What I have learned this week(so far)

1. Some people are a little freaked out that most of the adorable little chicks will be in my freezer in 10 weeks.
2. There really is a pecking order and it is fascinating to watch it get established.
3. Chicks sleep in all different ways, but none standing up.  The most popular position seems to be flat out with beak in the shavings, but some sleep on their sides, legs sticking out and everything.
4. I can not imagine what life must be like for a meat chicken in a mass production chicken farm, especially their early days of life.  I do not think it could be easy.
5. I have really begun to embrace the idea of knowing where my food comes from.
6. I look at leftovers in an entirely different light.  We have always been good about eating leftovers, but the thought of throwing meat away that an animal's life was taken for seems even more wasteful than I had ever thought before.
7. Hens must be exhausted caring for chicks.  They eat, drink and sleep in a cycle of about 45 minutes, I don't know how they can keep up.

Shhh, baby chick sleeping.

A chick story... in the beginning

The email came Sunday morning from McMurray Hatchery... our chicks had hatched and were on the way!

PC(my 9 year old who is now referred to as Pappa Chick) was ready for the call.

At 6:11am the phone rang.

It was Betsy from the Post Office... "you have a lively bunch of chicks here."

I could hear the peeps on the other end.

I ran into PC's room, he jumped out of bed, eyes still closed.

he threw on his clothes ran down stars and hopped in the car.

We are only a couple miles from the Post Office.  We made it

there and back home by 6:28am.

PC went  to school late so he could help get them drinking water and eating.  We also took some time to name and identify our exotic chick Perry, the Silver Polish, who sometimes is referred to as a Silver Irish by PC because he gets mixed up as PC is both a little Irish and Polish.

The Chicks are in da house(well actually the garage)

Here they are...

24 meat birds and Perry.

One of the meat birds perished on the trip.

Perry is the free exotic chick.

We think Perry is a Silver Polish.

See if you can find him...(he kind of sticks out)

and is the only one with a name(since we don't name the ones who will

be going to Camp Deep Freezer) though we don't know if Perry is a he or a she.
I thought maybe the name "Pat" would be good, but my son didn't get it

and never watched Saturday Night Live.

They are fun and fascinating to watch and they

will live a fabulous life here prior to departing for

Camp Deep Freezer.

More to come...

How an egg gets fertilized ~ according to my 9 year old

We made it through the crazy storms that ripped through

Massachusetts yesterday.

I am a Central Mass girl, born and raised.  So scary to see so many communities hit and not knowing if friends or relatives were in the path. 

I don't know how you mid-western chicks do it...nerves of steel must be.

Anywho, we are sitting on pins and needles waiting for our first batch of chicks to arrive in the next 5-8 days.  My 9 year old and I had a conversation.

He thinks we need a rooster.

I explained that they are loud, can be mean and aggressive and we will order our chicks rather than hatch them.

He explained that we can save money if we have a rooster fertilize the eggs, those were pretty much his exact words. 

Curious to see how much he understood about animal husbandry, I asked him how the rooster fertilizes an egg.

He piped right up and said, "the rooster poops on the egg."

I was not sure how to interpret this so I dove a little deeper, he was more than willing to explain further, he "figured it out" as he explained to me.

He said that rather than use the rooster poop just to "fertilize the garden", we could use some of that good poop to "fertilize the eggs too".

Kind of reminds me of when my oldest thought he could nurse his brother when he was a baby after he drank a glass of milk.

Good times and a little thankful for the little bit of innocence my 9 year old still has.  It will be gone all too soon.

Curse you Blogger!

For the past few weeks I have been having all kinds of problems with blogger.  There are blogs I can comment on and then blogs that I can't.  I have also been told that people have tried to comment on my blog but for some reason they can't.  Blogger says they are working on it...have been working on it for weeks. 

In the words of Fantastic Mr. Fox... the cuss you are! 

Blogger, let's git 'er done and git it fixed!