I really should go to the Tuesday farmers market in Irvine Regional Park more often. It’s small, but the beauty and perfection of the site is inarguable, and there are enough vendors with good stuff to cover the bases. Today I needed to find some decent eggs, and Ray’s Ranch from Temecula was there with theirs, which the lady behind the table said are from chickens that walk around among the rest of the ranch animals, “eating everything you see on the table here.”
This is good. The current vogue for self-described so-called soi-disant “vegetarian” chickens and eggs is utter and complete bogosity. Chickens are unrepentant, insatiable omnivores. If you’ve ever kept a flock, or even visited one where it lived, you know this. I used to let ours, before they were decimated by an unwell bobcat, run in the garden from time to time to clear out bugs and grubs. They loved that. And bugs, I hasten to remind, are not vegetable. Then, back into the coop enclosure, ladies, and here’s a handful of supplemental scratch. Pick a snail off a seedling? Chuck it in among them and they’ll scuffle for nomming rights. I gave them lots of kitchen trimmings, too—though not meat, it’s true. But vegetarians they are not. Srsly. When one of their number dies, the others will set upon it with their sharp beaks without a scintilla of sentimentality.
But no matter, no more chicken coop in my garden—three dozen nice brown eggs in the fridge, though.