Chickens

It's that time of year when you drive past the farm supply store and they have the big banner out front that says "Chick days". There was a time when I would have lots and lots of baby chicks, or at least an incubator full of eggs at this time of the year. And after getting a "bargain" on eggs for $1.29 a dozen, maybe having chickens wouldn't be such a bad idea. If only I had somewhere to put them and they didnt smell! So anyway, growing up I had chickens. They were bantys actually, so they were miniature chickens and they laid miniature eggs. We could still eat them, but they definitely weren't the large variety. Quickster was my first, and probably over the years my favorite, chicken. I hatched Quickster in a little bity incubator in my room, she was the only one that actually hatched. And for the first six weeks of her life, she lived in my bedroom, at which time my mother declared her stinky and made her move outside with the rest of the chickens. Quickster defied the law that chickens are dumb. She was very smart. I could pat my arm and she'd land on it. If we were out in the yard and she got scared, she would jump on my shoulder and she knew that if a concrete block were turned up there was sure to be a big juicy worm underneath. She also knew to fly to the top of the pen one day when we were out in the yard and our dog, Peanut, decided she woudl be a tasty mid-afternoon snack. I couldn't hold it against Peanut, the poor dog would even attack a feather duster, but still to protect my little chicken, I tackled the dog. I was probably about 13 at the time, and the dog was about half my size....too big for me to pick up really, but when yelling for help from anyone for a few minutes didn't work, I lugged the dog to the porch, threw him in the house and took off to rescue Quickster. There was also one night when she was little that a opossum had been in the chicken house. The next morning I was scared because I couldn't find her. I couldnt find any feathers of her either though, and I found evidence of the ones the opossum had killed. After a while of looking around with Mom's help, we located her...above the door in a small nest of chicken wire....evidently she was smart enough to get out of the way of the opossum! I just thoguht I'd share my thoughts as I saw the chick sign the other day....too bad I can't have a chicken now!