I invite you to have a look back and explore the beginnings. Particularly what I consider the 'meat' of the story in late March through May.
So that's it then ... one year of writing about my little backyard flock and I can't tell you how happy it makes me to share the experiences (however humble) with you! I look forward to continuing these stories for as long as anyone is interested to hear about them.
My chickens, and even my rooster, are one of my escapes from the troubles of the world and writing about it makes it that much more meaningful to me and I am so grateful to have the ability to do so. I am so grateful for the people from all over the world who have checked in to see the 'doings' of just a few chickens somewhere in the world.
Thank you for taking this journey with my through the births, deaths, triumphs, and defeats!
Some months back I stated that I was considering writing an ebook about these experiences. That I would flesh out the story in greater detail. I have begun that book, though months of a tough winter have stalled me. I do hope to get back to it, but I thought I would share an excerpt with you.
Please bear in mind that this is RAW TEXT writing in my own overly pedantic 'style', complete with grammatical and spelling errors. Please enjoy, please comment, but please be kind!
Excerpt:
VI. Babies Arrive.
It was Friday on April the 4th, 2014 when I received a phone call from the local farm. Our order of chicks had arrived! They had been born on April the 2nd. Large chicken breeders are quite used to shipping live baby chicks across the country via post or common carrier, or what have you. They do this all of the time. Regularly and in quantities great and small. Some chicks die along the way, but by and large, they make it through the journey okay. This concept alone boggles my mind. Fragile baby chicks can be shipped across country, yet somehow, without a constant temperature of about 95 to 100 degrees, can freeze to death in a matter of hours. As it turns out, they are a lot tougher than they seem. Even when hatched underneath a mother hen, they tend not to eat or drink anything in the first day. They will wander out from other their mothers quite a lot and retreat back to her once again when they are getting chilled. Never the less, when speaking with the local farm, they assured me that they make sure the new arrivals are eating, drinking, and looking healthy before being sold to their respective owners.
One of the sad consequences of modern living is the concept of ‘work schedules’. As it turns out, my wife’s work schedule and mine are such that our only day off together is Sunday. As much as I wanted to race out of the house at that moment of a Friday evening to pick up our new brood, or perhaps first thing Saturday morning shortly after herself left for work, I knew that she would be heartbroken to miss the experience of picking up the baby chicks with me and gathering her first glance at them at the same moment I did. I kindly asked the woman if she wouldn’t mind keeping our chicks safe until we could pick them up on Sunday morning and she kindly agreed! I managed to contain my excitement and maintained professional decorum with the nice farm lady long enough to obtain the particulars of when they open their stand for business on a Sunday morning. After hanging up with her, I dialed my wife excitedly. After calling the wrong number, I dialed again and cursed my fat fingers in the process. I opened our conversation with a series of nonsensical mutterings as I tried to find the words through my excitement to tell my wife that the chicks had arrived. She calmly listened, realized that I was hyped up, but not in danger, and reassured me that if only I would take a deep breath I would be able to state my words more clearly and thus elucidate her as to the nature of my call. After the jumbled words began to weave together comprehensibly enough for her to understand the intent of my call she dropped the phone. In the background I heard her mumbling and squealing the same string of garbled baby talk and nonsensical excited rhetoric that I had initially began the conversation with. A moment or two later I overheard her coworkers in the background trying to decide if they should contact the mental health authorities. Shortly after that, I heard them calm her down sufficiently for her to be able to continue our conversation long enough to exchange ‘I love you’ and carry on with life in a more mature and controlled way.
There are moments when a person is overcome with grief. This was one of those moments when she and I were overcome with giddiness. Back to work for a short few hours more for her. Back to rocking back and forth at home in delighted agitation for me. Arriving home from work after a hard day on any usual occasion can have a person dragging themselves over the threshold seeking only the solace of unburdening their hearts and minds from the circumstances of a hard day. This night, however, saw my lovely wife tap dancing her way into the house and jumping gleefully at anticipation of our new arrivals. That night we set about the task of RECHECKING the pen and the heat lamp. Knowing that the surface of the vinyl playpen would be too slippery for baby chick feet, we lined the bottom of the playpen with layers of toilet paper. We had read long and detailed reports of lining a brooder floor with this material or that and settled on the toilet paper as being good enough for their little feet to find purchase and absorbent enough to contain the baby chick poo, plus it would be easy to change and replace. We set the feed and water in the ad hoc brooder as well. This is still two days before we were to pick up the chicks. Come Saturday morning, my wife managed to contain herself long enough to go to work, after I assured her that the chicks in the care of the farm would be alright for just one mere day. I went about my usual Saturday chores, but my day was spent pacing from the brooder in the spare room to the coop outside in constant inspection of what was done and would need to be done. Although they would need it for a good month or more, I had to start considering how I was going to build the chicken run that was to surround the coop.
I would like to report that Sunday morning saw us leaping out of bed in glorious readiness for our short journey to the farm followed by our long journey of raising backyard chickens. But the truth of the matter or more like this:
Moonkie began scratching at our bedroom door and issuing her complaints about the empty state of her food bowl. My wife can sleep through these disturbances with a degree of excellence that is to be admired by hibernating bears. I dragged myself from the bed at the usual time of “cat o’clock” and stumbled to the kitchen while cursing all of humanity under my breath. After distributing a small amount of kibble to the two cats, I became just coherent enough to prepare the coffee pot and set it to perk on the preferred stove burner. Within a half an hour the coffee would be perked and it would be somewhat safe to rouse my bride. Contemplating my will to live as the blood began to seep back into my brain and beginning to focus better in the gathering dawn I remembered where I was and who I was. Moments later, with my first sip of coffee, I remembers in a flash at the instant that the caffeine worked its way into my bloodstream that TODAY WAS THE DAY! I slurped another glug of coffee and curbed my cheeriness just enough to wake Joy without casting an unwelcomed measure of that morning cheer before she had a chance to allow for the magical transformation that caffeine brings. Once the coffee made us into human beings again, chattering, showering, a quick bit of breakfast and we were eager to go!
We turned on the heat lamp in the spare room where our one-use brooder was set and checked the temperatures. We had to trust to our senses that it was set safely so as not to cause a fire, not just now, but for the coming weeks when we would be away at our day jobs and the babies would have to fend for themselves. We dreaded the thought of a power failure but would have to chance it for the time being. April is still the tail end of the heating season so our furnace was still inclined to run to keep the house from becoming chilly. We nudged it up a bit more so that the ambient temperature in the house would run a little warmer than usual. Into the car and off we were.
We only got lost on the back country roads once and but for a minute or two before arriving at our destination. In through the appropriately rustic looking farm stand building and we encountered the display brooder! Unlike the large galvanized vats at the feed store with its overhead heat lamps and dozens of peeping production baby chicks all scampering over each other in one direction or another, this built-in store brooder designed for their smaller quantities of heritage breeds had individual bins suitable for a dozen chicks at most in each. The bins were enclosed with a glass door and each bin had its own heat lamp. As we circled around the far side we ‘oooed’ and ‘ahhed’ at each variety of chicks as we encountered them. I recall there were brahmas, orpingtons, polish, and probably more. Finally we came to a bin with but a few chicks within hand labeled ‘Australorp Chicks. $5.99 each’. The little fluffs within were black and buff just like every photo we had seen. We stood there for some time baby talking to the chicks behind the glass before one of us could tear ourselves away long enough to gain the assistance of one of the fine young teens who worked the stand. I managed to grab the attention of one polite young lady who wasted no time in stepping out from behind the register, producing a small cardboard box, and coming over to assist us with our purchase. My wife and I were smart enough to resist every urge to open that bin ourselves – however careful we may have thought that we were – and thus resulting in a baby chick round up throughout the entire length of the farm stand.
I’m going to pause for a moment to speak about the cardboard box. There is a particular sort of box that pet stores buy in bulk for customers to transport newly purchased small pets home with. The box has a folding top and a few air holes. I recall one day in my late teens or early twenties that a friend had stopped by one day on his way home from the pet store and had just this sort of box with him. He had brought it into my house for reasons of not wanting to leave it unattended in his car and who could blame him! The box was merrily printed with graphic images of parakeets and gerbils on it and prominently displayed were the words “I’m going home with someone who loves me!” I asked my friend about his new purchase and he stated “Oh, these are feeder mice for my pet snake.” The dark irony of just how much that snake would ‘love’ those mice was not lost on me!
All these years later, a different place, a different time, and a different purpose, this young lady produced the SAME style box with the SAME words emblazoned upon it! The key difference here was that this time, the words would ring true to their intent.
The young lady, with a practiced hand, scooped out nervous cheeping chicks one at a time. When she encountered the young rooster, she took a moment to point out a wee greenish coloration under the chick’s chin which was, as she explained, an indication that it was likely a rooster. She went on to explain that although sexing baby chicks was a skill, it was a difficult one and even the experts get it wrong sometimes. She explained that if any additional chicks grew to be roosters, the farm would take them back (though without refund) rather than saddling the customer with potentially unwanted livestock. The farm was also wise enough to order a few extra australorp chicks in the event that one or more died in transit and thus leave a disappointed customer. And yet, they did not order so many that they would themselves be left with an overabundance of unwanted chicks. This resulted in a moment of uncomfortable awkwardness. After parceling out our order of one rooster chick and five hen chicks there were two australorp chicks left in the bin. My wife looked at the two lonely chicks and then looked at me. Then she looked at the two lonely chicks and then again at me. With me staring blankly back at her, she emphatically stated “We are NOT leaving these two babies behind!” So, in that moment, I understood that we would be obliged to fork over the additional $11.98 and take home eight baby chicks in all.
My wife cradled our purchase under her arm and made her way out to the car. All the while she cooed and baby talked to the chicks within the box. I stayed behind long enough to settle affairs with the farm. Apart from the financial responsibility of settling the bill, they had me sign a legal document explaining that I was buying these birds as LIVESTOCK and not as pets … which is against the laws of nature, apparently. Not wanting to run afoul of the farm cops, or whatever state agency thinks that a reasonable person needs to be reminded that keeping a chicken in the house as a pet is a really dumb idea (and trust me, it is), I signed, paid, and herself and I were on our way with our little brood.
The trip home was a white knuckle drive for me. Each bump on the country back roads had me shivering with dread that the baby chicks on my wife’s lap would be thrown hither and fore within the confines of their little box and possibly become injured. My speed on the highway was as fast as I could stand to drive, yet was still creepingly slow when compared to the usual speeds that most NJ drivers are accustomed to travel. Many of my fellow drivers expressed their ‘gratitude’ for my safe driving skills as they passed me in the other lane. I waved back (at least with one finger) to display my own gratitude for their extreme patience and in polite acknowledgment of their recommendations on how I could improve my driving skills. With a brow of sweat, a wife beyond the capacity to hold out any longer without opening the box, and a new brood of nervous babies, I finally pulled into the driveway and we emerged from the car and hurried gently into the house.
It was Friday on April the 4th, 2014 when I received a phone call from the local farm. Our order of chicks had arrived! They had been born on April the 2nd. Large chicken breeders are quite used to shipping live baby chicks across the country via post or common carrier, or what have you. They do this all of the time. Regularly and in quantities great and small. Some chicks die along the way, but by and large, they make it through the journey okay. This concept alone boggles my mind. Fragile baby chicks can be shipped across country, yet somehow, without a constant temperature of about 95 to 100 degrees, can freeze to death in a matter of hours. As it turns out, they are a lot tougher than they seem. Even when hatched underneath a mother hen, they tend not to eat or drink anything in the first day. They will wander out from other their mothers quite a lot and retreat back to her once again when they are getting chilled. Never the less, when speaking with the local farm, they assured me that they make sure the new arrivals are eating, drinking, and looking healthy before being sold to their respective owners.
One of the sad consequences of modern living is the concept of ‘work schedules’. As it turns out, my wife’s work schedule and mine are such that our only day off together is Sunday. As much as I wanted to race out of the house at that moment of a Friday evening to pick up our new brood, or perhaps first thing Saturday morning shortly after herself left for work, I knew that she would be heartbroken to miss the experience of picking up the baby chicks with me and gathering her first glance at them at the same moment I did. I kindly asked the woman if she wouldn’t mind keeping our chicks safe until we could pick them up on Sunday morning and she kindly agreed! I managed to contain my excitement and maintained professional decorum with the nice farm lady long enough to obtain the particulars of when they open their stand for business on a Sunday morning. After hanging up with her, I dialed my wife excitedly. After calling the wrong number, I dialed again and cursed my fat fingers in the process. I opened our conversation with a series of nonsensical mutterings as I tried to find the words through my excitement to tell my wife that the chicks had arrived. She calmly listened, realized that I was hyped up, but not in danger, and reassured me that if only I would take a deep breath I would be able to state my words more clearly and thus elucidate her as to the nature of my call. After the jumbled words began to weave together comprehensibly enough for her to understand the intent of my call she dropped the phone. In the background I heard her mumbling and squealing the same string of garbled baby talk and nonsensical excited rhetoric that I had initially began the conversation with. A moment or two later I overheard her coworkers in the background trying to decide if they should contact the mental health authorities. Shortly after that, I heard them calm her down sufficiently for her to be able to continue our conversation long enough to exchange ‘I love you’ and carry on with life in a more mature and controlled way.
There are moments when a person is overcome with grief. This was one of those moments when she and I were overcome with giddiness. Back to work for a short few hours more for her. Back to rocking back and forth at home in delighted agitation for me. Arriving home from work after a hard day on any usual occasion can have a person dragging themselves over the threshold seeking only the solace of unburdening their hearts and minds from the circumstances of a hard day. This night, however, saw my lovely wife tap dancing her way into the house and jumping gleefully at anticipation of our new arrivals. That night we set about the task of RECHECKING the pen and the heat lamp. Knowing that the surface of the vinyl playpen would be too slippery for baby chick feet, we lined the bottom of the playpen with layers of toilet paper. We had read long and detailed reports of lining a brooder floor with this material or that and settled on the toilet paper as being good enough for their little feet to find purchase and absorbent enough to contain the baby chick poo, plus it would be easy to change and replace. We set the feed and water in the ad hoc brooder as well. This is still two days before we were to pick up the chicks. Come Saturday morning, my wife managed to contain herself long enough to go to work, after I assured her that the chicks in the care of the farm would be alright for just one mere day. I went about my usual Saturday chores, but my day was spent pacing from the brooder in the spare room to the coop outside in constant inspection of what was done and would need to be done. Although they would need it for a good month or more, I had to start considering how I was going to build the chicken run that was to surround the coop.
I would like to report that Sunday morning saw us leaping out of bed in glorious readiness for our short journey to the farm followed by our long journey of raising backyard chickens. But the truth of the matter or more like this:
Moonkie began scratching at our bedroom door and issuing her complaints about the empty state of her food bowl. My wife can sleep through these disturbances with a degree of excellence that is to be admired by hibernating bears. I dragged myself from the bed at the usual time of “cat o’clock” and stumbled to the kitchen while cursing all of humanity under my breath. After distributing a small amount of kibble to the two cats, I became just coherent enough to prepare the coffee pot and set it to perk on the preferred stove burner. Within a half an hour the coffee would be perked and it would be somewhat safe to rouse my bride. Contemplating my will to live as the blood began to seep back into my brain and beginning to focus better in the gathering dawn I remembered where I was and who I was. Moments later, with my first sip of coffee, I remembers in a flash at the instant that the caffeine worked its way into my bloodstream that TODAY WAS THE DAY! I slurped another glug of coffee and curbed my cheeriness just enough to wake Joy without casting an unwelcomed measure of that morning cheer before she had a chance to allow for the magical transformation that caffeine brings. Once the coffee made us into human beings again, chattering, showering, a quick bit of breakfast and we were eager to go!
We turned on the heat lamp in the spare room where our one-use brooder was set and checked the temperatures. We had to trust to our senses that it was set safely so as not to cause a fire, not just now, but for the coming weeks when we would be away at our day jobs and the babies would have to fend for themselves. We dreaded the thought of a power failure but would have to chance it for the time being. April is still the tail end of the heating season so our furnace was still inclined to run to keep the house from becoming chilly. We nudged it up a bit more so that the ambient temperature in the house would run a little warmer than usual. Into the car and off we were.
We only got lost on the back country roads once and but for a minute or two before arriving at our destination. In through the appropriately rustic looking farm stand building and we encountered the display brooder! Unlike the large galvanized vats at the feed store with its overhead heat lamps and dozens of peeping production baby chicks all scampering over each other in one direction or another, this built-in store brooder designed for their smaller quantities of heritage breeds had individual bins suitable for a dozen chicks at most in each. The bins were enclosed with a glass door and each bin had its own heat lamp. As we circled around the far side we ‘oooed’ and ‘ahhed’ at each variety of chicks as we encountered them. I recall there were brahmas, orpingtons, polish, and probably more. Finally we came to a bin with but a few chicks within hand labeled ‘Australorp Chicks. $5.99 each’. The little fluffs within were black and buff just like every photo we had seen. We stood there for some time baby talking to the chicks behind the glass before one of us could tear ourselves away long enough to gain the assistance of one of the fine young teens who worked the stand. I managed to grab the attention of one polite young lady who wasted no time in stepping out from behind the register, producing a small cardboard box, and coming over to assist us with our purchase. My wife and I were smart enough to resist every urge to open that bin ourselves – however careful we may have thought that we were – and thus resulting in a baby chick round up throughout the entire length of the farm stand.
I’m going to pause for a moment to speak about the cardboard box. There is a particular sort of box that pet stores buy in bulk for customers to transport newly purchased small pets home with. The box has a folding top and a few air holes. I recall one day in my late teens or early twenties that a friend had stopped by one day on his way home from the pet store and had just this sort of box with him. He had brought it into my house for reasons of not wanting to leave it unattended in his car and who could blame him! The box was merrily printed with graphic images of parakeets and gerbils on it and prominently displayed were the words “I’m going home with someone who loves me!” I asked my friend about his new purchase and he stated “Oh, these are feeder mice for my pet snake.” The dark irony of just how much that snake would ‘love’ those mice was not lost on me!
All these years later, a different place, a different time, and a different purpose, this young lady produced the SAME style box with the SAME words emblazoned upon it! The key difference here was that this time, the words would ring true to their intent.
The young lady, with a practiced hand, scooped out nervous cheeping chicks one at a time. When she encountered the young rooster, she took a moment to point out a wee greenish coloration under the chick’s chin which was, as she explained, an indication that it was likely a rooster. She went on to explain that although sexing baby chicks was a skill, it was a difficult one and even the experts get it wrong sometimes. She explained that if any additional chicks grew to be roosters, the farm would take them back (though without refund) rather than saddling the customer with potentially unwanted livestock. The farm was also wise enough to order a few extra australorp chicks in the event that one or more died in transit and thus leave a disappointed customer. And yet, they did not order so many that they would themselves be left with an overabundance of unwanted chicks. This resulted in a moment of uncomfortable awkwardness. After parceling out our order of one rooster chick and five hen chicks there were two australorp chicks left in the bin. My wife looked at the two lonely chicks and then looked at me. Then she looked at the two lonely chicks and then again at me. With me staring blankly back at her, she emphatically stated “We are NOT leaving these two babies behind!” So, in that moment, I understood that we would be obliged to fork over the additional $11.98 and take home eight baby chicks in all.
My wife cradled our purchase under her arm and made her way out to the car. All the while she cooed and baby talked to the chicks within the box. I stayed behind long enough to settle affairs with the farm. Apart from the financial responsibility of settling the bill, they had me sign a legal document explaining that I was buying these birds as LIVESTOCK and not as pets … which is against the laws of nature, apparently. Not wanting to run afoul of the farm cops, or whatever state agency thinks that a reasonable person needs to be reminded that keeping a chicken in the house as a pet is a really dumb idea (and trust me, it is), I signed, paid, and herself and I were on our way with our little brood.
The trip home was a white knuckle drive for me. Each bump on the country back roads had me shivering with dread that the baby chicks on my wife’s lap would be thrown hither and fore within the confines of their little box and possibly become injured. My speed on the highway was as fast as I could stand to drive, yet was still creepingly slow when compared to the usual speeds that most NJ drivers are accustomed to travel. Many of my fellow drivers expressed their ‘gratitude’ for my safe driving skills as they passed me in the other lane. I waved back (at least with one finger) to display my own gratitude for their extreme patience and in polite acknowledgment of their recommendations on how I could improve my driving skills. With a brow of sweat, a wife beyond the capacity to hold out any longer without opening the box, and a new brood of nervous babies, I finally pulled into the driveway and we emerged from the car and hurried gently into the house.
