Is anyone else feeling *REALLY* happy to be raising their own chickens right now?

[MunchiesChicks]

I knew where chickens and cows came from and I still had to get over that only food we should eat has a usda sticker on it and wrapped in plastic. Took me feeding two chickens to my dogs before I ate one myself. We had eggs this morning and I was just amazed with the flavor and dark golden orange yolks.

 

[mrchicks]

Food raised or grown in a healthy home environment tastes so much better than the store bought foods. I love our fresh eggs.

 

[Elke Beck]

I knew where chickens and cows came from and I still had to get over that only food we should eat has a usda sticker on it and wrapped in plastic. Took me feeding two chickens to my dogs before I ate one myself. We had eggs this morning and I was just amazed with the flavor and dark golden orange yolks.

I know that I was brainwashed to believe that unless it is wrapped in plastic, it was unclean. Now I look at those plastic wrapped birds as toxic waste.

 

[AK Baha]

The fresh eggs are so good!!!! We hunt ,fish and gather almost everything we eat.

 

[MunchiesChicks]

Don't all chickens have salmonilla like all humans have staph? Sorry newbie question

 

[kirras]

That's funny. When my niece was 4 I was talking about fishing and asked if she wanted to eat some fish. At that moment she realized what fish sticks really were and was so upset! I didn't want to raise my children like that so I teach them where meat comes from. When my daughter was 3 we passed a cow farm and she said " look mom, cheeseburgers!"

 

[Owingsia]

I got birds in the freezer and I have a few more that will be added this weekend. Very happy right now that I can say to friends and neighbors "Hey com on over we have meat" I often like to tease my friends who come over by asking them "Hey do you know whats in this chicken?" and responding "Just chicken and nothing but chicken"

 

[BCMaraniac]

Don't all chickens have salmonilla like all humans have staph? Sorry newbie question

Yes, but the strain of it can vary. We humans have E.coli in our GI tracts, as do cattle, and other mammals, but the strains are different. The E. coli in our GI tracts don't make us sick, but the E. coli from the GI tract of a cow very likely would, and the strain will determine the severity of illness. Some are so aggressive and grow so quickly, the amount of the toxins secreted by those bacteria is so large they can cause precipitous drops in blood pressure, and result in total organ failure(kidneys are the most susceptible.

The same with Salmonella. Each of us who have chickens are exposed to Salmonella just by owning chickens. We reduce the AMOUNT we are exposed to/ingest by common sense food handling/cooking procedures. But that is "our" Salmonella and our bodies make some immunity to it. Can it make us sick? Absolutely. But it will most likely take a larger amount to make us sick than someone who has no contact with poultry.

That said, if we are exposed to Salmonella Heidelberg(the strain in the Foster Farms recall) we could become very sick......does some of the immunity we have to "our" Salmonella help us fight the Heidelberg strain....possibly. This strain has resistance to multiple drugs that would normally work in your "run of the mill" Salmonella, not that there is really any run of the mill Salmonella, but I think you see my point.

You mentioned Staph in humans. We all have it on our skin. The most common is Staph epidermidis, but we can have other strains present as well. Staph epi can cause infection, but in humans it is usually a very localized one(ingrown hair or ingrown toe nail, small cut or scrape) and our bodies fight it and get rid of it without antibiotics because our bodies have some immunity to it. The strain that causes most severe infections is Staph. aureus. It is the resistant strain of it that is the worst....MRSA, because of its resistance to multiple drugs.

The long and short of it is that our backyard flocks are less likely to transmit a Salmonella infection to us than chicken from a commercial production.

 

[BCMaraniac]

That's funny. When my niece was 4 I was talking about fishing and asked if she wanted to eat some fish. At that moment she realized what fish sticks really were and was so upset! I didn't want to raise my children like that so I teach them where meat comes from. When my daughter was 3 we passed a cow farm and she said " look mom, cheeseburgers!"

LOL. This reminds me of when my kids were little. We bought two steers as calves and my huband and the kids named them Hamburger and Sirloin, because they knew they were being raised for beef. They were so tame, that my five year old daughter would stick her hand through the fence, and the steers would suck her thumb, and they continued to do this when they were grown! So we butchered one of them. I'll never forget when we sat down one night for dinner, and my daughter asked, "Mom, is this 'Hamburger' hamburger?", as she took a big bite. When we told her it was, she said, "He sure is good!". No sentimentality was going to get between her and her dinner.....LOL.

 

[kirras]

That's cute! I love when kids have no problem accepting that some animals are food!