I’ve been buying old poultry magazines, books and catalogs, and they are a lesson in how agriculture has changed. The Poultry Item from 1928 has an article about poultry houses. It says, “To do well, the fowls require room.” It goes on to state, “Sunlight and fresh air are powerful disinfectants and germ destroyers. Pure fresh air and direct sunlight will do more to protect your flocks, prevent diseases, and in many cases effect a cure of ailments and injuries than anything you can buy at the drug store.” The Hillview Leghorns Poultry Farms catalog from 1939 has photos of hundreds of leghorns and australorps on pasture.

But by 1947, the Poultry Tribune has advertisements for “heavy duty battery” cages and a photo of an experimental farm that shows no animals outside, just manicured lawns.

The covers of the old magazines have delightful graphics, of children feeding chicks, and prize winners posed on hay bales, and of farmers standing in fields with hens. But forward to 1958 and the Poultry Tribune‘s cover has a man who “makes easy work of cage chores.” He is shown pushing a feeder down an aisle between rows of battery hens. Need I mention the ads in that issue from companies selling debeakers, cages and ventilators? The magazines from the 1950s are also the first ones that have articles and ads praising antibiotics.

My stack of magazines shows me how quickly – a matter of just a few years after WWII – that raising poultry went from being “farming” to “industry.” It’s going to be harder to change back, but there’s some good people out there doing it. They’re still farming.

I was at an LDEI conference in Kansas City last week. LDEI is a philanthropic organization of “women of achievement in the food professions.” I’ve been a member for six years, and at each year’s annual conference I am amazed at what these women accomplish and how much they give back to their communities. Currently, LDEI’s focus is on sustainable, local foodways. On Sunday, about 25 of us toured a wonderful family-owned and operated poultry and egg farm, Campo Lindo.

In our group were well-known restaurateurs, food columnists and influential consultants. Many of them write about food issues and advocate for green spaces. And yet none of them knew the simplest things about what the small poultry farmer needs to survive! They didn’t know that chicks are sent through the mail, and if we lose that right, that small farms and hatcheries will go out of business. They didn’t understand that the threats of bioterrorism and avian flu are being used as excuses to regulate the small producer out of business. They knew little of the good that 4-H does and nothing about the role that the “poultry fancy” and our backyard breeders have in maintaining genetic diversity.

These women were interested, they were concerned; they are intelligent, and they are influential. What did I do? I talked about my girls. Made it personal. Kept it upbeat. I am convinced that the more people hear from people like myself and others who live with domesticated farm animals, the more that they understand how we live alongside these animals, the better off we all will be. What can you do? Invite neighbors over to see your coop. Have a farm tour day. Call a food reporter and invite her to collect eggs; send her home with a dozen and suggest some recipes. Invite a preschool to your farm. I don’t need to remind you to keep it positive  – if you have hens in your life, you’re bound to talk about them as glowingly as a grandparent showing off family pictures.

Check out my Chicken Keeping Web page. I’ve reorganized the resources and links section and added a few more useful sites to peruse and fun things to look at. I’m on the lookout for chicken artists (not hens that paint — though that’d be really interesting!) — but artists who are inspired by chickens. Also, I’ve added a list of blogs about hens. I’ll keep the list small and well-curated. You’ll know it’s current and worth reading if it’s on my site. (Don’t you just get so annoyed clicking out-of-date links?)

On to henhouse news: Tweedledum is finally up and about. No telling how long she’ll take a break from broodiness, but it is so nice to see her silly self strutting around the yard.

The days are getting shorter and we’re getting fewer eggs. We’re down to finding about five to six eggs a day. Snowball, the slacker, stopped laying ages ago. But now the big girls are laying less frequently, too. Still, I’m hoping for a winter like last year when we continued to get enough eggs to feed my family. It helps that the henhouse windows face east and the roost gets sunlight early.

And finally, here’s another quote from The Biggle Poultry Book, this edition published in 1917: “The hen that sits on the roost or fence in zero weather, or stands on one leg in the snow all day, is not a winter layer.” I’m going to watch for that this winter!

I wore my favorite pair of jeans into the hens’ yard the other day. Big Mistake! These jeans have decorative buttons sewn along the hem. The girls were sure that I had brought a new type of treat for them to try. So, I will have to stick with classic clothes — no fancy garb in the coop!

I have recently purchased a slight, yet wise, book. Published in 1895, The Biggle Poultry Book has advice for farmers, and as Mr. Biggle calls it, those who keep a “village hennery.” (I love that term!) The start of each chapter has a quote from either his wife, Harriet, or Tim, the farm manager, or Tim’s wife. Here’s one: “To me, eggs are like morals – they have no middle ground. If not good, they are bad.” — Harriet

Here’s another saying from Harriet: “In cold weather keep your eyes open and the cracks in the hen house closed.”

I’ll have more from Harriet, Tim and Mr. Biggle in future HenBlogs.