Tag Archives: baby chicks

A New Year

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Our limbs may be cold this morning but spring still beats in the heart.

December has been mild, though this morning is the coldest at 25 degrees before sunrise. The now annual too soon bud swell has begun with the plum and peach trees threatening an early bloom disaster. Seed catalogs are stuffed in the mailbox each day and in another few weeks we will begin to disc the pastures and sow with rye and clover for an early start to the grazing season.

Meanwhile the cattle and sheep are eating last year’s forage in the form of square and round bales of hay. Each morning and evening we bring a half square bale to the sheep and every few days a round bale to the cattle. The bees are being fed sugar water to avoid starvation. And we are still getting greens and turnips from the garden, where the garlic and onions for next year are thriving.

So, even though winter is now only nine days old our thoughts are on its end game. New lambs, baby chicks and ducks, gardening, pastures, orchards and grapes, it all begins again in just another 8-10 weeks. Between that new season and today we have cattle and hogs to get to market, orchards to be pruned, seed to be started and a few freezes to be endured.

But for now our old year is limping out the door, battered by unexpected freak weather and the usual predations by our species. Let us raise a glass and pledge to treat the New Year a bit better. I pledge to plant a garden, drive less, recycle more and learn a new skill, save some seed, visit with neighbors (including those I don’t particularly like), write letters (email counts, texting doesn’t) and be a good steward to this patch of land we call home.

Happy New Year!

Hatching chicks: not the Hollywood ending

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Looking through the fogged window, I spy a single eye peering back. Surrounded by shell, the hatchling has managed, just, to break out a dime-size portal into the outside world. The eye swivels as the chick gathers strength to peck at its shell. For 21 days, the shell has provided nourishment, protection and room. Now, an overcrowded, solitary chamber limits movement and life.

Eleven baby chicks are already hatched and under the brooder. One moves with more energy and peeps with enthusiasm. Waking from a brief sleep, I come downstairs to find it stretched out oddly, unmoving, beneath the heat lamp—the measure between life and death recorded in a 30-minute Sunday afternoon nap.

The eye still swivels as the chick peeps loudly from its confines, answered by four others in shells slightly cracked. Eleven empty shells in pieces mock their pipping sounds and efforts. Experience has given us knowledge that a chick aided in shedding its shell almost always dies. Nature provides this last hurdle to birth: Batter your way out of your fragile shell and you get a chance at life. Fail and the sounds fade away, and die out.

Forty-eight hours of fighting the confining shell, the peeping is still strong but growing less frequent.

Monday morning, six o’clock, I grab a plastic Kroger bag. Removing the cover to the incubator, I place the cracked eggs inside. Some emit peeps at the change. Swiftly I walk through the morning dew to the pond. How do you kill baby chicks that have not hatched, and won’t?
Not dwelling on the task, I reach in and toss them one at a time into the pond. They bob, fill with water and sink beneath the surface.

Later that day, the peeping of baby starlings breaks my focus at work. Later that night, a bird’s chirping turns out to be a bathroom fan in need of oil. I recite under my breath, “I admit the deed, tear up the planks. Here is the beating of that hideous heart.”