Thursday, June 28, 2007

Abuse Of Chickens In India

In 2005, approximately 2 billion "broiler" chickens were slaughtered in India. These birds are crammed by the tens of thousands into dark, filthy sheds, where the ammonia from the chickens’ accumulated waste actually burns their eyes. According to DR. Vandana Shiva. See the full story at Chicken Abuse

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Barley Breaks Free

Barley breaks out of her crate while we are in town. She bent the side bars with her teeth (breaking off a tooth root and all in the process). When they were bent, she was able to push one of the ends out. That isn't an open door to the crate, that is the whole end of it pushed off. Then she got blood all over the room as she leapt up and down against the doors. We came home to blood splashed on the doors and walls and dripped on the floor. Oh yeah, she destroyed her foam bed too.... we took her to the vet but other than one lost tooth and a swollen jaw, she was fine.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Chicken Coop No. 3 Must Be Demolished

Chicken Coop No. 3, one of the historic outbuildings in the farm complex at Maudslay State Park, is beyond repair and must be demolished. The 97 year old building is in terrible shape. Shingles are flaking off, and the roof is caved-in.

Rob Kovacs, the park supervisor, said park officials would have preferred to have been able to maintain the coop building. But with limited resources and more than 40 structures needing attention at the 480-acre park, there just isn't enough manpower to keep up every building. Every building on the old Mosley Dairy Farm is on the Massachusetts Historical Commission's Inventory of Historic and Archaeological Assets.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

The Grass Is Always Greener

The Grass Is Always Greener

When I got up this morning the sheep were in the donkey field and the donkey was in the sheep field. It would seem I did not lock the gate properly when I last used it and the animals decided they would like a change of scenery. Perhaps the grass tastes better when belongs to someone else.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Pigeon Stuck In A Tree

Fire chiefs have defended a decision to send firefighters to rescue a pigeon - stuck up from a tree after the fire service was called out by an RSPCA inspector. The firefighters used an aerial ladder platform to recover the bird on Monday evening.
Crews took about 45 minutes to recover the bird.

The charity had received reports that the bird had been trapped by its leg in a tree at a retirement home for two days.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Organic Chicken Not As Safe As We Might Think

More organic chickens contain a food poisoning bug then factory farmed poultry, according to a television investigation. When scientists tested 46 organic birds they found about 80% contained the most common bacteria that causes food poisoning, campylobacter. This compares to the 70 per cent of factory farmed chickens that Government tests showed carry the bug.

Professor Martin Blaser, head of medicine at New York Medical school and an expert on the bacteria, told the programme: "I think it's important to educate the public that organic chicken is not free of bacteria and it's not free of campylobacter and it has to be prepared in exactly the same safe ways that non organic chicken is."

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Tasty Chicken Burgers

I do not normally talk about recipes but this sounded kind of good.

Ingredients
500g ground chicken or turkey breast
4 green onions, chopped up
1 1/2 tablespoons curry paste
1 egg,
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 cucumber
olive oil cooking spray
400g packet naan bread
80g mixed salad leaves
200g yoghurt

Method
Mix curry paste, onion, egg and breadcrumbs in a bowl. Shape mixture into patties. Place on a plate, cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Using a vegetable peeler, slice cucumber into ribbons.
Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Lightly spray patties with oil and cook for 5 minutes each side or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Cover and place in oven to keep warm.
Meanwhile, place naan bread on baking tray. Bake for 5 minutes each side or until heated through.
Cut naan bread in half crosswise. Place half the bread on plates. Top with salad leaves, chicken patties, cucumber ribbons and a dollop of natural yoghurt. Top with remaining naan bread halves.

Cooking Time 15 minutes

Friday, June 08, 2007

Tales of an ugly chicken

The popular teen magazine Sweet 16 runs Centralia girl’s essay about raising chickens. The two-page spread in the June/July issue of Sweet 16 features Jody Brysons award winning hobby of raising chickens.

Tales of an ugly chicken

Jody is an 18-year-old who submitted the essay to the magazine in hopes of winning a scholarship. Instead, an editor called and said they wanted to reprint her story in Sweet 16’s "True Stories" section. The essay tells of Jody’s decision to quit raising chickens after worrying it wasn’t a "cool" enough hobby for high school. But when she bought some black "naked neck" chickens as a joke, her passion was re-ignited. One of those funny-looking birds turned out to be a state champion, giving Jody first place in the youth division champion-of-all-breeds contest at the 2006 Missouri State Fair in Sedalia.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Killed For Stealing Chicken

Two villagers in Africa were killed on the weekend for allegedly stealing seven chickens. The men were beaten to death by their fellow villagers for stealing the chickens belonging to another villager. Police are investigating the incident.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Chicken leg proves Columbus was not the first

A chicken leg unearthed in Chile has provided overwhelming evidence that Polynesians reached the Americas at least a century before Columbus. The chicken, which lived sometime between 1304 and 1424, is genetically identical to those discovered at sites on several Pacific islands.

The leg was among 50 chicken bones recovered by Daniel Quiroz, an archaeologist digging in El Arenal, Chile, while researching sites occupied by South America's Mapuche people.