Chicks have Arrived!

The chicks have arrived, and so begins my small-time poultry enterprise! Forty chirping, day-old, chicks arrived at Echo Valley Nursery in Auburn on Thursday morning. For our first flock we chose a Cornish cross, a fast growing bird used by 98% percent of the poultry industry. They are ridiculously efficient feed converters, putting on a pound of weight per pound of feed. These birds will reach slaughter weight in 7 weeks, while most other chickens take 12-15 weeks to reach the same weight. You can see why large poultry operations choose to raise such birds--they are cheap! We have come to learn, however, that these birds may be very lazy grazers because they prefer the readily available feed to searching for bugs and seed in the grass. These birds will be a great barometer for our future flocks, which will most likely be a heritage breed well adapted to life on the range. I'll keep you posted on how our birds do.

Because I had work all day, Heather picked them up on her way home from her Roseville practice. Unfortunately, by the time I got to Green Acres one of the chicks had died for unknown reasons. Apparently the chick was on its way out before Heather got to Echo Valley because they only charged us for 39 chicks. While we should expect a few losses in the first week, it was still hard for this perfectionist to accept a loss before the enterprise even began.

There is one universal truth that homesteaders must come to terms with early on: Anything that can go wrong, will. Heather has a sign hanging on the shed outside the barn that says, "Some goats die". I see it whenever I drive up to do farm chores and now its finally hit home; some chicks die too. Admittedly, the loss of one day-old chick is a much easier loss to swallow than, say, losing Charlotte to a predator or sickness.

Thankfully, when a life is lost another is born. Soon we should have a clutch of eggs hatched by one of Heather's broody hens. This hen has been craving motherhood for quite a while, so Heather got a clutch of fertile eggs from a friend to give to the feathered mama. Little "Rosie" (that's what I've taken to calling her because of her beautiful redish-gold plumage) has dutifully sat on the eggs for nearly 2 weeks. Hopefully she will succeed and have a fine bunch of chicks to care for. I'm crossing my fingers for a clutch with a high percentage of girls...roosters are of no use to us right now. Sorry boys.