It is a fact of homestead life that animals die. Sometimes the predators get them, sometimes they get sick or injured, sometimes we cull the flock. Either way, livestock must be renewed and refreshed periodically. This year, all my hens are mature and beyond-mature. The egg production is lower, we have had a few die in the last year from age or injury, and we are in need of a fresh batch of birds.

In the past, I had carefully chosen my breeds specifically to be dual-purpose — both eggs and meat. This means a much larger chicken, in general, and a lower egg production than a strictly layer bird. Layer-only birds are scrawny things that, should the day come when they are to become food, are really only good for soup.

I believe, though, that given the feed-to-meat ratio of various fowls, we will be abandoning chickens as meat, and look to turkeys and geese and ducks for that. The chickens will therefore be eggs only, so layer breeds can be a thing now.

I am neither particularly familiar with nor fond of goose and duck meat, but I am even less fond of paying store prices for inhumanely raised meat with questionable genetics and feed practices. I will learn to prepare these meats in pleasing ways, just as I will learn to cook things like salsify and daylilies and jerusalem artichokes. The point is to be self-sustaining. That will likely require a few major shifts in the thought process around food along the way.

Mom has the incubators running now. Her ladies need some refreshening also, so she will take some of my hatchlings and I will take some of hers. And we will increase genetic diversity for both of us.