Richard has run afowl. He's got a bad case of Chicken Fever and is enjoying every delirious moment of it. He sits cushed in his chair by the kitchen window, his face basking in the information flooding out from all the chicken sites he's accessing on his laptop. And he's lapping it all up: coop construction tips, placement and rotation of the pens, postings and podcasts from other chicken enthusiasts across the country, around the world, pros and cons of various breeds, color, plumage, laying ability, best meat birds, on and on and on. I'm a little envious. His delight is so pure, he's so happy. "Listen to this, honey!" and he launches gaily (yes, gaily) into every twist and turn of his new learning giving me no choice but to be as excited as he is by these new worlds opening up in front of him. Since I have a touch of the doldrums when it comes to passion about anything right now, there's a perverse itch to dampen his spirits, to be a voice for the "practical" side, to question whether he's giving too much attention to this frivolous poultry pursuit when he should be focusing on more "important things" like making money. But, trying hard not to scratch that itch to squelch his fun, I bite my tongue, nod and give support, listen (what a concept!), and say things like "Good for you, babe" which almost sound convincing. So I'm accepting the inevitable and am debating whether or not to change my URL address to 4 cats, 2 guys, and 25 chickens of various breeds which will be arriving on or about March 16th followed by 10 Narragansett Heritage turkeys scheduled for mid-May.
Richard's in the thick of preparations for the chick's arrival. He's set up a brooding area down in our cellar near the furnace. It's a little cold down there, but it beats the mud room/entrance area where his chicks were raised last year (yes, there's a history of chicken arrivals and more of that anon.) He has constructed a 3' by 4' wooden holding area, resting on top of an old table and surrounded by long strips of heavy plastic which attach to the old beams above and stretch to the floor below. There will be a top screen cover to protect the chicks from curious critters and to keep them from getting out once they've grown a bit. 2 good-sized heat lamps will be mounted above to warm them especially in the first crucial days when they're very small and vulnerable. The heat/cold level will have to be monitored. If it seems to chilly or they start dropping dead we'll have to move them up to a warmer, more forgiving climate, namely a shelf in our laundry room on the main floor. We live in a small Cape Cod house, built in 1832, and space is compact. We also have 4 cats (see blog address, no duh) who are antsy about being cooped up all winter and will be very interested in any bird action that might be going on inside. All of them -- Astrid, Oliver, Delilah, and Sofia - spend hours glued to the kitchen windows, gazing out to the bird feeders a few feet from the house, their jaws vibrating up and down with a feral clickity-click. They were beside themselves last year when the first shipment arrived and had to be shewed away constantly.
Richard sort of tricked me with last year's chick order. He'd been talking about it, running it past me as he does with any possible change to our place, but I didn't know that these conversations about possibility had turned to hard reality until the order showed up and the chicks were there, alive and chirping, with Richard looking up at me with his glowing smile. Any protest quickly caved and, despite my best efforts, I was won over. They were adorable, damn them! He'd split an order of Guinea keats ("chicks" for you uninitiated) with a friend, leaving 15 for Richard - in our "conversation" he'd waxed rhapsodic about their tick eating ability, a big plus. His bliss at raising the guineas became so great that he began buying a few Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rock chicks from Agway across the Connecticut River in New Hampshire. Every day the flock would grow and I never even entertained the idea that he might be taking advantage of my caving objections. No, never.
Okay, a quick summation of what happened last year and what we learned. The chicks arrived in late May or June and just got to laying age by October when we had to batten the hatches for winter and ship them down the road to our neighbors who have more insulated, winterized coopage. (Lesson: This year an earlier chick delivery to allow for maturing and egg laying by September.) Richard designed and built a cute little chicken coop last season that will be expanded this year with a fenced in area surrounding it. (Lesson: We were rather naive regarding protection for both our chickens and our garden last year. Either a fox or a raccoon got a couple hens and deer, along with the chickens, decimated parts of our unfenced garden. This year a fence around both with a 12 inch buried section to discourage burrowing intruders.) The guinea hens became a bit of a nuisance for our taste (well, MY taste, actually). Though they were comical in a "pick-a-little, talk-a-little" fashion and looked like slightly ugly matrons out in their Easter finery, they tended to squawk hysterically and shit prodigiously, especially around the main entrances to our home. They passed on this trick to the Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks. (Lesson: No more guineas. We gave them to friends at the end of the season last year. This year Richard has ordered brand new varieties of chickens and roosters. Also, we'll have turkeys which will have a separate coop and movable grazing areas in the orchard. As to the issue of chickens defecating on our front porch, we're contemplating cork butt stoppers but are open to any and all suggestions.)
As to my own personal lessons, I'm continuing to learn giving over, giving in, going with the flow. I question anytime a decisive, knee jerk NO comes up inside me. I don't trust it; something's going on, something's up. That "NO" response came up years ago when the idea of first having a cat came up in discussion and now I'm a doting, cat-loving idiot. It came up with chickens last year and I stepped through it, with a little bit of shit on my shoe every once and awhile. This year Richard and I have set boundaries: it's his project, he's paying for it, but I look forward to helping him build the coops and pens and aid in the upkeep and any other tasks he may ask me to do. We'll see.
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