Kauai Feral Chickens (living, fencing, garden)

[cda3001]

they were brought over with the first Polynesian settlers a long long time ago. the storm helped to spread them but they were already there.

[newride]

I remember chickens walking across my feet while using a computer in a hostel on the island. It gave me a chuckle. Just ask them to leave nicely.

[hotzcatz]

Feral chickens are tasty, absolutely they taste a lot more like chicken than factory farmed ones. Some of the jungle fowl can have dark colored meat, although I'm not sure if that's typical of all jungle fowl or just the ones around here. I think some Silky blood got mixed into the jungle fowl around here. Silkies have fuzzy feathers and look like a feather boa and their meat is very dark.

Comparing feral or backyard raised eggs to commercial farmed eggs, the feral/backyard egg yolks will be a very dark yellow or almost orange because they are eating a natural diet instead of the commercial feed farmed chickens eat.
These are two eggs from my backyard chickens. They are primarily Rhode Island Reds although one is a barred Rock. They eat mostly bugs and such and when the eggs are slow cooked the whites have almost a cake like texture nothing rubbery at all and they have a great flavor.

Folks are so trained to eat inferior food from commercial sources it's a shame. Right now I have a pan of fresh bamboo shoots simmering. We have so many bamboo shoots now since it's bamboo season that I'm canning some up for later. Fresh bamboo shoots are incredibly fragrant! You won't get this from a can! Use some feral chicken and some fresh bamboo to make chop suey or a stir fry and it's so ono!

Feral chickens aren't a problem if you eat them, then they are a resource. Keep a few as pets, eat the eggs, eat the ones that annoy you and then it's all good.

[mdand3boys]

Be careful where you get your "free range" chickens or eggs. Various studies have shown a multiple X increase in the possibility of salmonella from free range vs "factory" chickens.

[KonaKat]

?link? How so would salmonella be more prevalent in free range chickens than cooped chickens?

(we wash our eggs pretty well as soon as they're gathered and they go right in the fridge)

[hotzcatz]

I absolutely refuse to be afraid of home raised food versus factory food. I know where my chickens are and what they've been eating and where it came from. Factory food is a complete unknown and in the hands of strangers - especially scary is that they are strangers who's only agenda is to make money and have very little concern other than that. My family's health is much more important than some stranger making money.

I don't wash the fertile free range eggs from my backyard nor do I refrigerate them. I put the date on them and leave them in a basket on the counter. An egg is designed to wait in the nest for several weeks while the hen is laying enough eggs until she sets on the whole batch of them. So they will stay good for up to about three weeks just sitting on a counter. If the eggs are older than three weeks, I'll crack them into a cup first to make sure they are good but even at a month old and unrefrigerated, 99% of them are still good. I have had a few "bad" eggs when they get over about five weeks old if they are unrefrigerated but mostly it is that the yolk breaks, not that the egg stinks or is truly spoiled.

Has anyone else noticed an attempt to increase the fear of home made, home raised or home grown foods? It seems there are all sorts of little insidious things out there trying to undermine the wholesomeness of home made foods. Are the commercial food makers that nervous about market share?

In commercially raised eggs and chicken, there are large batches which are processed in the same liquids. If one in a thousand chickens has salmonella that can transfer it to thousands of other ones. I process less than two dozen chickens a year so if there is a one in a thousand chance of a chicken having salmonella at two dozen chickens a year how many years will it take? I'm not gonna live long enough and I trust myself a LOT more than any factory farm.

For that matter, germs and bacteria are on everything anyway so having a good healthy body is a better defense than handing your money over to some factory out of some sort of induced fear of salmonella, staph, bacteria, germs, etc. What we have seen in factory farms just lately has been melamine and growth hormones in the feed. There is bovine growth hormones in most commercial milk, too. No thank you, I prefer my "dangerous" home grown foods.

[flygrl]

I moved to Kauai at the beginning of the year and I love the feral chickens. Moving from a big city, I much rather hear chickens than traffic. Besides, they were here before I was so they have seniority. Sometimes at night they have a noisy party outside so I just put in earplugs and...silence. It is a fair trade since they eat the bugs around my house.

[Calico Salsa]

According to the CDC, today the salmonella infection comes from an infected chicken, and would be inside the egg, not on the outside shell. Washing and storage of the egg is less the issue than the chicken. Apparently in the past salmonella might be present due to fecal matter or other contamination of the shell, but now a perfectly normal appearing egg might be contaminated.

There seems to be a lot of info out there of proper refrigeration and washing of eggs, although I'm not sure that doing such would kill or stymie salmonella already inside an egg. Perhaps those cautions are for spoilage, not infection.

HOWEVER, instances are extremely low, 1 in 10,000 eggs. And I would agree with hotzcatz, that I'd rather eat eggs from a source that knows the whole chicken life and egg handling process from start to finish.

Disease Listing, Salmonella enteritidis, Generall Information | CDC Bacterial, Mycotic Diseases

[stjepan]

Cooking is the answer. Big store, small store, it doesn't matter, cooking is the way to fight salmonella. Salmonellosis - In sickness and health - Positions and Promotions - The magazine for top managers - careers, top management, C-suite, promotions, business, news,
And of course, sometimes you can't trust big companies that run for the money.

[KonaKat]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

I absolutely refuse to be afraid of home raised food versus factory food. I know where my chickens are and what they've been eating and where it came from. Factory food is a complete unknown and in the hands of strangers - especially scary is that they are strangers who's only agenda is to make money and have very little concern other than that. My family's health is much more important than some stranger making money.

I don't wash the fertile free range eggs from my backyard nor do I refrigerate them. I put the date on them and leave them in a basket on the counter. An egg is designed to wait in the nest for several weeks while the hen is laying enough eggs until she sets on the whole batch of them. So they will stay good for up to about three weeks just sitting on a counter. If the eggs are older than three weeks, I'll crack them into a cup first to make sure they are good but even at a month old and unrefrigerated, 99% of them are still good. I have had a few "bad" eggs when they get over about five weeks old if they are unrefrigerated but mostly it is that the yolk breaks, not that the egg stinks or is truly spoiled.

Has anyone else noticed an attempt to increase the fear of home made, home raised or home grown foods? It seems there are all sorts of little insidious things out there trying to undermine the wholesomeness of home made foods. Are the commercial food makers that nervous about market share?

In commercially raised eggs and chicken, there are large batches which are processed in the same liquids. If one in a thousand chickens has salmonella that can transfer it to thousands of other ones. I process less than two dozen chickens a year so if there is a one in a thousand chance of a chicken having salmonella at two dozen chickens a year how many years will it take? I'm not gonna live long enough and I trust myself a LOT more than any factory farm.

For that matter, germs and bacteria are on everything anyway so having a good healthy body is a better defense than handing your money over to some factory out of some sort of induced fear of salmonella, staph, bacteria, germs, etc. What we have seen in factory farms just lately has been melamine and growth hormones in the feed. There is bovine growth hormones in most commercial milk, too. No thank you, I prefer my "dangerous" home grown foods.

Hotz, as usual you nailed it. My chickens keep the centipede population in my yard at a level I can live with, they are entertaining and harmless. 3 are cooped presently and 3 are "free".