Over the past couple of years I have looked at several chicken breeds to develop a self-sustaining chicken flock. Some of the breeds I have looked at are the Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Dominique and Australorp (only to name a few).  This article will focus on the Barred Rock, which is part of the Plymouth Rock family of chickens.

Why should we care about the Barred Rock? It is a good dual purpose chicken which has been raised for well over 100 years.

I do not consider the Barred Rock a high egg producer chicken, as it only lays around 200 eggs a year. There are breeds out there that lay well over the 200 egg mark. The Barred Rock makes up for its average egg production with its size, hardiness, and its meat quality.

While looking for information on various chicken breeds I came across this youtube posted by FarmRaised which talks about breeding the Barred Rock.

This video brings up some good topics for discussion:

Separate the chickens into groups based on desired traits.

Breed for size and traits.

Weigh the roosters and hens so your flock maintains a steady size.

Related Article – How many chickens for SHTF

Some of my long term plans

There are some of my personal plans and are not based off the video.

Lets start out with around 15 – 20 hens, and either 3 or 4 roosters.

Divide the hens into 3 – 4 groups based on various traits.

Use a cable tie to mark the various groups. Cable ties are cheap, easy to put on, easy to take off and are available in a wide range of colors.

Then its a matter of breeding the flocks so the parents do not breed with their children or grandchildren.

Forum Thread – Lets talk about the Barred Rock

Can yall believe it’s been a whole year since my wife and I got our first chicks?  For the first few months I posted several videos about building the coop and how the chicks were doing.  After the chickens start laying, there is not that much to post about.  They are chickens, they do their thing, they lay eggs and that is about it.

Now that the hens are a full year old I thought it would be good to post some kind of up date to let people know how things are going.

Between the last weekend of February and the second week of March 2012 my wife and I bought 15 chicks.  Two of the chicks died a few days after we got them.  After those first two died, we have not lost another chicken.

As some of yall may know chickens are part of my long term SHTF survival plans. In the next few months my wife and I are looking at moving to the homestead. After we get moved we are going to build a 30 foot X 75 foot chicken yard, along with a 20 X 16 chicken coop, then expand the flock to around 50 hens and maybe 5 roosters.

My experiences from the past year will help me build the next chicken coop and chicken yard.

Observations Over The Past Year

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For you forum members out there, lets do a running total of how many chickens we have as a community.

I have 13 chickens at this time.

4 – Rhode Island Reds
2 – Silver Laced Wyandotte
2 – Barred Rocks
2 – Australorps
2 – Black Jersey Giants
1 – Speckled Sussex

Next poster add your chickens to my 13, post the total, next poster add your chickens to the total before yours.

Lets make this a year long project. If you add chickens to your flock, add them to the running total.

If any of your chickens die, subtract them from the running total.

Forum Thread – 2013 chicken count thread

Why should you consider the Australorp for your backyard chicken flock?

Tolerate heat well – they were developed in Australia in the late 1800s.

High egg production – in 1922-23 a team of six Australorp hens set a world record of 1857 eggs at an average of 309.5 eggs per hen for a 365 consecutive day trial (from wikipedia). Australorps also hold the world record for egg production. In trapnest testing, a Australorp hen laid 364 eggs in 365 days.

A trapnest is a nesting box that closes after a hen has entered the laying box.  This traps the hen and allows inspection and marking of the egg to a specific hen.  If a hen is eating eggs, a trapnest allows the farmer to know which hen is eating the egg, as the hen will be trapped in the laying box with the egg.

Heritage Chicken – This is something that we need to pay attention to, or at least take into consideration.

According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, the definition of a heritage chicken is as follows:

APA Standard Breed – Breeds recognized by the American Poultry Association (APA) prior to the mid-20th century.

Naturally mating – let nature takes it course.

Long, productive outdoor lifespan

Slow growth rate – You may be asking “why do you want your chickens to grow slow?”  Chickens that are bred for meat production put on weight faster then their legs can keep up.  As a result, certain breeds of meat chickens may become lame and not able to walk.  Certain breeds of meat chickens do not tolerate heat well.  The chicks have to be bought in early spring and butchered before the summer heat kicks in.

The slow growth rate is for the chickens growth to match the rate the legs, bones and muscles to develop.

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Awhile back we talked about how many chickens would be needed for SHTF. We came up with a low number of 30 chickens, and a high number somewhere around 70 – 80. At the present time my wife and I have 13 hens.

In the next few months my wife and I are planning on moving to the homestead. Once we get moved, our chicken flock will be increased from 13 hens, to around 25 hens. There are a couple of problems we need to address before we get more chickens, such as – having enough room on the coop, access to feed and access to water.

Coop Size

The current coop size provides each chicken with 3.69 square feet. If the flock is doubled, that gives each chicken 1.84 square feet. 1.84 square feet is not enough room.

I do not want to rebuild the coop. My wife and I put too much time, effort and money into building it the first time, I do not want to build it a second time.

Instead of building a new coop, I am thinking about building in leanto around the existing coop. The chickens would use the existing coop for roosting, then they would have the leanto for when the weather gets bad, or they need some shade.

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Chickens are one of the best livestock a family can have for a long term SHTF / TEOTWAWKI situation. Chickens (depending on their breed) are excellent foragers, they can eat just about anything, do not need a lot of care, and produce food in the form of eggs almost daily.

If you and your family are prepping for a collapse of society event, how many chickens would you need?

Before we can get close to answering that question, I feel there are some questions that first have to be answered.

Land – Do you have a backyard of nothing but grass, do you have wooded property, open fields that cattle, goats or horses roam in?

During a long term SHTF event, chances are the feed stores are going to be closed, that means you will not have access to commercial grade feed. It achieve their maximum egg production, chickens need a balanced diet full of vitamins and minerals. The calcium the eggs are made out of does not appear out of thin air.

This is where the quality, and variety of the land comes into play. Chickens need seeds, bugs, green leaves,,, just a wide variety of food sources.

My chickens laid their best when they were able to free range and had access to commercial grade laying pellets.  During this time, they were laying around 8 – 10 eggs a day in August and September 2012.

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Prepping for SHTF is a never ending process. Unless money is not an issue, chances are people have to divide their efforts between various projects.

Over the past few weeks I have been posting about what my project for 2013 should be. Should it be rabbits, honey bees, both, or maybe even something else?

The question from there needs to be, what project is going to provide my family with the greatest return on our investment?

Which farm animals are the best able to live off the land, have the best food to output ratio, produce the most food for the amount of room they take up.

Cattle: Lets start with the one farm animal that everyone knows in one way or another. Most people eat cheese, butter, steaks, brisket, hamburger,,,, and so on.
The cow is a universally recognized farm animal, but what is it really good for during a long term SHTF situation?

If you butcher a 1,000 pound cow, then you have to have a way to preserve the meat. Do you have a smoker, and a pressure cooker large enough to process a whole cow?

During the middle ages, cows were not a preferred livestock. Which was mainly because they are so large it takes great effort to preserve the meat.

Cows can produce a lot of milk, which in turn is used to make butter and cheese.

Then there is the amount of grazing field a cow requires. If you want a herd of cattle, do you have the room to take care of them? Do you have a fenced in field large enough to left the cattle graze? Do you have a barn large enough so the cattle can be protected from bad weather?

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To be perfectly honest, the Barred Rock chicken is one of my favorite breeds. My first exposure to the Barred Rock was back in the late 1980s. My first wife and I got some chicks around 1988 0r 1989, raised them for around a year or so, then butchered them.

The Barred Rocks my new wife and I got in February 2012 are very much like the ones I had back in the 1980s.

Some of my favorite points about the Barred Rock:

Friendly – one of my rocks will walk right up to me, let me pick it up and pet it. The other rock stays at arms length, but does not act scared.

Foraging – Barred Rocks seem to be excellent foragers. They are always wanting to get out of the coop to explore. When I open the coop to let the chickens free range, the Rhode Island Reds and Rocks are the fist ones out the door.

Good layers – My rocks lay just about every day. If they do not lay everyday, they lay about every other day.

Good meat chicken – Its been a few years since I have butchered a Barred Rock, from what I remember these chickens have a good thick breast and plenty of meat on them.

Cold Hardy – The Plymouth Rock (aka Barred Rock) was developed in the New England part of the United States.  With the Rock being cold hardy, they are supposed to keep laying through the winter, but with decreased production.

Quiet – The hens do not make a lot of noise.

Raising chickens for SHTF

In another article we talked about some of the best chickens for survivalist, of which we discussed the Barred Rock.

If there was some kind of long term SHTF situation, the Barred Rock would be at the top of my list, right next to the Rhode Island Red and Australorp.

The BR has some of the main characteristics that I would look for in a chicken – friendly, good forager, good layer and good meat chicken. What more could you want form a homestead?

The light on dark colors provides the BR with natural camouflage to help avoid predators. The Roman author Columella noted that white chickens should be avoided as they are not very fertile and are easily caught by eagles or goshawks.

Have you raised Barred Rocks? If so, how was your experience?

Do you think the BR would make a good breed of chicken for a Homestead or a for a long term survival situation?

Homestead VS Bug Out Location, which on is better and why? Instead of trying to discuss the merits of each, why not combine the two?

Instead of trying to maintain a home in an urban area, and a remote camp, why not build a homestead and make it your Bug Out Location? This way your time and money are not divided between two separate places.

For a lot of people, living in a rural area is not an option. Their job is in the city, and that is where they need to live. There are a number of people that live in rural areas, or in small towns. Lets talk about the people who are thinking about relocating to a rural area away from town.

For this article lets focus on 5 things – food, water, shelter, security, and some other small topics that we can group together.

Food

One of the main purposes of a Homestead Bug Out Location is to be able to grow fresh food. Its one thing to have a years worth of dried beans and rice stored in mylar bags, its something totally different to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Sooner or later the #10 cans will run out, sooner or later the mylar bags will run out,,, and then what?

In my chicken coop project I learned that its going to take an estimated 6 months to get a small farm off the ground.

Its possible to work the soil, plant some radishes and have food ready to eat in a matter of 4 – 5 weeks. Radishes grow quick and the whole plant is edible. But who wants to live off radishes? Once you start talking about squash, corn, greens, potatoes and beans, you are looking at 2 – 4 months.

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From wikipedia – The Chicken of Tomorrow is a 1948 documentary short film about advances in chicken and egg farming. This mini-documentary was narrated by Lowell Thomas and is in the public domain.

The film was mocked in a seventh-season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The Chicken of Tomorrow deals with poultry farming and egg farming in the mid 1940s. Filmed to educate the public about how poultry and eggs are farmed, it also deals with how advances in genetic engineering and technology produces a larger chicken. Eggs are farmed and kept in industrial incubators, and an equal number of chickens are used for meat and other products. Altogether, this produces more food for less money, and allows people to support local poultry farms without breaking the bank. This is relatively similar to today’s poultry farming despite there now being technological differences.

The chicken of tomorrow should provide some food for thought for survivalist who are raising chickens. Do you want a flock of skinny chicken for your family? Or do you want types of chickens that have plump full breast and will lay plenty of eggs?

Do you want chickens that are slow growers and susceptible to disease? Or do you want chickens that mature quickly, lay good quality eggs and resistant to disease?

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When the SHTF do you have a sustainable food source already setup? Or do you plan on bugging out to the wilderness with your family and foraging for food? Given the options, I would rather stay at home and have fresh eggs and oatmeal – eggs from my chickens and oatmeal from my food stockpile.

In mid-late 2011 my wife and I talked about getting chickens. I started looking at coop design, types and breeds, drawing designs for my own coop, working up a bill of material, cost,,, just general plans.

February 25 2012, our first chicks.

August 23 2012, got 10 eggs.

First 5 chicks were 3 Black Jersey Giants and 2 brown Speckled Sussex. 1 black Jersey giant and 1 Speckled Sussex died.

Next set of chicks were 2 Barred Rocks (aka Plymouth rock), 2 silver laced wyandottes and 2 australorps.

Next set were 4 Rhode Island Reds.

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There was an interesting comment posted on the survivalistboards facebook page,

You want the world to End, But subscribe to a Survival group….. I hate my VCR I wish Y2K bug was Real….

My reply was,

No, I do not want the world to end. But just in case something happens, I want to be prepared.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Some people take prepping a little too far. They prepare for the worst regardless of where they are at or what they are doing. I agree with having a get home bag. But on the other side of the coin there are people that keep a complete Bug Out Bag along with a small arsenal in their vehicle. Reading what some people post in forums, its like they are prepping for a zombie invasion to breakout at any second.  Unlike what is portrayed on TV, the majority of preppers do not live on the fringe of society.  We are everyday people living in the cities, suburbs and rural areas all across the world.

Related Articles:

Long Term Survival Plans
Hunter Gatherer or Farmer Survivalist
Shortsighted Survival Plans
Everyday Carry Gear (EDC)

When people look at prepping, they get on the forum and get a little overwhelmed by what they see. It is easy to forget that some of the members of the forum have been prepping for decades.

Prepping is not for the lazy.  Sure you can buy some rice and throw it in an airtight box, buy some canned foods and think you have a well rounded survival plan.  Just because you “think” you have a well rounded plan does not make it true.

Where do we start?  A lot of people start prepping in the wrong order.

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When survivalist start stockpiling food, we buy #10 cans and usually store food in mylar bags.  Lets say we had to focus on certain foods, what would those foods be?  Lets look at food that packs a nutritional punch, renewable, easy to grow, easy to harvest and can be stored without modern technology.

How do we decide which foods we should focus on?  Lets narrow our selections to how easy the food is to grow, how well it stores, and the nutrition content.

During a long term SHTF / TEOTWAWKI survival situation, we will being growing and storing our own food.  One thing we do not want to do is dedicate a lot of time and effort into food that contains little nutrition.

In this article I hope to focus on renewable foods.  Foods that we can grow in a home garden or at a Bug Out Location.  During a long term survival situation, people that hope to make it through will need a renewable food source.  It is not enough to stockpile food in mylar bags, or stockpile freeze dried food in #10 cans.  Sooner or later those mylar bags and those cans will be empty.

Honey

Humans have been eating honey for well over 1,000 years.  Some estimates put humans eating honey up to 8,000 years ago.

• The bees do the work for you, all you have to do is harvest the honey
• Honey is loaded with trace minerals
• Honey does not spoil or go rancid
• Honey inhibits the growth of bacteria, so it can be used in the treatment of wounds and injuries

One of the drawbacks to honey, the bees will sting the crap out of you if you bother the hive. You think your big and bad until a swarm of bees are done with your ass. When its said, done and over with, you will be in a fetal position crying for your mommy.

If you plan on adding honey to your to your preps, either stockpile the crap out of it, or learn how to safely harvest honey.

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As part of our long term preps, my wife and I decided to get some chickens and build a chicken coop.  We bought our first chicks on February 25.  Over the next week and a half we ended up with 13 chicks.

Instead of trying to stockpile #10 cans of freeze dried eggs, why not have a supply of fresh eggs?  Nutrition wise, fresh eggs are a lot better then freeze dried eggs loaded with sodium.

On the weekend of March 17 the first half of the chicken coop was built.

On the weekend of April 7 the second half of the chicken coop was built.

The chickens are starting to get cramped in their coop and area below the coop, so its time to build a run.  The run will provide a the chickens with room to get our from under the coop.

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If there is something about humans that has ensured the survival of the human race, it has to be our level of creativity and our level of innovation.

If a man (or woman) has an axe, they can cut trees to build a home. that axe allows them to clear land for crops or livestock which will help ensure a steady supply of food.

If a man has a pole line and hook, they will catch fish.

Give a man some seeds and he will grow a garden.

What makes today so much different then 1348

For those of you that do not know what happened in 1348, that is when the Black Death (bubonic plague) entered Europe. Possibly as many as 1/3 of the entire population of Europe died between 1348 – 1350.

Humans have harnessed science. Not that we fully understand science, but at least we have some kind of working grasp. We have vaccines, antibiotics, medical care, hospitals and trained medical professionals.

One thing that has not changed, is human greed. When the Swine Flu was first reported in Mexico, the president of the U.S. refused to close the borders. Closing the borders would cost companies too much money. When a new disease develops, we can expect the government and big business to put profits ahead of public safety. Human greed knows no limits.

Hunting and fishing is one thing that has drastically changed over the past 600+ years. Today, fishing poles, fishing line, hooks, bait, rifles, shotguns, ammunition,,,, is common place in most society.

If worse came to worse, most people have a fishing pole they can do down to a local lake or river and go fishing. Items used for outdoor sports can be used as survival gear during a long term SHTF / TEOTWAWKI survival situation. In the 1340s people did not have access to such sporting gear.

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