Years ago, when Gig was just a baby, I aspired to be a published writer. I took a correspondence writing course which paired me with a published writer. Had I only been wise enough (and not quite so tired from being a new mom), I might have done a better job (read that as “made something out of it”). But I didn’t.
I did however write the following short story which received some of the highest acclaim ever from the real author, “reminiscent of Erma Bombeck”. No greater fame needed than that.
I hope you enjoy “Mail Order Chickens”. (H.R. – thinking of you.)
White Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds, SR250s or Ornamental Japanese Silkies are just a few of the breeds of chickens available through mail order. Our first stock came from Sears-Roebuck. They arrived in a carton a bit larger than a shoe-box with a cup stapled inside to the bottom which contained feed. It was marked, “Deliver Immediately, Live Animals”. The postman delivered the package directly to our door. The highly recommended hybrid SR250 layers had arrived and we were in the chicken business.
It’s an interesting situation to be the proud owner of twenty-five 98%-guaranteed-pullet chickens. Especially when you don’t know anything about chickens except that they come in a bag, cheaper in pieces, from the local grocer. Once you get over the embarrassment of asking, “What’s a pullet?”, you then have to figure out how you are suppose to tell if you really did get a pullet and not a cock without looking like a fool.
Forget it. Fools are made for the chicken industry.
You see, pullets are female chickens; cocks are male chickens, Pullets lay eggs; cocks grow up to be roosters. What nobody tells you is that only the best chicken breeders can really tell what gender a chicken is at an early age (and they usually guess). They just don’t have ‘obvious details’ to let you know. You could spend hours holding their little bodies upside down looking for the answer. You just have to let your 98%-guaranteed-pullets grow up before you are sure you didn’t get taken, and by then, and tons of chicken poop and chicken feed later, you really don’t care. At least you don’t care unless you got a bunch of really mean roosters instead of the pullets!
Chicks are adorable. They are cute and fuzzy. They make little tiny peeping noises. They don’t eat much. You can keep them inside the house in a warm box, usually with a light bulb close by to keep them warm. They are funny to watch because they pile on top of each other to sleep and keep warm. Chicks don’t seem to realize that when they step in water and get wet all over that they look like drowned rats or that the squishy stuff they stepped in is not a good thing.
But chicks grow pretty quickly. Suddenly, you have to have a bigger box and a larger light for them. You don’t want them living in your spare room anymore. They begin to stay up nights peeping and cheeping and making scratching noises. They get dirty and they smell.
My husband decided to build the third or fourth bigger box, a breeder, for the growing chicks. It was made of 1×4 lumber, had a little top that could be set aside for feeding, yet provided protection from the growing chicks’ pecks. He used rope to line the edge – like a wrestling ring with a roof. We thought we were doing well. Then we noticed that the dog would spend hours outside sitting below the box, listening to the scratching, watching intently. One day, as we watched, a large chick jumped up to the roped portion, lost his balance and fell over the edge. The dog caught it in one gulp and the chick was gone in a swallow!
We purchased a bigger and better, fully enclosed breeder. We bought water troughs and feeding troughs. We bought medicine to keep them well. We bought replacements for the lost ones.
It takes about a year for laying hens to mature to lay eggs. We built a chicken coop, complete with private cubby holes for sitting and laying. Even after they are of laying age, chickens don’t work in hot weather. Finally, the following fall, the chickens began to lay. It’s exciting to gather eggs; children love the challenge. It is a game, really. Chickens lay the eggs; you then spend the majority of your day hunting where the chickens laid the eggs [aka free-range chickens].
That’s where the roosters, the 2% non-pullet-guaranteed, come in. Roosters have a union agreement against egg gatherers: peck, chase, beat with your wings or just plain try to scare the daylights out of the gatherer. The object is to see how many eggs the gatherer breaks in his attempts to avoid destruction by the roosters.
Ultimately, the gatherer does get back to the base – I mean – house. That’s when he finds the latest arrival marked, “Deliver Immediately, Live Animals”.
Thanks, Tom Bethancourt, for reading my story so long ago and paying such a high, sweet compliment.
