Playing with the Big Girls

Late this April our farm family briefly expanded by 15. You see, my brother, who is a teacher, thought it would be a great idea if we adopted the chicks that the kindergarten class in his school was hatching. I said yes, talked to Josh about it, then switched my answer to no, then Scott convinced me that this was a good idea, so I said yes again. When adoption week rolled around, I had nightmares about the eventual infrastructure required by a flock of full grown chickens and tried to say no again. It was too late. The adoption papers were signed…so to speak. We were a little unprepared when the 15 chicks arrived (Scott promised only 10), but we made do, putting them in a basin from the dismantled pond that was in our backyard and warming them with the heat lamp that kept our laying chickens just warm enough to not lay eggs in the winter.
 
Day old chicks are cute, and despite Josh’s reluctance to take on the chick project (note that their breed is called Red Cap, which is a ‘mixed’ breed – good for laying, good for meat – which in farmer speak means good for neither) he quickly fell in love. In their first few days of life, Josh insisted that all visitors smell a little chick because “they smell like babies!”
The teen years came on fast. Within a few weeks, the chicks grew their ‘adult feathers’ and recognized that their wings were specifically designed for flying out of the little basin that they called home. Escape #3 prompted the build of the chicken tractor above, a design that Josh had been eager to try since seeing it at a farm on Vancouver Island. At week five, the chicks were moved into the backyard and introduced to grass, bugs, rain and real sun. Every two days they would move from one piece of grass to the next, leaving a little bit of fresh fertilizer for our lawn.

As the chicks grew, so did the frequency of discussion about their fate. Continue reading...