ Before crybaby , the only animal I had were pets , ” she says . “ They showed me a unexampled partnership with animals , a very old one that has become lost to too many . I cognize some people keep preferent hen — nothing awry with that — but I hump knowing that I had these animals that were not pets [ but ] were collaborator . They could create something of worth to sell — nut and meat — and if I learned to live beside them well [ and ] breed , elevate and keep them well , I would always have a small beginning of income and food . It was my first taste of self - sufficiency . ”Jenna Woginrich
Jenna Woginrich
Cold Antler Farm
These days , chickens feel less maudlin to her than they used to , but they are no less decisive to the heartbeat of the organism that is Cold Antler Farm , her homestead in Jackson , New York .
“ A body is made of arteries pumping rake from the heart to every nook and cranny of your being , ” Woginrich says . “ Gallus gallus are that blood stream here . They are what course through the plain , yard , fence lines and cuddle box . They are always there , proving this farm is a survive thing . ”
Some volaille keepers incline a lay flock stringently for nut ; others start out with laying hens , and germinate along a natural progression to raising chickens for meat . Over the age of her farm ’s life ( in its many incarnations and location ) and her extensive societal media presence , Woginrich has have unfavorable judgment and support from her stance on eating animate being . Her perspective , as it does for most who produce the nation , comes from a position unique only to those who breed , birth , handle for and process their own animals for meat . Woginrich has n’t lose a beat in address her critic ’s business organisation and challenge , asking meatless readers to explore the sources and consequences of their flora - base diets .
Jenna Woginrich
In her frank and controversial Huffington Post opinion piece “ If You Care About Farm animal : Eat Them , ” Woginrich shares her experience of being a vegan and vegetarian over the course of 10 years to raise her own animate being for nitty-gritty as well as hound wild plot . In a more recent objet d’art for Huffington Post , “ An Open Letter from a Farmer to Angry Vegetarians , ” Woginrich gracefully addresses the worked up feedback she receives from those who initially met her as a vegetarian and “ farm - funny ” budding homesteader in her first book and who were see red to find just seven years afterward that she was now process lambs , hogs and , of course , chickens , on her six - acre farm . Jenna Woginrich
In her other farming years , Woginrich was still make the transmutation from viewing brute as companions to “ employees , ” as she calls her charges . As a vegetarian , and a person who was not raised on a farm in her plastic year , animals were either pets or creatures of the state of nature . Where did farm animals fit in ? What was their role ? To the young Woginrich , they were colleagues with an agreement and understanding : care , food , tax shelter and a wonderful life , in exchange for meat , milk , character or ball . She was shift her linear perspective of animals in our populace — in her world — and what her kinship with them was to be .
This shift from her early days as a blogger and writer storm a choice among her readership : Accept that citizenry can change and string up on for the ride , or , skip off and move on . As a very public farmer , one entrenched in the language and culture of social medium by choice and career , abrasive criticism come in with the dominion . Woginrich go along to suffer her ground and savoir-faire concerns on the very political platform that were used to challenge her . In fact , this is part of her draw . Her readership fervently follows her because she lives in an authentic way and does n’t just share fluff : She shares her setbacks and failures , as well as her accomplishments .
Jenna Woginrich
On the farm today , chicken put up pest services , fertilization and income for the farm , but “ they are also in the freezer — food for cold winter Nox and gather with friend — and in the freezers of people who brook this farm . Their eggs are part of citizenry ’s every morning routine and there is nothing but pride in feeding your community good food for thought . Chickens are so small-scale , but they really can be the founding of a rural aliveness . ”Jenna Woginrich
Change & Growth
Not long into her chicken journey , Woginrich entered two fateful Silkies into a poultry show at the county bazaar . On her various literary platforms , the farmer has partake this pivotal second in her agricultural life , and how it shifted her perspective — and her aliveness ’s timeline — from what she thought it was going to be . Her Silkie cock won a ribbon that day , and she marveled at the residential area that existed around chickens and how quickly she was welcomed into it with open blazonry .
Today , Woginrich ca n’t imagine her farm without chickens . Their roles are so important and so loved on the farm . “ They are the background characters in every scene of my life , ” she suppose . From once bath her bird in a kitchen sink with dish detergent ( and subsequently blow - dry out them to idol ) , her evolution with chicken has shifted , but her devotion to them has not .
She has now turned her fowl focus toward rearing and elaborate a singular admixture of breeds she call “ Antlerborns . ” Her crosses of Ameraucana , Pumpkin Hulsey , Swedish Flower Hen and Jungle Fowl bring forth ingenious birds that are apt to exist and flourish .
“ My birdie are all free - ambit , and while that does intend losses to some predator , I sense the overall quality of lifetime for the flock is better , ” Woginrich says . The ones that survive go on to share their genes , and her line strengthens and improve .
“ [ It is ] instinctive selection right in my own backyard , and [ the Antlerborns ] are tearing mothers and amazing flyers , ” she articulate . “ They lay spicy / green eggs , and some do n’t have butt feathers . So I went from raising a doghouse of purebreds that I would enter in the county bonnie to a genteelness reason for the scrappiest nor'-east laying flock no raccoon or fox make bold vanquish ! ”
Woginrich ’s finish is to improve the genetics of the line , keep them going strong and increase her meat snort production . Otherwise , she “ let chickens be crybaby . ” Her daily routine is like any backyard or hobby farmer : Each morning , she feeds them , collects orchis and conducts health checks . The ease of the time , their presence run through the vein of the farm , keeping the land hefty and feeding their farmer and her client .
“ I drop a line books about them and deal their stories , and now they are as much a part of me and this farm as the solid ground itself , ” she says . “ It is amazing to me that a 10 of choices can come from one hot ballock . ”
This write up originally come out in the September / October 2017 issue ofChickensmagazine .
