Going to the Chickens

I've read a lot about keeping chickens for eggs over the years, and my homesteader side has always craved a little flock of hens. Now we have two splendid specimens in the back yard, doing those things that chickens do.

Peck, scratch, groom, poop. Repeat.

I love it. They are beautiful, graceful animals with highly ornamental color and form. They hang out with us when we're in the yard and tolerate being followed and picked up by our toddler. They talk back and forth to each other in soft expressive nuanced chicken sounds, and shriek the alarm when necessary with all the classic barnyard buck-ckaw attitude you could ask for. They've transformed our fly and spider population into fertilizer and diligently tilled it into the soil all over our backyard.

No eggs yet, but they'll start coming in spring.

To me, our healthy happy hens epitomize growing something from nothing.

Of course, when you look closer the details give the lie to the phrase "something from nothing" because of course they make something from something else. It's just that they make tasty food from stuff we don't want, don't like, or couldn't otherwise find a use for. Something we didn't even notice the value of.

That's exactly the kind of inspiration we can use to create profitable little niche businesses with little or no cash. Find unrecognized resources, get a cooperative network of folks together, and pool talent to transform them into something unexpectedly valuable.

When you don't know how to make a solution from a whole lot of nothing, remember to go to the chickens.