Picking Up Chicks

I have a confession to make.

As much as we try to mimic the processes of nature in our approach to farming - providing our animals with suitable habitats, moving them around regularly to imitate migration, promoting herd immunity, and so on - there is one area where we fall short every year: the layer flock.

Our goal is to create a self-replenishing egg layer flock that is well-suited toward our environment. For three straight years, we’ve run into different hurdles to that goal, and had to start over with a new plan in mind (this year’s involves a great bit run with full side and aerial coverage to guard against both hawks and raccoons). Which has meant a very unnatural decision: Having day old chicks delivered to the North Country in January.

This year, they arrived in the middle of a freezing rain event that closed schools and businesses throughout the region. 48, two day old, Novogen Browns, providing an impromptu concert for the local post office.

This is not quite the weather conditions that brings about hatchlings in nature. There’s a reason everybody’s heard of a spring chicken, but no mention is ever made of a winter chicken.

Some day, we’ll hit the right combination and the flock will become self-perpetuating. I hope that’s this year. We’re always trying to get a little closer to imitating nature.

Still, there’s a bright side to ordering chicks in January. It will be a while yet before the local growers start their seeds. We’re a few months away from calving, lambing, and kidding seasons. The trees are bare and everything is covered in a blanket of ice and snow. But tucked in a corner of the farm, under a couple of heat lamps, is the softly chirping sound of new life, and the promise of new life to come.