Chickens Are The Pits...

Now that summer has "officially" arrived, there are tons of things to do (not that there AREN'T tons to do the rest of the year....). It seems that I still have stuff to do left after the time to do them in expires.

The past few days we've added cherry picking to the list of things to do. Deb had some Cherry jelly that her mom made last year, and decided that she needed to make some for us when the Cherries ripened this year. We don't have a tree (yet), but the neighbors do.

So, the "hunter-gatherer" brought home the freshly killed cherries, and the "Domestic Goddess" turned them into jelly.

We now have enough jelly and jam of various flavors to last about 9 years....

The thing about Cherry jelly is, after you cook the little buggers down, mash them up, and drain off the juice, you are left with a mass of blood colored dead fruit bodies to deal with.

My parents used to dump them in a crock and make wine out of it all. Of course, you could pit them first, and make jam instead of jelly but, we don't have a pitter - and neither of us wanted to add "hand pitting" to our list.

The best solution was to feed them to the chickens.

I dutifully collect the now compacted mass (due to sitting in the colander over night), and head out to let the feathered beasts have fun with it.

Knowing that I'd never get them into the feed trough with a couple dozen heads sticking in it, I filled the feeder before opening the door to let the vultures out. After the first inquisitive hens decided that it was good, they "let the cat out of the bag" and announced it to the whole herd. Everyone came flying in make sure they got a share.

I've give a lot of food to a lot of animals over the years, and seen some pretty amazing stuff. I remember someone making Beef Stroganhoff one night. I mixed the leftovers with about a 1/2 cup of leftover peas, and fed it to the dog. The next morning, the stroganhoff was gone, and a nice pile of licked SHINY clean peas lay in the bottom of the dish.

I found out chickens are the same way. I dumped two gallon containers of mashed cherries and pits into the feeder, and an hour later found nothing but LICKED CLEAN pits.



I made sure I put it ALL in the feeder, but they weren't so neat while eating. I can envision hungry feather dusters wallowing the pits around in their beaks while they lick them clean, then "Patooie!", spitting them out on the ground, then diving back in for another.

I'm sure the chickens appreciated the cherries, even though they had to work for the good parts.

It HAS to be better then digging through a cowpie with our face to get a nugget of corn.....