Funds for Foodies

Courtesy Alia Malley

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, will receive a Lennon Ono Grant for Peace.

In honor of their work, Michael Pollan, bestselling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (The Penguin Press, 2006) and In Defense of Food (The Penguin Press, 2008), and Barbara Kowalcyk, co-founder of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention, are among those being awarded the 2010 Lennon Ono Grant for Peace.

Yoko Ono established the biannual award in 2002 to honor John Lennon’s dedication to peace and human rights. Ono will present the awards along with $50,000 grants in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Oct. 9, 2010—the date that would have marked Lennon’s 70th birthday.

Pollan is best known as a passionate food activist who has explored topics such as genetic engineering and factory farming in his books and essays. His most recent book, Food Rules (The Penguin Press, 2009), offers a framework for a healthy diet and promotes the mantra, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Kowalcyk appeared alongside Pollan in the documentary Food, Inc. (2008). She became an advocate for food safety after her son, Kevin, died from an E. coli O157:H7 infection in 2001. She co-founded CFI, a nonprofit that works to identify solutions to help protect public health and meet the food challenges of the 21st century. Kowalcyk also travels across the nation to speak out about food-safety issues.

Courtesy Joseph A. Dial

Barbara Kowalcyk, a 2010 recipient of the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace, co-founded a nonprofit to tackle food-safety issues.

In a press release issued by CFI, Kowalcyk says, “I am deeply honored that my work in food safety is being recognized by Yoko Ono. More importantly, this award focuses international attention on the fundamental importance of food safety to a healthy civil society in the United States and globally.”

In the past, only two recipients received the award in a given year. This year, in honor of Lennon’s milestone birthday, Ono will be presenting the award to four recipients who were chosen for their commitment to peace, truth and human rights.

Other recipients of the 2010 Lennon Ono Grant for Peace are Josh Fox, filmmaker and producer of Gasland (2010), a documentary that examines the impact of natural-gas drilling on local communities, and writer and activist Alice Walker, who is best known for her bestselling book The Color Purple (Simon and Schuster Inc.). Walker is receiving the award after traveling to Gaza with members of the anti-war group Code Pink in 2009 to oppose violence in the region. She documented her experiences in the book, Overcoming Speechlessness (Seven Stories Press, 2010).

In an email newsletter sent out by Pollan, he noted the significance of choosing two food activists to receive awards and recognition in 2010. He writes, “The fact that two of the recipients are closely identified with the food movement indicates, I think, a growing recognition of its importance.”

Following the awards ceremonies in Iceland, Ono will take the stage to perform with the Plastic Ono Band, and there will be a celebratory lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower Memorial, which will remain lit until Dec. 8, 2010, the anniversary of Lennon’s death.

According to Pollan’s newsletter, the grants, totaling $50,000, will be donated to nonprofits.

Tags food safety, Michael Pollan

Urban Farming

A Hard Lesson

Photo by Audrey Pavia

Foxy loved her life as an urban barn cat.

Everyone who has a barn cat knows the risks. Outdoor cats are susceptible to all kinds of dangers, and tend to have a shorter life span than their indoor counterparts.

I know this and believe it. Yet I took a chance by having an urban barn cat. I tried my best to keep her safe, but I knew the day might come when I would lose her to the dangers of the outdoors.

I previously wrote about how Foxy had spent her entire life in small New York City apartments until she came to live with my husband and me two-plus years ago. We tried to keep her confined to the garage, but she would have none of it. She wanted to be outside.

To minimize the risks to her wellbeing, we developed a routine. For more than two years, it worked. I would let her out in the morning after feeding the horses, when I knew the coyotes were going back to their dens. Foxy would hang around our backyard farm all day, lounging in the sun and chasing critters across the patio. Just before sunset, Randy would feed her dinner in the garage and latch the cat door so Foxy was in for the night.

Foxy didn’t like this routine. She wanted to be outside at night, probably because she could hear rodents scampering around, just asking to be caught. The world is different at night, and she wanted desperately to explore it. But the dangers of speeding cars and prowling coyotes compelled me to keep her confined at night. She would make attempts to dash out the door, but Randy and I got good at stopping her short.

But recently, Randy was away for the weekend. I fed Foxy her dinner, but forgot to latch the cat door. I had a lot on my mind that night and I made a mistake. Apparently, it was a fatal one.

The next morning when I went out to give Foxy her breakfast, she wasn’t in the garage. I realized my mistake and walked all around the property, calling her. She didn’t come. I spent the next three days looking for her all around the neighborhood. I left the cat door unlatched and her food in the garage, in case she came home. But she didn’t.

Foxy never strayed far beyond on our property. There’s no way she wandered off to someone else’s house and made herself at home there. She was happy here and loved her life. There is only thing that could have happened to her: a coyote.

I cry every day when I see her litter box and empty bed in the garage. I still leave them, holding onto the hope that one day she will come back. I leave the cat door unlatched just in case.

I have a lot of guilt and a tremendous sadness. It’s my fault she is gone. I should have remembered to latch that door.

My sister, Heidi, tried to console me by saying that the last two years of Foxy’s life were the most wonderful years she ever had. I know that is supposed to make me feel better, and it does in a small way. Yet I still miss seeing that fluffy fur ball whenever I go into the garage. I suspect I always will.

Twin Foals Celebrate 4 Months

Post author By Dani Yokhna
Post date October 1, 2010
No Comments on Twin Foals Celebrate 4 Months

Courtesy Randell Book
The birth of twin foals is a rare occurance, but Docs Cheyenne West and Docs Cimarron West, twin fillies born in May, celebrated a healthy four-month birthday.

On May 26, 2010, a Rockwall, Texas, Quarter Horse mare named Lil Mis Bit Of West (aka Gypsy) gave birth to healthy twin foals. The birth of live twins is rare in horses, because one twin usually dies well before foaling.

This month, shortly after celebrating their four-month birthday, the twins are doing well.

“They are in excellent health and are growing up fast,” says Randell Book, who owns the horses with his wife, Kathy.

Both dun fillies, the foals were named Docs Cheyenne West and Docs Cimarron West. Their sire, a Quarter Horse stallion named Docs Peppy Benz, owned by Kenneth and Janice Campbell of Sanger, Texas, was euthanized shortly after the breeding 10 months earlier, due to an injury sustained during an accident. This was the second breeding between Lil Mis Bit Of West and Docs Peppy Benz. The first resulted in a single foal.

Having two foals has meant double the effort in raising them, according to Randell.

“You have to buy milk supplement and feed each one,” he says, referring to the fact that mares with twins often can’t produce enough milk for both babies. “You also need to give the mare extra food and supplements to help her produce milk and stay in good shape.”

Just like human twins, the twin fillies are similar in some ways and very different in others, Randell observes.

“They are alike and different at the same time,” he says. “They want to eat together but try to push each other away. If you work with one, the other gets one jealous. If one gets hurt the other one stays by her side as protection.”

Randell said the fillies play together a lot, and when they want to be alone, they stay where they can still see each other.

“If one filly gets out of sight, the other filly starts calling and looking for her,” he says.

Live twin foals are rare because mares abort one or both of the twins 70 percent of the time. Permanent damage to the mare’s reproductive tract may occur in some cases. Twins can be detected early in a pregnancy with the help of ultrasound, and mare owners can elect to have one or both embryos removed to avoid potential complications.

In Gypsy’s case, no ultrasound was performed, so the Books were unaware of the twin pregnancy until the day of the foaling.

“When I realized Gypsy was going to have the second foal, I was scared and excited, Randell says. “Gypsy was very tired, so I had to [help] deliver the second twin.”

The twin fillies are part of the Books’ small Foundation Quarter Horse breeding program.

“We have a small place right now but want to get bigger and breed the all-around horse,” Randell says.

The fillies carry the bloodlines of the program’s well-known horses, including Mercedes Benz, Leo, Poco Lena, Lighting Bar, Three Bars, Midway, Old DJ, Way Out West, King and others.

Tags Quarter Horse mare, twin fillies, twin foals, twins

Urban Farming

The Two Arugula

Courtesy Rick Gush

I plant cultivated arugula seeds densly, so I can harvest seedlings in early fall.

It’s the changing of the seasons now, and this means that we’ll switch arugula types for the next six months. We’ve been eating wild arugula since last April, and now, we’ll start eating the cultivated type.

It would be an understatement to say that the wild stuff reseeds itself. I did plant some wild arugula six or seven years ago, but since then, every spring a whole bunch of new wild arugula plants pop up all over the garden. I rip out most of them, but let a few patches remain in places where they don’t interfere with the other plantings. In general, the wild arugula grows in either full sun or partial, but the plants that grow in partial sun produce the biggest leaves. Not only are the big leaves easier to harvest, they’re also crunchier.

The cultivated arugula, on the other hand, does best when planted in full sun during the cold months. It will grow in shadier spots, but the plants in the full sun make the biggest and crunchiest leaves.

One trick I use to get harvestable arugula earlier in fall is to seed some areas quite thickly and then use scissors to harvest whole handfuls of the seedlings. The bed in the photo above is such a bed. I seeded it about two weeks ago, and we’ll be able to harvest really nice bunches of juvenile leaves in another week or so.

Photo by Rick Gush

Wild arugula’s has more pointed leaves than cutivated arugula.

The botanical name of the cultivated arugula is Eruca sativa. It’s a member of the Brassicaceae family, like cabbages and the mustards. Wild arugula is Diplotaxis tenuifolia, also in the same family. There are a few different cultivars or subspecies for the Erucas, but here in Italy, the sativa seems to be the more common. The photo to the right shows a wild arugula seedling. It’s easy to differentiate the two types, as the cultivated type has much more rounded lobes, while the wild type can be quite pointed. Both types are native to the Mediterranean and European area, but the Diplotaxis is the more common weed.

My English friends here all call these plants “Rocket” or “Roquette.” The Italians call both types ruccola, and they eat a lot of it. There’s hardly a day during the year when the local vegetable sellers at the market in Rapallo aren’t selling bunches of ruccola. A small bunch, about one handful of leaves, usually costs about one euro per bunch. That might sound like a lot, but considering that each leaf is picked separately, it’s a reasonable price for all that work.

U.S. “Digs In” to Gardening

Post author By Rachael Dupree
Post date October 1, 2010
No Comments on U.S. “Digs In” to Gardening

Courtesy Slow Food USA

Kids and members of Slow Food Westchester in New York “dig in” to a garden at Morse School vegetable garden.

What kind of event could mobilize thousands of people across the country to come together for the sake of community betterment than the celebration of food? Last weekend, 180 pods of Slow Food supporters came together in a variety of projects to “break ground and break bread” as part of Slow Food USA’s Dig In! campaign.

“In general, Slow Food USA is about finding joy, pleasure and company in making change in our food system,” says Julia Landau, of Slow Food USA. “The name of our day of action truly encompasses that—we dig into our work and then dig into our food when we gather to celebrate.”

In its first year, Dig In! was started as an extension of Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch campaign, urging community members to write to their congressmen about improving the National School Lunch Program, says Landau. It highlights the community events already taking place across the country on a daily basis.

“People are making change every day in their communities, working toward a better food system. They work in their gardens, their farmers’ markets, their community centers—and they bring dedication and vision to these projects. Dig In! is a day to sync up all of that great action and recognize its power,” Landau says.

Urban Barn Raising – Brooklyn, N.Y.

In a section of Brooklyn, N.Y., proclaimed a “food desert,” members of Slow Food NYC inaugurated the Ujima Community Garden with an urban barn-raising project. The garden, which broke ground in spring 2010, will be the site of programming to educate urban youth about agriculture, gardening and healthy food, run by Slow Food NYC volunteers.

“This past summer, we’ve had a chance to collaborate with various youth and middle-schoolers through affiliate organizations and have witnessed first-hand the children’s excitement in learning, preparing and consuming good food,” says Ramona Xu, of Slow Food NYC.

During the urban barn raising, volunteers finished harvesting the gardens’ summer produce, weeded and turned over soil, participated in a mural painted, and built a compost bin, followed, of course, by a potluck dinner.

Plant Distribution – Chicago

Taking a slightly different twist on the call to Dig In!, Chicagoans banded together in a large-scale garden-planting project. In its 10th year, the Great Perennial Divide mobilized nurseries and members of the community to donate more than 6,000 perennial plants, which were distributed to 200 school and community garden groups.

Although not a member of Slow Food, Eliza Fournier of the Chicago Botanic Garden, one of the event’s co-sponsors, says this annual event fits in with the Slow Food mission “by helping to beautify food gardens and attract pollinators, which are essential to all food and life.”

Prepping Gardens – Washington, D.C.

Of course, a national Dig In! event wouldn’t be complete without participation from residents in the capital city. Slow Food DC paired with the Neighborhood Farm Initiative to spread cover crop seed, weed urban gardens, and sift and move compost.

“In several ways, the whole idea of the urban garden is creating an opportunity for people to be in contact with the source of food that is not often readily available to urbanites,” says Kathryn Warnes, a Slow Food DC board member.

The Neighborhood Farm Initiative aims to provide hands-on training in vegetable gardening to volunteers and youth, as well as advise teenagers on obtaining green job skills.

“The response has been really positive and, I think, a good way to meet other people in the community who are interested in the values of Slow Food,” she says.

Keep on Diggin’

Although Dig In! events took place over only one weekend, their spirit can continue throughout the year. Landau says the first step is to follow up with volunteers immediately after your Dig In! event with a thank you note or photos from the day’s activities. Then offer them more volunteer opportunities throughout the year.

“After having a great work day or get-together, it’s important to be able to follow up with a continuation of the project or a new way to plug in,” she says. “This way, the energy from Dig In! (or any volunteer project) has an outlet later on.”

Slow Food USA is also encouraging growth of its movement by offering discounted membership rates through Oct. 15, 2010. To get membership details or to read about other Dig In! events, visit SlowFoodUSA.org.

Tags community, compost, food system, garden, gardening, Slow Food

Crops & Gardening

Early-fall Garden Report

Photo by Jessica Walliser
My fall garden is giving me lots of goodies to put up for winter.

Autumn has barely arrived, and the leaves have already started to drop around here. We’ve had to rake a section of our back yard twice already, as the leaves were clumping on the grass and blowing into our water feature.

I’m guessing the early drop, and an unfortunate lack of gorgeous fall color beforehand, is due to the lack of rain this summer. It seems that every time we have a dry summer, fall comes early and fast. I’m sure there is some scientific reasoning for this. I don’t know what it is, but I’m missing the long, colorful fall we had last year. And, of course, it makes me wonder what winter has in store for us in just a few short months.

But before it arrives, I’ve got big plans. In addition to lots of raking, I’d love to fully mulch my front perennial bed with leaf compost. The idea is to do it this fall so I can not do it next spring. I desperately need to get in there and clean up/cut back all my iris (which always look so terribly ratty to me come late summer), pull out all the calendula that haven’t bloomed in a month, trim the over-grown Salvia and deadhead the purple vervain so that I’m not up to my elbows in seedlings in spring. I’m hoping this “clean up” opens up some space between the plants so mulching won’t be so difficult. Fingers crossed.

We really have been enjoying the autumn harvests from the veggie garden. The beets are delightful,l and I’ve been picking many winter squash and eating them roasted, pureed into soup and added to stir-fries. And, much to my surprise, the tomatoes are still cranking. We had a little rain late last week, so some of them are splitting open, but many others are ripening just fine. I made one last batch of tomato soup last week. Now we should have enough to see us through a winter that, no matter what the weather brings, will taste like summer.

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Tags fall garden, Jessica Walliser, leaf compost, raking leaves, winter

Homesteading

Apple Harvest

Photo by Cherie Langlois
Our apples trees have given us a delightful harvest so far this year.

When Brett and I moved to the country two decades ago, we envisioned having a sunny little orchard where we would harvest bushels of apples, pears and other delicious tree treasure each year. Unfortunately, this orchard of our dreams didn’t come to fruition because:

We don’t do “sunny” all that well here in western Washington. (Most of August and September have been a somber reminder of this).
We didn’t research orchard care or plan our orchard carefully enough before planting our first four semi-dwarf apple tree victims. (The poor little things languished due to too much shade, super soggy ground and over-zealous deer pruning services.)

After we eventually moved the two stunted survivors to a sunnier, dryer spot away from the deer and beside our vegetable garden, these heroic trees surprised us by actually growing again. They even started producing a smattering of apples each year—no thanks to my husband and me, who continued to neglect them while we focused our attention on the farm’s animal inhabitants.

Fast forward to two winters ago: We decided to give our orchard dream another go by planting five new trees, this time taking care about where we placed them and taking a vow that we would care for them properly (or at least try). Two plums, two cherries, two pears and three new apple trees. Take another leap to this past Saturday, and I can’t believe it, but here I am happily plucking a respectable crop of apples from our diminutive new trees, as well as from the two hardy survivors.

It’s a perfect autumn day: sky of cloudless blue and golden sunshine warming my back, the apples with their skins of blushed pink or red, green and greeny-gold filling my bowls and pots. Each variety—Liberty, Keepsake, Chehalis and Gala—has a different appearance and taste, but they’re all crisp, sweetly tart, fresh and wonderful.

I’ve always loved picking apples, eating them right from the tree or in fragrant apple pie, and in recent years, turning them into sweet apple butter and applesauce. I’ve picked apples on a U-pick farm in the valley and from a gracious neighbor’s tree down the road, but these are the most apples my very own trees have provided, and all I had to do was step out my back door to gather them. I wind up savoring this extra-special harvest experience as much as the apples themselves.

~ Cherie

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Tags apple harvest, apple trees, apples, Cherie Langlois, country, orchard

Equipment

Chainsaw Tip 4: Sharpening Your Saw Chain

Post author By Jim Ruen
Post date September 29, 2010
No Comments on Chainsaw Tip 4: Sharpening Your Saw Chain

Sharpening a saw chain is one of those good ideas that too few practice. That said, if we do sharpen our saw chains on a regular basis, it speeds our work and extends the life of the saw chain, drive sprocket, bar and motor. How often a saw chain needs to be sharpened depends on the type of wood being cut up and how careful one is to keep the bar out of the dirt and away from objects that are not wood.

The actual sharpening process is simple and straightforward. Like any maintenance, mechanical or personal, the more often you do it, the better you get at it and the deeper the habit is engrained. You just have to do it.

A good place to start is your chainsaw manual. If it doesn’t have clear instructions, stop by your dealer and make an appointment with your service technician. Ask him to walk through sharpening with you. If he isn’t willing to do so, find another dealership, as he doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

File holders and sharpening rigs that attach to the bar do make maintaining the right angle a lot easier, but all you really need are two files: a round one to match the cutters and a flat file to match the depth guides.

A good rule of thumb is to sharpen cutters before you start cutting and stop periodically to resharpen. It doesn’t take that long. Each cutter takes only a couple of swipes with the file.

It will make a big difference in your chainsaw chores and your maintenance costs. It’s also a nice break that lets you look around and generally makes for a more pleasant time in the woods.

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Tags chainsaw, Jim Ruen, saw chain

Urban Farming

Local Food in Montreal

Photo by Judith Hausman

Apples were in full stock at Atwater Market in Montreal.

The Hungry Locavore is a Francophile from way back—that made a recent weekend trip to the French-North American hybrid city of Montreal even more appealing. I loved the combination we found of sturdy, New World Canadian with enduring European influences. You get the best of both worlds in Montreal and for a snowy, northerly territory, the province of Quebec does a remarkable job of promoting local food.

We hopped on our Bixi bikes—a pickup and drop-off bike scheme, as successful here as the Velibre is in Paris—and headed for the Atwater Market. Early September was the best of both worlds as well at the market. Summer tomatoes and string beans were still plentiful, but Brussels sprouts, garlic, apples and ground cherries crowded the stands as well. Inside the market hall, the hearty pork traditions of French-Canadian food were on display, as were smoked fish, meat pies, maple products, thick bread and artisanal local cheeses.

Photo by Judith Hausman

Rolls of boudin (aka sausage) at Atwater Market.

My companions scored on their hunt for spruce beer, an amazingly refreshing and adult soft drink (it’s beer, like root beer is beer), which tastes a little like sweetened, lightened retsina. Marco Beverages makes, nonalcoholic maple syrup beer and birch beers, too, in thick, brown glass bottles, sealed with a metal swing top.

Even the supermarket near our lodgings sold local plums, pears and apples, as well as many Canadian cheeses. The only specialty I just couldn’t take a liking to was poutine, a plateful of French fries piled with chewy cheese curds and topped with gravy. Comfort food for the Québécois, but not for me.

We headed back toward the border after several amazing meals and the best pastrami (aka smoked meat) and wood-fired bagels (maybe better than New York’s even).

Photo by Judith Hausman

You-know-who peeks out the door of one of the legendary Mile End bagel bakeries.

We had just enough time to get off the highway and follow the Circuit du Paysan for a while. The Peasants’ Trail, which passes through the area between Montreal and the U.S. borders with New York and Vermont, is very well-marked off the highway and along the back roads and is mapped in brochures. Visitors stop and sample from participating orchards, vineyards, cheesemakers, craftspeople, cider makers, historical sites and alpaca farms. We managed an all-in-French tasting at Domaine St-Jacques, and we saw that the season of apple-picking, hard cider-tasting and orchard-picnicking was underway at Petch Orchards and La Face Cachée de la Pomme (the Hidden Side of the Apple makes Neige hard ice cider, a delicacy). With more leisure, we would have stopped to buy honey, cheese and fine sausage as well along the way.

It was inspiring how easily we could locate local farms and products in a corridor that seems to support and understand how farms add to tourism. The moment we crossed through the backed-up border into Upstate New York, dairy and farm country, too, the landscape turned bleak and depressed, rather than rustic and vibrant.

Along with cheese, spruce beer, wine and apples, I brought back some locally grown buckwheat flour to try to make authentic French-Canadian plogues or ployes. The thin buckwheat pancakes are served for breakfast, topped with syrup, spread with cretons, a spicy pork meat spread, or cheddar cheese or rolled up as a substitute for bread. Buckwheat grows well in the brief Acadian summer.

Ingredients

1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup regular flour
4 tsp baking powder (optional)
1/2 tsp salt (or less)
2 cups cold water

Preparation
Mix dry ingredients. Add water and let stand for at least 10 minutes. Then spoon onto a lightly greased, hot griddle to make thin 6″ pancakes. They are ready when they are bubbled and firm. Cook only on the one side.

Newcastle Disease Infects Northern Birds

Post author By Dani Yokhna
Post date September 28, 2010
1 Comment on Newcastle Disease Infects Northern Birds

Newcastle Disease Infects Northern BirdsObserve your chickens for symptoms of Newcastle disease, and implement biosecurity measures to keep them safe. Observe your chickens for symptoms of Newcastle disease, and implement biosecurity measures to keep them safe. By Rebecca MumawNewcastle disease, backyard chickens, backyard flock, birds, wild birds, healthy chickensA virulent form of the viral Newcastle disease has swept through areas of Minnesota and the Wisconsin peninsula, leaving thousands of pelicans, cormorants and gulls dead in its path and threatening the health of small-farm flocks. newsSeptember 28, 2010

Courtesy Stock.XCHNG
Practice biosecurity measures on your small farm to keep your chickens safe from illnesses like Newcastle disease.

Cool breezes and fall-like weather aren’t the only things blowing down from the North this time of year. A virulent form of the viral Newcastle disease has swept through areas of Minnesota and the Wisconsin peninsula, leaving thousands of pelicans, cormorants and gulls dead in its path and threatening the health of small-farm flocks.

Virulent Newcastle disease is not normally present in the United States. Cormorants commonly carry a nonpathogenic form of Newcastle disease that remains dormant in the birds. This recent strain of the virus, however, is more infectious, causing death in wild birds and posing a threat to poultry keepers in the region. The cormorants will soon begin their fall migration and carry with them the potential to infect wild and domestic birds along the way.

Robert Ehlenfeldt, DVM, Wisconsin State Veterinarian, recently expressed his concern that backyard chicken keepers keep their birds away from wild waterfowl.

“The problem with Newcastle this year, as it has been in the past, at least in the Midwest, has been with waterfowl. We have had no reports of problems in poultry flocks,” says Ehlenfeldt. “Nonetheless, small flock owners should always try to keep their birds away from wildlife, especially waterfowl.”

Newcastle Disease Symptoms
Newcastle virus primarily affects the nervous system but can also affect other systems in the body. Symptoms in poultry may include:

sudden death
depression
loss of appetite
decreased egg production
coughing and gasping
green, watery diarrhea
twisted neck, drooping wings or paralysis
swelling of the head and neck

Newcastle Disease Transmission
Newcastle is contagious among birds and can be spread by contact with sick birds and contaminated objects, such as feed, water equipment and human clothing. The virus can survive as long as 12 months in chicken houses and chicken feces. Fortunately, most methods of cleaning, including common disinfectants, sunlight and fumigants can help kill the disease.

Newcastle Disease Prevention
Taking biosecurity measures is important in protecting your small-farm chickens from Newcastle disease contamination. Here are some tips for keeping your flock safe:

Purchase only healthy chickens from reputable sources.
Isolate newly purchased chickens for at least three weeks to be sure they’re healthy before introducing them to your flock.
Always wash vehicles, clothes and equipment that have come in contact with other poultry.
Keep chicken feeders, waterers, and other equipment clean and disinfected.
Keep chicken feeders and waterers covered to prevent contamination by wild birds.
Limit access to your chickens by other poultry owners.

Newcastle Disease Treatment
There is no treatment for the virulent strain of Newcastle disease, and infected poultry flocks must be humanely euthanized. This may be particularly difficult for small-flock owners who have considerable investment in their chickens and depend on the income from the eggs and meat. All chicken keepers have a responsibility to help stop the spread of a virulent and highly contagious disease that could result in millions of dollars in damage to other poultry farmers in their area.

Public Health Concerns
Fortunately, Newcastle disease does not pose a threat to human health. Eggs and meat from infected birds are safe to eat; however, people working in close proximity with infected birds may develop a mild conjunctivitis or pinkeye.

Urban Barn Raising – Brooklyn, N.Y.

Plant Distribution – Chicago

Prepping Gardens – Washington, D.C.

Keep on Diggin’

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