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A story of natural survival: The secret chicken family at the Health Ranger ranch


Survival

(NaturalNews) One of the most precious things about living on a ranch and taking care of animals is getting to witness life unfold right before your very eyes. The miracles of nature are ever-present at my ranch, and they're a limitless source of inspiration.

If you read Natural News, you probably know I raise free-range chickens in order to produce farm-fresh eggs. In the interests of sustainability, we also have one rooster, so some of the eggs are fertile.

This spring, one of the hens managed to find a secret nesting place and lay four eggs. Although we always lock up our chickens at night to keep them safe from owls, raccoons and snakes, this hen managed to hide at her secret nest for an entire month -- long enough to hatch her eggs in total secrecy!

One day I was pleasantly surprised to discover this momma hen had four baby chicks marching around with her, and they looked healthy, too! (See pictures below.)

These are the first baby chicks born on our ranch and raised on our ranch free-range style. I consider it a small milestone for sustainability, knowing that even if the entire economy ceases to function, I can still raise chickens and produce eggs in a sustainable fashion (yes, the world will never run out of grasshoppers, bugs and weeds for chickens to eat).

Here's a picture of this small family feeding on some scratch:



Predators attack!

With this "First Family" suddenly springing into existence on the ranch, we decided to let the momma hen take care of her chicks herself. Each day she would take the chicks out for some free-range feeding, teaching them how to scratch the ground and peck at bugs. And each night, well before sundown, she would disappear somewhere on the ranch, hidden away from predators and not making a sound.

During the day, momma hens make clucking sounds to let their baby chicks know where they are, and when they discover food or water sources, their clucking accelerates to a tone of excitement, at which point the baby chicks come running! But at night, they're extremely quiet, making sure predators can't locate them by sound.

This cycle of daytime parenting and nighttime hiding went on for about two weeks until one morning we discovered the momma hen had been attacked and nearly killed by a predator! (Most likely a stray cat.) Somehow she survived the attack, but whatever attacked her had managed to pull out all her tail feathers, quill and all. She was left with a tail stump on her hind end, and she looked to be in a state of shock. Clearly, she had barely survived an attack attempt while defending the lives of her baby chicks.

Here's a picture of the tail feathers now growing back where the "stump" used to be:



At this point we decided to transfer the momma hen and her chicks to a safety crate each evening. For this, we use a large dog crate, stuffed with hay and protected from the elements with some boards. This provided exactly the protection they needed, and now they're safe from predators each night. We let them out each morning, and they free range all day long, returning to the crate on their own each evening.

The baby chicks are growing up rapidly, and they're extremely friendly because they're used to my presence around them each day. As the picture below shows, I can hold these chickens and even pick them up without any problem:



Treating all animals with compassion

BTW, for those of you who haven't raised chickens yet, chickens would never get this close to a cruel chicken farmer. Only kind people who take care of their animals are able to gain the trust of chickens. By their nature, chickens flee from most creatures larger than they are. Being around humans has to be learned from repetitive experiences of trust and safety.

We treat all our animals with compassion -- even the half-crazed geese that go into attack mode any time you approach their egg nest. That's why the goats, chickens, donkeys and dogs on the Health Ranger ranch are all happy creatures.

Plus, they don't have to worry about taxes, debt spending, geopolitics or heavy metals in their food. For the most part, they just enjoy life, eating healthy food and making healthy babies.

We should all be so lucky, eh?

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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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