Or…Something new to grow

The ringing phone startled me out of a deep sleep at 6 a.m. It was the Scandia post office calling to say they’d just unloaded our chicks off their mail truck! Ohmigosh! We scrambled to get ready, but within the hour, we had 27 chicks settled into their new (thankfully, temporary) home — a purple plastic kiddie pool in my home office.

Little puffs of soft and fuzzy fun, the chicks explored their new digs for a few steps and then collapsed in an exhausted puddle, like Frosty melting on a hot day. It was March 3 when we joined the legions of like-minded folks who want to have their own fresh eggs.

We’d only wanted about a dozen layers, but the hatchery had a minimum order of 25. So we got 9 kinds of chickens, all females, all known for being good layers and able to withstand cold weather. There were yellow ones, black ones, blue ones , ones with spots (not any with chicken pox, though), and some that looked like little owls. And one little gal had feathered legs, looking much like pants. Hey wait, I didn’t order any chickens with pants!

Since that first day, we’ve learn a lot at our house. For starters, we learned that hatcheries toss in a few extra birds sometimes (H’mm. What do you bet they are roosters?). We now know that chicks are dusty and frankly, rather messy. And most importantly (especially if you’re a chick), it is a fact that broccoli is the best thing in the world and if you get a piece, by all means, run around your pen and gloat and make all your flock friends try to catch you.

With any luck, these gals will be outside in their fancy schmancy hen house (dubbed Coop de Ville) in a month. Ok, so it has to be built first, and this weather isn’t exactly conducive to pouring a concrete floor. But by July, the eggs should start rolling in. Brown and tinted and white. Big bright yolks and fresh, fresh, fresh. Did I mention, darned local too?

I can hardly wait!

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under Chickens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.