My cochlear implant was turned on yesterday. From now on, I will be hearing via electronic stimulation of my auditory nerve. I was told that at first, everyone would sound like Donald Duck. My audiologist was wrong. It’s more like voices have gone through one of those voice-changing machines that the bad guys use when they leave ransom messages.

My chickens sound like I imagine chickens would sound like if Darth Vader raised them. Does this look like a hen from the evil empire?

I’m a halfway-decent dog trainer. I’ve even managed to turn my crazy border collie/rat terrier mix into a dog that we enjoy living with. On top of the manners, I’ve taught her tricks to keep her mind and body busy. You can see her put away her toys here.

But, those dog training skills aren’t why, back in July, I got a call from a producer at Animal Planet. The new season of It’s Me Or The Dog was being filmed and they needed my expertise. I was thrilled! It’s Me Or The Dog is one of the few programs on television that shows how positive reinforcement and sane, appropriate relationships with your dogs can improve everyone’s lives (animals and their owners alike.)

So, I packed up my car with three of my animals and drove to Long Island for the taping. I’m not supposed to tell you who I brought, but I bet you can guess.

The episode The Castle Goes to the Dogs airs on Saturday, January 15 at 8 pm on Animal Planet. Check their site for listings – it goes into immediate and frequent re-runs.

(There wasn’t a make-up or hairstylist on site. I haven’t seen the show, but I’m already obsessing about my hair!)

1916 was a very good year for American farmers. Crops were abundant. The growing population in the cities clamored for more food, and improved transportation systems got it there faster and fresher. Even so, eggs remained a seasonal product, and they came from small flocks kept on pasture. Soon, that would change. Cold storage units were being built, so that summer eggs could be sold in the winter. Confinement systems were on the horizon, so that eggs would come from factories, not farms. But, in 1916, a farmer could keep a few hundred hens as part of a diversified farm, and make a good living.

In NYC, a dozen eggs sold for 31¢. That’s $6.22 in today’s dollars. Eggs were valued and not yet a cheap commodity. Of course, the farmer didn’t see the full 31¢. It would have taken as many as 5 middlemen to get that egg to market. Still, the farmer would have received 20¢ – about $4.00 today. $4.00 isn’t bad – it’s about what those of us who keep backyard hens sell our eggs for, and, as my numbers in my previous post showed, it’s enough to cover feed costs and then some.

But, why is it that the “organic” eggs being produced today and sold by huge corporations are getting the same price that I am, and the same that a small farmer in 1916 did? Don’t these huge modern concerns have economies of scale? Haven’t they crowded their hens into buildings that hold tens of thousands of birds? There’s a reason why the company that was cited for the salmonella outbreak this winter also produces “cage-free” eggs. It’s not because they care about their hens’ welfare. No, it’s because there’s money in it. The profit margin for “organic” is much larger than that for the usual carton of supermarket eggs. It infuriates me that these businesses claim “happy hens” and “farm fresh” on their packages, and illustrate the cartons with pictures of hens on grass. It goes beyond false advertising. It undercuts the small farmer, and makes it that much more difficult for the true farmer to explain the value of their product to the consumer.

The USDA cares nothing about these issues. The egg grading system (you know, “USDA Grade A Eggs”) was begun as a marketing tool for egg producers. It guaranteed the freshness of eggs traveling distances and coming out of cold storage. Plant inspectors look at the eggs, not the farms or the feed the hens eat. That’s still how it functions today. The term “organic” is regulated, but if you think an organic farm is anything like your backyard, or even like a 1916 farm, think again. It’s basically “cage-free” with better food.

I’ll be ranting about this more in the future. We’re working on an app that will help people find out exactly where the eggs they’re buying come from. And how fresh they are. It’s not an easy project. There’s a lot of research to be done and software code to write. There’s no master list of egg farms out there. There’s no accountability. We’ll be changing that as best we can. Hopefully, I’ll have something to announce by springtime.

(What I know about 1916 comes from several sources. One is “Poultry Breeding and Management” by James Dryden, a professor of Poultry Husbandry at the the Oregon Agricultural College. Published in 1918.)

I’ve never expected my hens to be an inexpensive source of eggs. There’s no economy of scale here. I buy laying hen pellets, a fifty pound bag at a time, from the local feed store. Pine shavings, scratch grains and oyster shell also comes bagged and purchased from the same source and hauled home in my car. Up until this year, I’ve never kept an accurate accounting, and so I’ve never known how much I’ve spent. Willful ignorance.

So, in 2010 I decided to keep a running tally of the cost of keeping my girls. I started with 16 hens, but by year’s end was down to 13. The flock consisted of three bantams, two mid-sized flighty Polish and the rest standard. Most were middle-aged or elderly. Only four were under two years old, in their prime-laying years. I have a mix of breeds, mostly old-fashioned hens, which means they aren’t egg-laying machines. They go broody. They have long molts. They shut down in darkness and in cold. Despite all of that, my little flock of under-achievers laid 1,319 eggs in 2010.

Laying hen pellets cost about $13 per fifty pounds. That comes out to less than 27¢ a pound. No wonder the term chicken feed is synonymous with cheap. But, it does add up. I bought 650 pounds of the stuff last year. Poultry raising texts tell you that a hen eats 1/4 pound of pellets a day, but do the math (I’ll spare you) and it turns out that my hens ate less than half that, I think because they get plenty of other foods. I toss them a lot of kitchen scraps, they have access to the compost, and I let them out to forage when I can.

When the pellets, the oyster shell, scratch grains, some supplemental greens bought in winter, and the pine shaving were added up, I was surprised at how little I spent. $270. That’s not much for how much pleasure these hens have given me. It’d be worth it even without the eggs. But, I did get eggs, over a thousand of them. Doing the math (again, I’ll spare you) each egg cost about 21¢. Or, $2.46 a dozen. A dozen organic eggs at Whole Foods Market sell for over $5. I had enough eggs to sell some at the local farmers’ market. I brought in $83 this year. My precious “egg money.” It doesn’t go into the equation.

So, I’m feeling rather flush right now, as if my girls and I managed to put the household finances into the black. Then again, I also added to the “infrastructure” with new waterers, bought fly paper and medicines, and paid to have the fencing repaired. I also shelled out to have a carpenter install a cupola to the HenCam barn to improve ventilation. Let’s not count that, shall we? Oh, and there’s no way I’m going to tally up what I spent on the goats.

My first fully-formed thought on this first day of 2011, while still in bed and still with my eyes closed, was, “I have to place my chick order.” Don’t you agree that that’s a good first thought of the New Year?

I live in a small town. The tellers at the post office know me well. Eight years after moving two miles down the road, from one house to another, they still forward the old mail. One mailman used to buy eggs from me. I’d leave them in the mailbox on top of a freezer pack. But, one thing I’ve never done is to get my chicks through the post office. Others in town have had that fun. This year, it’s my turn, and I can’t wait for the post office to call and tell me to hurry down for the peeping box.

Most large hatcheries have a minimum order of 25. Chicks don’t need to eat or drink for two days after hatching (reabsorbing the yolk takes care of those needs) but they do have to stay warm. Hatcheries have figured out that 25 crowded into a box is a healthy number. In recent years, by using heat packs, some hatcheries are now able to ship as few as three chicks. It’s a service that’s worth the expense if you aren’t able to take on two dozen fluff balls. In the past I’ve added to my flock in small increments (partly by buying chicks from my neighbors who placed the large orders.) But, in the last year, three of my chickens have died, and I have four more that are elderly and not likely to last the winter. The big barn can accommodate at least ten additional hens. I’ve been lusting after grey birds, I miss blue eggs, and I’ve wanted the deep-brown Maran eggs for no other reason than they are so pretty. It’s time to place a large order.

There are many excellent small hatcheries that sell various breeds, but to get the wide variety that I want, I need to go to a larger concern. I want all of the chicks from one place, so that they’re all the same age, have been exposed to the same germs, are on the same vaccine schedule (they’ll be vaccinated for Marek’s) and from a breeding flock that is regularly tested for diseases. I’ve selected the Meyer Hatchery because they have blue Orpingtons and Marans, as well as Speckled Sussex and classic New Hampshire Reds.

A friend in town is tacking his wish list of breeds to my order, so I’ll be getting about three dozen chicks. He’s the type of guy who buys a whole pig from a local farmer because he cares about what he eats. Two years ago he built a coop and got hens for the eggs. So, you’d think he’d order all hybrids. They’re the ones that lay everyday and all through winter. But, he’s fond of Dorkings, and, after looking through the Meyer catalog is also getting a few other fancy breeds, “just because.” That’s what happens when you get chickens.

The chicks will arrive late in March. I’ll be setting a brooder up in the big barn. I’m hoping that Lulu will go broody when the chicks come so I can tuck some under her. Steve is trying to figure out how to have a ChickCam. It’s going to be busy here this spring!

Happy New Year!