Sometimes They Live

Thirty-one weeks into Operation Peep Show, and it’s been quite an enlightening experience.

I decided to add chickens to our urban farm after a lot of thought and research. I do a lot of baking and use a lot of eggs, and I also care about the people I bake for and want to use the best ingredients whenever possible. Adding eggs from my own chickens would give me the hands-on knowledge that another one of my ingredients would be healthy and locally sourced. How much more local can you get than your own backyard?

But I am also a pragmatist, a worry-wart who analyzes everything and compares it to the comprehensive list of pros and cons that I have created prior to any project. So, for several months I read every book, blog post and Internet article I could find about chickens to make sure that I would be giving my chickens a fair shot at life. Would they be safe in our neighborhood? Would they thrive in a small yard? Would our dog be a chicken-killer? And on and on she goes ….

I studied the lists of chicken diseases and possible causes for fatalities in chicks, and came across a statistic that stuck in my mind. About half of all chicks hatched in factory setting will die due to disease, mishandling or poor husbandry. That seemed logical. I have been to the co-op before on “Chick Days” and seen the number of chickens leaving that one store, and there aren’t that many roaming the streets, so it must be right. Pasty butt, scissor beak, spraddle leg, dehydration and coccidiosis all seemed to be lurking ready to pounce on any unsuspecting chick. But, what the books and articles fail to tell you is: Sometimes they live.

Armed with my preconceived notion that half my chicks would die, I set about building a coop for three chickens and then purchasing six. Meaning: Hubby built me a coop and I fawned over chicks at the co-op before bringing six home in the poultry equivalent of a happy-meal box. They were precious, and they were mine.