It’s Time to Pick Up Chicks!

but I won't...because I know what happened last time.

Chicks just arrived at our local farm store. I will not go see them. I will not. Truly. Because I know what happened last time…

It all began with a radio advertisement. “Spring is here, and Home Town Feed is the Place to Pick Up Chicks!”

Every morning for two weeks I woke up to the radio alarm clock blaring that message. And…it worked. After hearing it enough times, I eventually stopped at my local farm store to look at baby chicks, with our two kids in tow.

Mind you, I had no intention of buying chicks. No intention. None. Nope. Nada.

I don’t like chickens. They’re pecked me as a child when my aunt sent me to gather their eggs, and they talked back, always clucking at me. Bad attitudes, they have. Nope. I don’t like chickens.

But…I am an adult now, and the baby chicks were so cute hopping around in their warm cages. They were all yellow and fluffy, or black and white, or brown with stripes, and I knew they’d grow into handsome birds.

Did I mention I have a soft spot for baby animals? No? Well, I didn’t realize it extended to chickens, myself, until I came home with six beautiful chicks and a bag of chicken feed. They were Golden Sex Link chicks, a cross between Rhode Island White females and Rhode Island Red males. Over the next few months, their buttery yellow fluff was exchanged for the rust-colored feathers of mature hens.

As we cared for them, I eagerly anticipated fresh eggs from grass-fed chickens. If you’ve never eaten eggs from free-range hens, you’re in for a treat. The butterscotch-colored yolk is darker than those of cage-raised chickens, and the eggs are more flavorful.

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Check out Country Chronicles’ recent blog discussing the types of eggs you can buy and their differences. It’s a good read – entertaining, insightful, and informative.

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Prepping for Chicks

There were a few things we needed to do before we could enjoy the egg-laying stage, of course.

Springs are chilly in western Washington, so first we had to keep the little fluff-balls warm. Our local farm store, Montesano Farm and Home, offers a one-day seminar on raising chickens at the end of this month, and Old Farmer’s Almanac offers step-by-step advice on choosing and caring for chicks and chickens. Check it out, if chickens are in your future.

While we waited for the chicks to grow and the weather to warm, my husband built a portable chicken coop. Each chicken needs at least three square feet of space inside a coop, according to the University of Georgia, plus lots of room outside to run around in. There are plenty of plans online, such as these from “Chickens and More.” You can even find ready-made chicken coops on Wayfair!

We also fenced in our blueberry patch, feeling that every animal needs plenty of space to run around in.

Summertime and Easy Living

Finally, the weather warmed, the rain stopped, and the chicks had their feathers. They could be introduced to their new, safe, outdoor environment.

They loved the fresh grass and the bugs they found. They were happy.

But, as so often happens, all did not remain happy. A friend visited our boys and, when his dad picked him up, his dog hopped out, too. We didn’t worry, because our chickens were safe behind a tall, sturdy fence.

You know what happened. I don’t even have to tell you…but… yes… we had chicken for dinner that night.

Somehow, however, three of the chickens survived. They went on to lay dozens of delicious eggs…often leaving them – not in the hen house – but in nests they created inside hollow stumps and underneath blackberry bushes. Hunting eggs became our past-time, at least until the cool, dark days of autumn and winter when egg production halted.

The ringleader of the flock, with the admittedly uncreative name of “Red,” became known for going “walk-about.” She would disappear for weeks at a time, only to return fat and happy, strutting like a rooster and clucking as loudly and vigorously as she could.

If that hen had had shoulders, they would have swaggered. Red had game…attitude, you could say. I imagined her telling her more domestic friends of the joys of the tall grass, beyond the relatively manicured blueberry patch.  

I admired Red, but I never liked her. She was bossy and, like my aunt’s chickens so long ago, pecked me.

So, now may be “the time to pick up chicks.” But me? I’m staying away from the farm store!

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