Susan, I just read your "Members Page", and I'm impressed! What a wonderful thing you're doing. Having said that, I wish I had some encouraging advice for you concerning your 'gus bed. If I were you, and since you're expanding your operation, I would let well enough alone and plant a new bed of 'gus somewhere in your enlarged operation. "Rearranging" an established aspargus bed is not on my list of fun things to do...for reasons obvious to you now. I'm a great help, right? ~smile~ Best wishes! Hal

The question is very valid in light of many cities now have new laws allowing the raising of hens for eggs, but those eggs are less tasty and nutritious than fertilized eggs. I do not see the harm in having one quiet rooster live a nice long spoiled life impregnating hens. As soon as Houston gets this law passed I will have a few backyard hens of my own and wanted to know about roosters surgically being de-crowed so I can have fertile eggs to EAT or sell. Seeing that most roosters are killed anyway and many people kill the rooster babies just to avoid dealing with them... I don't see how in the world making a wonderful life in my backyard for a spoiled silenced rooster is a bad thing since it saves his life. Better than you eating him! Frankly I'd not need a rooster at all but I feel like I should be prepared in case there comes a time we are impoverished for one reason or another and our backyard "farm" supplements our food resources. Hens would eventually die off and stop laying. We need a perpetual stock that we can raise and barter with if it comes to that. Call it prepping and treat me with hatred for it, but my granny lived through the great depression and taught me how she managed to get her family through it. I honor her advice to me to "not put all my eggs in one basket". This post was edited by chelseacraft on Thu, Mar 28, 13 at 20:51

I don't believe in ethanol for all cars, but I do believe in farmers being able to make their own biodiesel for their farm equipment, and being provided the money to do it by the government. I'm all for gas rationing until we can figure out a solution. These idiots with the gas guzzlers, the ones who almost blow you off the road on the highway, have to be FORCED to conserve. They don't care about any world food crisis. They just care about appearances, and having what they want. I think we're heading for a short time of gas rationing, and maybe electrical rationing as well, as we try to wean off of middle eastern oil. I'll survive. I'm very conservative anyway, and I'd like to go totally green, get off the grid, but I can't afford the solar/wind equipment at today's prices. I do what I can, though. I'm all for government subsidies for anyone who wants to go totally wind/solar and get off the grid, but that will never happen, because the oil/gas/coal/utility companies have too much power. People have to learn to be less selfish for anything viable to work, and that's not going to happen without government intervention.

To all posters: especially Jillmcm an vonyon, thank you so much for your input on this subject. I live in a wooded area. I love watching all the wildlife,- turkey, deer, and especially the birds, we have blue bird, martin and wren houses, and several bird baths. I have suet feeders, finch feeders, and a hopper feeders, along with several bird baths. I enjoy the birds so much, and spend many hours watching them. Then last summer a pair of phobees built a nest on a window sill on the second floor of our house. What a delight! They would swoop down and eat tons of insects. When I saw a hawk in a tree next to our house eyeing the baby phobees, it was too much, I went over the edge. I was obsessed with how to keep them out of our yard. All of the posts on this forum have been so helpful to putting things in balance. I am going to rethink my pattern of feeding the birds. Although the Phobees don't eat at bird feeders,they do use the bird baths, and the mere fact that there is a concentration of birds, attracted the hawks. By the way, the hawks nested in the woods next to us, and I heard the baby hawk calling after it's mother for food and say them hunting together, so I know they have to eat too. Thank you, again!