Success!

About a month ago I went in to order some meat chickens.  I ordered forty birds.  I had tried to raise twenty of these birds in the past and failed miserably, only ending up with about ten birds.  Obviously the only thing that made sense was to go bigger.  Then, I ended up with enough money to order fifty birds!  Fifty is bigger and better than forty, in case you don’t math.  I proudly went in to the feed store and said. “Hello, my name is Snarky, and I have an order of forty meat chickens due in a couple of weeks.  I have decided that I am not only a fancy farmer but also practically a professional.  I have been watching lots  of Youtube videos and reading all of the best books, so I think fifty birds would make a lot more sense.  Because fifty is a big fancy number.  Also I am now a professional.  And probably really impressing you right now.”

“Um, okaaaaaaay…” the nice lady at the counter said.  Then I stood there looking very cool while she called the chick hatching company.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she got off the phone.  “they are sold out for that date.  You will get your forty birds, but they don’t have any more to send you.”

“But…” I started to panic “did you tell them I’m now a professional?  Did you tell them about how cool I am looking right now in my boots?  Did you tell them GOD GAVE ME THE MONEY?!  It is actual money that God provided and I do not think you should turn that down!”

“Sorry,” the nice lady said “there’s really nothing I can do.  They still had chicks available Friday.  Too bad you didn’t come in on Friday.”

I was a tiny bit devastated.  I had almost gone in on Friday, but then I remembered that I would have to talk to actual people and didn’t really feel up to that.  I didn’t realize that successful farming required being so extroverted.

Last week the chicks arrived.  There were forty of them, just like I had ordered, even though I was kind of expecting the nice lady at the feed store to call me and say “They accidentally sent you ten extra chickens.  I hope you don’t mind.”

They didn’t send extra chickens.  Sometimes life just sucks that way.  I got over it by blasting 80’s music the entire drive home.  The new chicks really enjoyed it because apparently they have good taste.

When I got home I put the chicks in their new home.  This was a whole new area that I had set up for them in the hopes of having a greater than fifty percent success rate.  It is a twelve foot by four foot dog kennel (so that they have plenty of room), lined with chicken wire (to keep them in), filled with fresh grassy hay (to keep them warm and dry), and in the garage (close to the house to keep predators out).  They had two warm heat lamps, even though it’s August, to keep them as warm as they want to be and several different food and water containers so that they don’t crowd or crush each other.  I tried one large water container first, but the first five chicks I released into the area immediately tried to drown themselves in it.

I even mixed up a special brew of something called Magic Water that I learned from watching the Super Amazing Youtube Family.  It’s supposed to keep all of your chicks alive and it has the word “magic” in it so you know it works.  (To access the recipe for Magic Water, click here)

Then I shut the chicks in their new home and stood back.  Forty chicks.  Forty happy chicks.  I was ten chicks short of perfection.  This was going to be good.

That night, before I went to bed, I checked on the chicks.  We had one loss.  It was one that arrived weak, so I wasn’t too disappointed, but there was a part of me that thought here we go, let the dying begin.

As I was checking on them, the super hungry barn cat joined me.  This cat’s name is The Black Knight because he’s black and an amazing hunter.  Also a boy named him.  He will take down anything from a groundhog to a song bird.  He is the reason the new chick home also has a roof on it.

He also surprised us a few weeks earlier by giving birth to a litter of kittens.

I watched Black Knight staring at the chicks.  “Good luck cause those are NOT for you.” I said.

Then I went to bed.

The next morning, my first chore was to check on my new chicks.  I walked into the garage and looked in their cage to find.. thirty chicks.  Also, Black Knight was giving me a super annoyed look.

“You didn’t!” I screamed

Then I looked around.  There were chicks all over the garage.  Living, peeping, stupid chicks.  Chicks with a death wish.  I rounded up those nine chicks and put them back in their home, only to watch six more walk right through the wall!

They were supernatural chicks!!!

Actually, it turns out that while adult meat chickens are ginormous and disgusting, their cute tiny babies are exceptionally tiny.  Tiny enough to walk right through the holes in chicken wire.  The Black Knight looked at me and said “Honey, if you’re going to want me to not eat these chicks, you’re going to have to take them off the buffet table.”

Just kidding.  Cats don’t actually talk.

But she had a point.  I had gotten lucky.  I spent the rest of the next few days capturing loose chicks and reinforcing their home.

So now I have had those chicks for a whole week, and guess how many I have left.

Did you guess thirty?  Nope.  Did you guess twenty?  Your knowledge of my history with meat chickens and math skills are impressive, but you are wrong.  Thirty nine!

I have THIRTY NINE chicks left!  I think I might be an actual farmer after all!

I’m so proud of myself that I was actually thinking about ordering FIFTY MORE chicks to raise once these go out on pasture.  I told The Pastor.

“What are you going to do with all those chickens?” he asked.

“We’ll eat them!” I announced, proudly.

“That would be almost ninety birds.  NINETY!  We do not eat that much chicken in a year.”

“I could sell some!  Like actual income from my craziness!” I announced, even more proudly.

“Selling things requires actually talking to actual live people, and we are not going to eat ninety chickens in one year.” he reminded me.

He has a point.  Oh wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to communicate, buy and sell things to people all over the world without leaving the comfort of your own living room?

Oh well.

Now I just need to figure out how to hide fifty extra chickens from The Pastor.