Anybody care to guess why blogger will only upload this photo sideways?  Oh, well, life is funny sometimes. Anyhow, yesterday I helped Wyatt weight his meat chickens for his science fair project.  The kids and the meat chickens have been an enlightening experience for me.

You see, when you buy chickens at the market to eat, whether organic or not, they are almost always the fast white broiler type of chicken.  Bailey raised them one year for 4H.  They were pretty yucky, if you ask me, all poop and no personality.  These things grow so fast, they begin to break down in their 12th week of life, if not before.  Because they grow so rapidly, they are prone to all kinds of problems in their legs and stomachs.  They don't move around much, just sit there close to the feed and eat, drink, sleep and poop all day.  These birds cannot lay eggs or naturally reproduce, they are genetically engineered at a hatchery.  After that, she did some research, and they have been developing a few breeds, a black and a red one, which are similar, but grow a little slower and can live up to two years.  So the next year she tried those.  Some folks were really upset about the color, even though she had gotten the project pre-approved.

So Wyatt had attended some poultry workshops as an up and coming flock owner.  He mostly does chickens for eggs, which go to the farmers' market.  Many folks recognize us right away for the Patriot's Dream Farm label when they see us around doing other things.  He believes in them running around free range, spoiling them rotten!

So this year, his science fair project and 4H project was raising a group of three types side by side- red broilers, fast white broilers, and Delawares, a white feathered traditional heritage dual purpose breed. (In other words, an naturally reproducing heritage breed developed long ago for good meat and good laying in one breed.  So the fast white ones looked pretty good at fair, even won Wyatt Grand Champion meat pen.  The red ones just weren't big enough.  They really needed a couple more weeks.  The Delawares went along as a demonstration project, with a sign explaining what he was doing, so he could work with the judge on the project.  The judge met with Wyatt for as long as Wyatt wanted, and they talked about how his heritage breed birds and the red broilers could be made competitive with the other birds for placing in a meat pen class.  Really, it sounds as though it is all a matter of time and timing.

So here we are, still tracking the weights of the Delawares.  We weigh them almost weekly, watching for them to plateau in weight gain or grow to be as large as the fast white broilers were.  They are still growing.  The one roo in the bunch is almost there, so it has been a great learning experience so far.  We will keep you posted!