Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
It was Chicken Day.
I was up at six o'clock and anxiously awaiting a phone call from
my chicken mentor, Diana, who runs a small organic farm about 30 minutes away from
my home. The call soon came: 105 chicks had been delivered to my rural post offce,
waiting for pickup and their new homes.
Making my way through snowy roads, I pulled into the unplowed post offce parking
lot, retrieved the crate of chickens, and loaded them into my station wagon. They were
so loud!
You just can't know! Reaching Diana's house, I pulled around back as instruc-
ted and honked. She came out, all smiles, and we hauled the crate inside.
The basement of Diana's homestead is really more of a workshop. Seedlings under
lights, tools and feed sacks, a prep room for slaughter and plucking, and all of it mon-
itored by a fat gray cat named Agatha and a black setter cross named Angus. She set the
crate on a workbench in the furnace room where her chicks would reside. I was ridicu-
lously excited. I'd never watched anyone open a box of 105 baby
anythings
.
The lid came off and erupted in a cacophony of new-chick noise. I scanned for my
five black chicks in the sea of yellow roasters and brown layers. My chickens were a
Japanese breed called Silkie; they all have naturally black skin, bones, and muscle. I
wanted ones with black feathers, too. Silkies are categorized as “bantams,” which means
one-third smaller than a standard-size chicken. Finally I spotted them: the little Emilio
Gonzalezes of the chick world.
After hatching, a chick can live for up to three days of the nutrients of its birth egg.
Now, having survived two days without food or water, they were stressed, tired, and
thirsty. Chick by chick, Diana and I dipped each beak into one of the chick fountains
inside their wire and blanket home. Once the birds had been shown the way, they would
settle in by their canteens and drink whatever they needed. With the birds all set to go,
we heated up a water bottle, covered my babies up with a handkerchief, and I drove back
to my farm.
It was the beginning of a new life for all of us.
