Why Did We Buy Chickens and Guineas?
Chickens and Guineas at The Abbey
From the beginning, we’ve imagined that the Church of the Lamb Abbey will house more than just people. Behind this sentiment is the Christian belief that the redemption of humans must radiate out and include the restoration of the land and the animals. Cultivating our land and its inhabitants is integral to our Gospel witness. We cannot love King Jesus or our neighbors without being fruitful, multiplying, filling our patch of earth, and exercising wise rule over this piece of the Shenandoah Valley.
One reason that animal husbandry is central to our vision is that we do not want to create a beautiful but sterile place; we want our land to teem with life. As our consultation with Joel Salatin indicated, animals, when properly managed, help the land to flourish. They eat bugs and weeds; they mow our grass for us; they aerate and fertilize the soil; they clear brush. Salatin calls them “appreciating animal infrastructure.”
We’ve now got our first animals on property — 6 hives of bees (stay tuned for more info!), 16 chickens, and 16 guineas—and I wanted to address a few specific reasons we started with chickens and have chosen to care for them in the manner we have.
Both chickens and guineas — but especially guineas — decimate harmful insect populations. Having these birds on the property can protect visitors and parishioners from ticks and flies. Furthermore, pastured chickens cuts feed costs by up to 75%. Salatin estimates that if a chicken had its druthers, it would eat 50% insects, 25% grass, 25% feed. As they graze on insects and grass, chickens convert unusable or harmful resources into beneficial value for all of us to enjoy.
When rotationally grazed, chickens play a massive role in fertilizing the land and restoring overgrazed pasture. When we respect the chicken’s “chickenness” and grant it room to move freely, it scratches the dirt, picks a patch of earth clean of insects, weeds, and grass, and fertilizes the soil. Then, when we move it to a new piece of ground and let the land rest, a remarkable transformation occurs. The pasture grows back much healthier than before: it’s greener, it stores more carbon, and it contains less weeds. We accidentally bumped into this last year when Kevin Whitfield, our pastor, raised 3 turkeys in the parsonage. As these pictures show, the places where the turkeys’ pen sat have grass 5x taller than the places where they could not access. We want to scale this effect to encourage all of our land to do this.
Chickens and eggs are tasty and delicious! We want to produce high-quality protein that we can serve at our parties, give to our neighbors, or sell to support the further development of the abbey. The monks and nuns who’ve lived at monasteries have always employed themselves in some form of economic labor to support themselves. For example, the nuns at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Crozet, VA, make and sell cheese. Though we have no plans to house monks at this point, we do want to bless our neighbors through our industry. Chickens are the fastest and easiest way to start this production. Productivity is not the only relevant metric for our success, but raising chickens could accelerate our other development of the property. Check out this video on the potential value of pasture-raised chicken.
In the near future, look for us to be adding some meat birds to our flock. And if you’d like to assist in the building of their pens or their ongoing care, let me know.
Mobile shelter for chickens and guineas
