Planning ahead for the Chicken Flock

[Mortblanc]

My grandmothers kept Rhode Island Reds and White Leghorns. Those were the two primary breeds back when I was a kid.

Both were good general purpose birds giving both eggs and meat on many small farms back when everyone lived on a small farm.

Only the big chicken farms penned their birds and the entire US was a big paradise for free range chickens. Every farm wife was a chicken breeder and had 15-20 birds roaming about. The predators were under control back in those days when "shoot shovel and shut up" was the standard for predator control rather than calling and complaining to the authorities.

I still remember playing the travel game of "count the chickens", since all travel was on secondary roads, the chickens roamed free and often could not dodge the automobiles fast enough. Counting road killed chickens was quite the sport when on a long boring trip.

The highways were lined with white feathers!