HEARST - Lynn Glazer was about nine years old when she bought her first chicken for two dollars from a neighbour.
“I really loved animals,” said Glazer, who lives outside Hearst. “Being a farmer is not something you wake up one day and you'd just like to be a farmer. It's kind of like in you.
“It was a passion for me to take care of her, to eat that first egg she laid.”
Glazer doesn't have any chickens these days, but that's not by choice.
“We got unwanted predators last year and they killed all my stock,” she said. “I had lots of heritage breeds and stuff that I'd been working on for years, developing tamed animals and stuff like that. It's going to take a while to rebuild what I finally had five years after I'd started. It was kind of a shock to find all my stock dead.”
It will take Glazer several years to rebuild. In the meantime, she's leading a workshop on Monday to help others raise chickens for their eggs and meat.
The free 6:30 p.m. workshop will be held at the Inovo Centre, 523 Highway 11 East, in Hearst.
Residents living in Timmins' urban zones can't keep chickens as they're considered exotic pets, but that doesn't apply to residents in rural zones.
That hasn't ruffled any feathers in this city recently, but a letter to Postmedia from North Bay resident Brent Johnson questioned why his own city council isn't willing to consider backyard chickens.
“Hunstville has them, and no one there gives a cluck,” wrote Johnson. “Orillia has the huevos to try it for a few years.”
For her part, Glazer has never lived in a city. She said it would be “sad” for backyard birds to be restricted, “but then again, there's lots of reasons.”
Glazer's reason for raising birds is a passion for self-sustainability.
“It's therapeutic. I know what's gone into them, I know what I'm eating, I know how they've been treated.
“It's more a lifestyle than just raising the chickens themselves.”
Glazer keeps the meat for herself, and can sell eggs if people buy them from her farm.
“We just do it for ourselves,” she said, “for self-sustainability.”
She's hoping Monday's workshop has participants ready and informed to raise chickens themselves.
Glazer plans to share her tried, tested and true anecdotes.
“Some of the most important things are, never take anything for granted. Never take any information you've learned for granted, because every season is different, every year is different, every chicken is different. Every stock you get from the store you buy them from is different.
“Every year you have to get to know your animals. You have to kind of grow with them.”
Glazer said birds need space, or they'll pick themselves to death. She said some shouldn't have access to corners, or they'll pile on top of each other until they die.
“All those things you get to know as you raise them yourself,” she said.
The Hearst-area farmer, who estimates about 50 other people in her area are raising chickens, hopes to reconnect people with their food.
“People don't know those things anymore, because I'd say 95% of the population doesn't raise any animals anymore, and doesn't hunt. They don't know. A lot of kids think that steaks grow on trees. I think that's pretty sad.”
A release from Hearst Economic Development, which is offering the workshop series alongside the Porcupine Health Unit and Agriva, states the series originally focused on gardening, but is being revamped to help people be more food secure.
Other workshops will cover goats and cheese-making.
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