The Farm of the Good Shepherd by Maryn McKenna.
Frank Reese raises heritage chicken and turkeys on his Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch in tiny Lindsborg, Kansas. The birds belong to breeds that the poultry industry discarded over decades as it refined the modern meat chicken. Reese chooses to raise them because he believes the breeds have valuable genetics that the industry will someday need once again, and that would be lost if he did not preserve them. But it’s a solitary life, and not well-compensated; as Frank asks, “What will happen to these birds when I die?”
Video and sound by Maryn McKenna; music by Josh Woodward under CC license. Part of a project funded by a grant from Knight Science Journalism at MIT.
