Wild Willow Farm is excited to welcome you to our self-guided tour!

Follow the signs around the farm and  learn about each landmark along the way. Thank you to local Chula Vista High School students for helping to create content for each QR code! 

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The chicken is a domesticated bird, with attributes of wild species such as the red and gray jungle fowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult male bird, and a younger male may be called a cockerel. A male that has been castrated is a capon. Poultry is a domesticated bird kept by humans for their eggs, their meat, or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae, especially the order Galliformes. The term poultry actually refers to a variety of bird types raised on farms for food, fiber, or entertainment. The most common entertainment variety is pigeons. You can raise pigeons or even have them carry messages for you. 

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Chicken is the ubiquitous food of our era, crossing multiple cultural boundaries with ease. The male of the species is known to be fierce. Many people raise chickens for one thing, eggs! They eat the inside and the shell they use for compost. You can give the chickens you raise, kitchen scraps. If you do want to raise chickens you need the right stuff. Each chicken should eat ¼ cup of feed and you can also give them kitchen scraps. They should also get fresh clean water each day. They can live in both hot and cold weather. Chickens will be fine outside, but if it's under 15 degrees you should put them in their chicken coop. Their chicken coop needs/should be cleaned every 2 weeks.  Most chickens start laying eggs at 6 months. You can use their eggshells to boost your plant's nutrition. You can also use the shells to make the soil healthy.  Shells can also keep pests out, like snails and slugs. If you don’t have an outdoor garden but have a small indoor garden you can use the eggshells and make “eggshell” tea, which helps your baby plants and indoor plants. If you don’t want eggshells in your plant's soil. You can strain the eggshell and use the water instead of the shell. Your decorative plants, like your succulent plants, don't need the eggshell, as much as the other plants do. But you can still put the eggshells in your decorative plants because all plants benefit from the eggshell. Not only chickens are cared for to produce eggs for the person/family but it also helps with pests control. They eat many of the pests/bugs for protein. Chickens also eat many of the weeds in your garden. Some pests that chickens eat are mosquitoes, Japanese beetles, ticks, snails, and slugs. Chickens have strong color vision, many people think that chickens are color blind, but they aren't. They actually have better color vision than humans do. The chicken’s egg color depends on their genetics. There are about 25 million chickens in the world.

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What’s the difference between chicken and poultry?

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Chicken

• A domestic fowl, Gallus gallus, especially when young

• The meat from this bird was eaten as food

• A coward

• A young or inexperienced person.

• The game of dare

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The best chicken breeds that are known for their reliable laying include: Bovans Browns, Hylines, Australorps, Leghorns, Orpingtons, and Rhode Island Reds

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Poultry

• Domestic fowl (chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese) raised for food (either meat or eggs)

• The meat from a domestic fowl

• Domestic fowls reared for the table, or for their eggs or feathers, such as cocks and hens, capons, turkeys, ducks, and geese

• A domesticated gallinaceous bird thought to be descended from the red jungle fowl

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