Chicken



These chickens of ours!  Just thinking about all I went through for these chicks makes me say "Phew!"  I even tense up just thinking about it.  Something about the unknown brings such apprehension for me that I really have to be thrust into it to begin.  And so it was with chicks.  My friend had a broody hen.  "Do I want to borrow it?"  "Sure."  I put 8 eggs under it and stuck it in a small rabbit cage.  Little did I know that the chicken needs to get up to defecate.  So we had to scoop up diarrhea hay every other day.  Eventually they hatched and then I worried "Do I take them out?  Where do they go?  There's stray cats everywhere."  So we put them in our turtle habitat in a different cage.  But then that was a low lying area of the yard and when rain came...well, I couldn't sleep well at night with the sound of rain.  Worrying about my little chicks.  So the following days looked like this.  Catching Mama Broody, moving all 6 chicks (2 died), the compost bin, tin roof and food all into a mobile PVC with chicken wire enclosement.  We did this many times.  So with much relief I'm happy to announce that they've finally made it to the big chicken yard with the big birds.  Of course that was a little distressing, worrying how they would all mix together.  And then, are those roosting bars too big for their feet?  The big guys get the run in the morning and then out to pasture in the afternoon.  Locked out from their home.  So they're basically sitting at a fence all day...looking over, wishing for greener pasture so to say.  Mama Broody has moved on with the older gang, pecking on the chicks, laying eggs again. I'm still keeping the chicks only in the fenced in chicken yard for now.  Maybe now that I've experienced it, I'll know what to do differently next time.  But for now I just need a big break.

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