Little Ones

The girls are out, the coop is clean, and here come all the little fuzzy ones. The first batch of 100 meat chicks came in the May snowstorm, so we quickly built brooder boxes in our walk-out basement. The coop is not insulated, so it’s difficult to create an environment warm enough for the little fuzzies when the nights dip below freezing.

Baby chicks need to be kept about 80 degrees, which usually would happen by snuggling under their mother’s wings next to her warm side, but when hand raising chicks, this warmth is created by heat lamps.

Strapping refrigerator and stove boxes together with zip ties and shredding newspapers for soft bedding, by 2:00 am the day they’re scheduled to arrive, we’re ready. Steve and I take the winding drive into town as the fog lifts in the morning. The annual ritual of chicks arriving marks the start of the new season in our poultry world.

As the wind whistles off the north field, the 100 little meat chicks are snug in their inside brooders, but the peace doesn’t last long. These fast-growing birds begin to double and then triple in size, and within a week, they can’t stay in the box any longer.

The coop cleaning episode complete, new bedding is hauled inside and the space prepared for week-old chicks to move out of the house. Mom is certainly ready for the dust-makers to go! But the nights are still chilly enough that tending the chicks is a mix between turning on a mess of heat lamps and boarding off the edges and top of their space with card board at night, while turning off all the lamps, pulling off the cardboard, and running the fan during the day.

Spring can swing from the 30’s at night to the 80’s in the day, which makes its own set of challenges. First they’re chilly, crowding under the lights, then they’re hot, spreading out as far away as they can, panting. Too extreme in either direction, and they can perish, so it needs attention frequently throughout the day.

Meanwhile, back in the house, turkey poults are hatching from the incubators. I had collected two clutches of speckled eggs from our turkey ladies, and now those eggs were ready to burst open with new life. All wet and sticky, baby turkeys are especially fragile and prone to flipping over on to their backs, where they can’t breathe. So now I’m running back to the house nearly every hour to check on them, as well as getting up in the night.

And then, this morning, as I was tending to the turkeys, the post office called that my second round of chicks was ready to pick up! What? The first round came on Wednesday, and now it’s Tuesday. I’m not even set up! Yikes!

Steve had a meeting, so he was on the road. Mom opened up the shop and worked on breakfast, Kara and our apprentice Sam (who just arrived) went to pick up the chicks, while I busted through building a brooder in the coop. Shredding paper, hanging lights, washing feeders and waters, moving the cardboard ring from the two-week old chicks to the side for the new little ones.

I’m washing the last feeders and ready to fill the waterers with warm sugar water and electrolyte as Kara and Sam round the bend to the farm. With the perforated box of cheepers in toe, we’re ready to give them their new home. Kara and I climb into the pen while Sam hands us the chicks over the edge. We’re dipping beaks into the water, teaching the chicks to drink, and they’re eager to take in the sweet water after their long travels from the hatchery.And now the second brooder full of turkey eggs are hatching! It’s little ones everywhere as I run from taking lunch orders to checking the incubator to regulating the temperature in the brooder house. There’s fuzzy little ones everywhere! Looks like it’s probably time for me to make the round again. See you down on the farm sometime.