Chicken Feathers
I've been doing a bit of research, when I can grab 5 minutes to myself, on Kitchen Witchery. I have a copy of "The Wheel of the Year" by Pauline Campanelli which I haven't picked up in a long long time. When I first bought it, I was a college student, and it didn't much pertain to my life then, but boy does it now. It's all about gardening and nature, and there was even some interesting info on chicken feathers........
The curved tail feathers of roosters are called "Sickles" and apparently they can be used to represent both the God and Goddess, because they come from a roosters, and two of them look like a pair of curved horns. But since they are called "sickles" they can also refer to grain goddesses. The book informed me that white ones are more feminine, and black ones more masculine, so I found my self a pair of sickles, one white and one glossy black and stuck them up on my altar. I may even fashion myself a diadem of sorts with a nicer looking pair of feathers. Thanks to my chickens, and to the Chicken Totem!
Speaking of chickens, we are making some plans for our tax return, and we are considering expanding our flock. Last July we started with 9 chickens to see how much work it would be, just to get our toe in the water. In November we hatched 12 more. Today we have 6 hens, 7 meat roosters, and one "big daddy" keeper roo. As we get so many eggs from WIC and Angel Food Ministries, we decided to focus on meat production, with a new coop to hold a max of 50 chikcens with it's own fenced in yard. When you grow chickens for meat, you harvest before winter, so you only have to care for your egg laying hens in the winter, which is a good selling point for me! Other concerns are, freezer space and plucking. We did find a drill mounted plucking device that was in our price range....
Well, that's all for now....
Dove
The curved tail feathers of roosters are called "Sickles" and apparently they can be used to represent both the God and Goddess, because they come from a roosters, and two of them look like a pair of curved horns. But since they are called "sickles" they can also refer to grain goddesses. The book informed me that white ones are more feminine, and black ones more masculine, so I found my self a pair of sickles, one white and one glossy black and stuck them up on my altar. I may even fashion myself a diadem of sorts with a nicer looking pair of feathers. Thanks to my chickens, and to the Chicken Totem!
Speaking of chickens, we are making some plans for our tax return, and we are considering expanding our flock. Last July we started with 9 chickens to see how much work it would be, just to get our toe in the water. In November we hatched 12 more. Today we have 6 hens, 7 meat roosters, and one "big daddy" keeper roo. As we get so many eggs from WIC and Angel Food Ministries, we decided to focus on meat production, with a new coop to hold a max of 50 chikcens with it's own fenced in yard. When you grow chickens for meat, you harvest before winter, so you only have to care for your egg laying hens in the winter, which is a good selling point for me! Other concerns are, freezer space and plucking. We did find a drill mounted plucking device that was in our price range....
Well, that's all for now....
Dove