raising chickens

Our butchering date had been weighing on me for weeks. I was counting the days, looking forward to the end of hauling 5- and 7-gallon water jugs morning and night from our yard hydrant to the chicken yard and of wrestling 50-lb. bags of broiler feed every few days. But I was also dreading the slaughter – the toll I would be exacting on sixty living creatures. This was not the sort of burden I ever considered before our first harvest of meat chickens in July of 2011.

Ever heard of a guard goose? If you’re one of those aspiring farmers who wants to keep a few chickens in the backyard, you might want to investigate. As I learned at my second of a series of four livestock workshops at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus, geese make great chicken protectors. They’ll fend off overly inquisitive opossums and raccoons and even attack coyotes that get too close to the coop! So if you can persuade your neighbors to overlook the inevitable honking, a goose might be a good investment. Plus, geese are apparently gaining popularity as Christmas dinner main courses.

When I walked into my first of a series of four livestock workshops at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus, I wasn’t sure what to expect of the curriculum, but I was pretty sure what to expect of the students: a bunch of new-age, backyard chicken growers, to be sure.