Last Saturday, thanks to the ALBC breed finder, we headed out to the home of GRIT and MOTHER EARTH NEWS reader Margaret Kramar to pick up a replacement hen for the wonderful layer we lost in the 113-degree heat this past summer.

Margaret and her family were a pleasure to talk to, and in this business you often don’t get the opportunity to interface directly with readers; it’s such a nice alternative to emailing and phone conversations.

Here’s our new little Hamburg hen (speckled, pretty, smaller bird on the left). She was just hatched this past spring, so I'm glad to get her in her first year. There was a little scuffling and establishing pecking order in the first few minutes, but when I went out later that first night with a flashlight, our two hens were roosted right next to one another in the coop on the same roosting bar. I think now it's safe to call them buds.

We’ve never named our hens, not for any other reason than we have two different breeds, so they are simply: the Hamburg and the Dorking. I really don’t buy into the if-you-name-it-you-won’t-want-to-eat-it philosophy, so maybe these girls end up with a name at some point.

Our chickens are laying hens, definitely, but a few years from now we will end up stewing them as well. I’ll probably have to take them away from the house and wife for the processing, since it’s not the most pleasant thing for anyone to process the animal they raise, but it’s completely necessary in my opinion.

By the time I got to our former Hamburg, rigor mortis had set in, so she was buried in the backyard instead of reaching the proverbial stew pot. Really, she should have been burned to prevent any chance of disease, I know, but we currently live in town and that’s just not possible.

Anyways, I strongly endorse the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy’s online directory and rare breed locator on their website. Type in the species or even specific breed you are looking for, your city or zip code, and proximity parameters, and you can locate a member of the ALBC closest to you. It’s a breeze.

One phone call to Margaret, and we had ourselves a replacement Hamburg that will be just as appreciated as her predecessor, and hopefully we can see her through to an older age. It certainly was an added bonus that the Kramars are dedicated to country living and rare-breed conservation – values that I think are probably widespread among the ALBC members by definition – not to mention good GRITty folks!

Now, just to convince Gwendolyn to add a couple of meat rabbits to the space we have, and between poultry, venison and rabbits, we’ll be doing about all of the home-meat processing that we can until we make our way out where the pavement ends.

 Day 1 at the 2011 Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs Pennsylvania offered the chance to mingle with livestock, speak with animal owners, and listen to presentations from leaders in the animal husbandry world.



 

My own responsibilities, helping at the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's Animal Husbandry Tent, meant I was assembling poultry and rabbit cages, leading ponies to pens, and even in once case carrying a non-halterbroke sheep from a trailer to her pen about 50 yards away.

Some of the coolest things from this Fair, for me: talking with livestock owners of various animals, and even getting to know individual breeds; it offers one of the few chances in this business to have a direct interface with readers, and it’s refreshing to hear about their homes, farms, gardens, animals and lives; seeing speakers like Pat Foreman, Carol Ekarius, Harvey Ussery, and Joel Salatin, not to mention the presentations given by my own colleagues at Ogden Publications; a refreshing chance to get to know those colleagues better, outside of our office cubicles.

This video was a quick interview with Anne Hallowell of Mercer County Pennsylvania. The Hallowells raise Classic Llamas, impressive multipurpose animals that perform well as guardian animals, companions, and most notably pack animals. I’d never seen a pack rig like this for a llama, and the idea of using this animal to pack up for a camping trip and then employ that animal to protect the campsite on that trip is pretty cool.

It’s inspiring to interact with Fair-goers, exhibitors, and presenters alike.

One of my favorite chores of the day is bringing water to our flock of Saxony ducks.

It really doesn’t matter what else is going on that day, but there’s going to be a few minutes of absolute pleasure when the ducks get fresh water, no matter what the weather. 

When the weather is nice, I fill up a little wading pool for them every morning. We have other spots for them to swim, but I guess because this is the pool I used when they were ducklings, they like this one the best. They are so funny. They love to get right into the stream of water, and much merriment is had by all. Quack quack quack! We have both geese and dogs that would also like to play the game, but I make sure the ducks get some uninterrupted pool time of their very own. They are pretty wimpy, and easily scared away. I often turn over a bucket and sit with them for a few minutes. It’s such a lovely way to start my day.

Ducks are fantastic at foraging for their own food. I love to watch them strip the seed heads off of grasses and weeds. They love bugs best of all, though. Every new puddle that appears is going to have ducks looking for bugs in it. When the weather is warm, we put out solar lights in their paddock. The bugs flock to the lights and the ducks gorge themselves on the feast. In the evening, they start to congregate around the lights, giddy with anticipation. They’ll tap tap tap on the lights -- can we get some service here please?! We sit out in our gazebo on warm summer nights and laugh at their impatience. It really cuts down on our grain bill.

Ducks are great egg layers. They lay early in the morning, very reliably. Duck eggs are fantastic for baking, making things rise higher than you can imagine, with a great texture. I also like to make maple custard with duck eggs and our very own maple syrup. Yum! I use duck eggs in homemade pasta, and because they are bigger than chicken eggs, I tend to use them for lunch rather than breakfast. A poached duck egg on left-over brown rice is the perfect fast lunch when I’m really busy.

Duck meat is just plain delicious. For special occasions, I will roast the whole duck, very simple and easy. But for a regular meal, I often split the duck into quarters and do something different with each part. There’s a lot of dark meat on a duck, which I love. I make stock with the carcass and make all sorts of Asian-inspired soups. Every year on our wedding anniversary, we take a couple of our ducks (one for us, one for the chef) to our favorite Chinese restaurant, where they prepare Peking Duck for us. That crispy skin is something I look forward to all year long!

Let’s not forget the duck fat! Duck fat is something quite special. It’s so easy to render. I do mine in a slow cooker, on low, overnight. I just strain it in the morning into a glass jar. Liquid gold! It gets pure white after it’s cooled off. My very favorite thing to do with duck fat is to simply fry potatoes in it. It’s so tasty. I keep meaning to do other more fancy things with it, but once I have a batch and do some potatoes, we just keep wanting to do it that way until it’s all gone. Freshly dug potatoes and duck fat is a marriage made in heaven.

We first tried Pekins because we were attracted to how quickly they would reach slaughter weight. But we turned out not to like them at all. The ducks laid their eggs any old place and searching for eggs every day got old really quickly. The only two duckling that hatched were two that got stuck under one of my turkey hens. The drakes were horrid – mean and nasty. They actually killed many girls by opening up wounds on their necks during mating. I had one who would rape a goose sitting on her eggs. We quickly got rid of all of them.

So we looked for a better breed, ones with good broodiness and mothering, a calmer disposition, drakes who were nice, reliable egg producer and tasty meat. Saxony ducks fit the bill! As an added bonus, they are also gorgeous. I like that you can tell the boys from the girls by color at a fairly young age. (Trying to find a drake feather on a young Pekin duck was almost impossible, and the ideal slaughter age is about 7 weeks.) The Saxony ducks are quite hardy, not bothered by the cold or the heat. They are listed as critical on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and we are happy to help preserve this fantastic breed. We got our ducklings originally from Holderread Waterfowl Farm.