March 16-20 Happy Hen Farms Newlsetter: Food and It's Correlation to Health

Good Evening, 

Everyday this week is available for deliveries! If you pickup at my grandparent's store, they are open Tuesday and Thursday (10-3) and Friday (10-5). 

Eggs: 

To start the week off, I have about 12 Lg dzn and about 28 Md dzn. Total egg production has stayed at about 6.5 dzn a day, which has been pretty good! The large egg numbers have risen to about 2-3 dzn per day as well. 

Newsletter: 

last year's brooder setup for chicks

This past week, my dad and I built a new roof for one of my chicken-tractors (a small, floorless building that is portable). The new roof is complete with trusses and corrugated plastic roofing! 

Two years ago, I built two of these "chicken tractors" and used them for raising that year's egg layer chickens, as well as the meatbirds for that year. As you can see in the photo, the ability for the previous roof to shed water was limited. Now, with the new roof, the rain water can't get in, and CAN run off! The only purpose that these portable pens serve is to raise and grow new chickens in. They work really well for raising large quanities of chickens, and can be moved out of the way of everything else on the property. I would like to convert the other pen into a microgreen facility at some point in the near future as well! 

For this week's newsletter, I would like to do a short blurb on how food affects the immune system (this goes both for people and animals as well). Please note that what will be discussed below is based on my personal research, experience, and observation. 

In light of the recent "Coronavirus," it is a good reminder that simple rules of hygiene affect human and animal health. While the Coronavirus has been blown way out of reasonable proportions by mainstream media, it should still call into question just how good we take care of our bodies. The old saying that "you are what you eat" has been proven in various forms in people and especially, animals (for example, have you ever eaten junk food, and then felt like "junk" shortly after? Granted, the younger a person is, the less the effects are noticed, up to a point). The same goes for animals. An example that I have given before was a chicken that was fed only corn, and the effects corn had not only on the birds' productivity, but also physical condition. I took this from a study done in the 1950's, and it was contrasting corn versus oats as the sole ration in turkeys. The turkey fed only corn was highly suceptible to disease, and also had structural problems. On the other hand, the turkey fed only oats had better disease resistance, looked better, and had fewer structural problems. While the best scenario for both of these bird's health would be to have a wide variety of grains and vitamins, the study goes to show that there are grains better for poultry. The same goes for people: if you choose to eat a majority of processed food (comparative to too much corn for chickens), which is devoid of most micro and macronutrients (amongst other missing/added ingredients), you can end up looking and feeling like the turkey fed on corn. To draw a comparison from the turkey fed only oats, lets say this person's regular meal consists of some form of grain, meat, starch (potatoes, corn), and the occasional broccoli floret or Caesar salad drowning in dressing. Now, a mix of all these food groups has more nutrient value (similar to the oats for the turkey) than just processed food, but it still doesn't fit the nutritional-requirement bill. 

Some of you might not (or may) like to hear this, but a balanced diet includes LOTS of vegetables. I do not mean that everyone should become a vegatarian or vegan, as that has some of its own complications (again, back to the idea of "balance" and "variety.") The term "balanced" also implies variety (a scale has to have at least two sides to even begin to balance out!). Vegetables and eggs (yay!) are just about the best place to get the vitamins and minerals necessary to feed the body on the cellular level. Certain vegetables have higher amounts of vitamins than others, and some have even been shown to prevent cancer (cruciferous vegetables like bok choy, cauliflower, cabbage, and kale). 

What about the immune system? The turkeys fed on corn had weak immune systems, and the turkeys fed on oats had better immune systems, but neither had the best immune system they could have had. One simple way to boost the immune system (besides good food), is Vitamin D3. Most people in the world today are actually semi to severely deficient in D3, which contributes to cell proliferation, which in turn helps in the recognition, fight, and repellant of viruses and bacteria. The wonderful part about D3 is that it is found in high amounts in eggs! Eggs are considered the most complete food that there is on the planet as far as protein, vitamins, fats, carbs, amino acids, and minerals; all available for roughly $0.25 to $0.33 per meal!  

All of this said, the food we eat today has effects on our health and wellness both today and tomorrow. Try to get enough rest, stay away from sugar (it is actually an immunosuppressant), and go outside! Not only can I say that this works from reading studies and articles about health (and coming from a family that owns a health-food store), but also from my personal experience from balanced eating. I cannot lightly dismiss the fact that I have not been sick since 6th grade (other than working myself to exhaustion at certain points during the year, which is the body's way of saying "take a break!") as random chance or fortune.

Besides, nobody likes being sick, so why not try to prevent sickness with something as simple as food? After all, eating right costs a fraction of a trip to the hospital! 

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask them!
Thank you!