Chicken Recycling

In Belgium, they are much better at recycling than anywhere I have lived in the U.S., or in Suriname (recycling - what's that?). We have to separate our trash into paper, plastic bottles and aluminum cans, regular household trash, and food waste. The way you pay for your trash pickup is by purchasing the bags from the city. That way, you pay for what you use. If it's not in the official bag, it won't get picked up. The bags aren't cheap, either. The regular household trash bags are 1 Euro each. (I think they are trying to discourage overuse of these bags.) The bags for plastics and cans are much cheaper, and paper products/boxes don't need a bag at all. Just set them out in a cardboard box on paper pickup day. There are two options for food trash. Either rent a compost trash container for 80 Euros per year, which they pick up and empty once a month, or give the food trash to your chickens.

When we rented our house, it came with a chicken. She really belongs to the landlord's mother, who lives two doors down, but she doesn't have a good place to keep her, so the landlord asked if we wanted her. Sure! Her name is Zeertruude (I think that's spelled right), which is equivalent to our Gertrude. So, we call her Gertie. Here is a picture of her.

Our landlord told us that, at one time, our town's government decided it would help their recycling program if they gave everyone a chicken, because they love to eat kitchen scraps. That is how the chicken came to be with the house. She is part of our recycling program.

Now, Gertie is getting old, and wasn't laying very many eggs, so the kids thought it would be a good idea to get some more chickens. They were sure that Gertie was lonely. Actually, they just thought it was really cool to go in the chicken house and find an egg. So, we bought two more chickens. Of course, you know who cleans the chicken house and feeds them every morning. And now I have to actually buy chicken feed, because we don't have enough scraps for three chickens. (It's still cheap, though, and it is fun to have chickens.) We decided to name the other two chickens Kentucky F. and Barbie Q. (Okay, so I have a sick sense of humor...) Here are their pictures. Kentucky is first, and Barbie is second.

About a week ago, we had a surprise visitor. Although many of our neighbors have chickens, I had never heard a rooster. One day, I kept hearing a rooster, and he sounded pretty close by. When I looked out the window, we had a rooster in our yard! As I watched him throughout the day, he was easily flying over the fences between the yards, visiting all the chickens. When I went outside, he went over the fence. He is very good at NOT being caught. Since that first day, he has spent almost all of his time in our yard, and I'm pretty sure he's sleeping in our henhouse. I don't know why; our next-door neighbor has more chickens than we do, and he has a big garden, with lots of vegetables. Our chickens must be nicer - or maybe he likes the American food scraps better (we had tacos last night). Anyway, he seems to be good for egg production. Our new hens had not laid a single egg since we got them at the end of October. Chanticleer showed up (our name for him), and within a week, I'm getting one or two eggs a day. Besides that, he's gorgeous, as you can see by his picture. I don't know if anyone is looking for him. If they are, they better get a higher fence!

So, in case you're looking for a good way to get rid of food scraps, think chickens!

Okay, I know, now I have to make a chicken and/or rooster quilt!