Published: April 29, 2009 08:42 am      

Learning the ropes of baby chick raising

On Saturday, I found out that I am going to be a mother. Well, to 25 baby chicks. After seven years of waiting, I am finally going to raise chickens. If you had been at my house over the weekend, you would have thought I won the lottery. I haven’t been that happy in a long time.

I ordered my chicks from the Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City. Since I wanted good, egg-laying hens, I purchased pearl-white leghorns. When my chicks reach maturity, they will weigh about 4 pounds.

And to my surprise, they will start laying at 41⁄2 to 5 months old. Each chick will be vaccinated for Marek’s Disease and Coccidiosis before she comes home.

The operator, who I spoke with, was quite the saleswoman. I swear she could sell a car to a blind man. She said, “You will be surprised what these little girls will do for you. You won’t believe the size of the eggs they will lay. You better get your customers together now.” There is a lot of truth in what she said. If all my baby chicks live to maturity and each chicken lays one egg a day, that’s 175 eggs a week. That’s a lot of scrambled eggs, egg salad sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, omelets…

The more I looked through my chicken catalog, the more I became a kid in a candy store. Besides the chickens, I also purchased a starter-kit brooder, which consists of two, quart waterers; two, 1-pound chick feeders; one brooder guard; and one single bulb brooder complete with infrared bulb and brooder thermometer for keeping the correct temperature. I thought this would be a good investment so I don’t end up with 25 cornish hens waiting for me some morning.

My baby chicks will be delivered to my local post office. Boy, won’t they be in for a real surprise. I am sure my dog will be too. She has been an only child for 10 years.

I am not quite sure how she will react since she is a little skittish around other dogs. She probably won’t know what to think when she sees a box full of little cheeping yellow puffs.

My chicks will get to live in what I call a “chicken condo.” A friend and co-worker from the Clinton Herald, Paul, is going to build their 8-by-12 home. Paul has painstakingly drawn a plan and donated lumber and materials for the project. It’s great to have handy friends. Needless to say, he can have free eggs anytime.

A friend of mine and former Clinton Herald sports editor, Ted Schultz, has already put in an advance order for when he comes back to visit. I am really going to have fun with this venture.

I purchased a book, “Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens,” to educate myself on care and feeding. So far, the book has been very helpful. I learned that a healthy hen should lay for a good 10 to 12 years. I would have never guessed that. So, financially I think I made a very good investment.

Chickens are not completely foreign to me. I did see them growing up. Even though I lived in town until I was in eighth grade, I was constantly at my grandparents’ farm. My grandparents probably wondered where in the world this wacky blonde-headed child came from who liked to ride in the tractor, feed the hogs and cattle and just wanted to get really dirty.

I still like getting dirty in the garden; I am usually covered with my sandy soil from head to toe. It’s too bad I never had kids. A mother who likes to get dirty — priceless. I even had a pair of coveralls as a kid, which I wore with pride. I loved everything about farming.

As a youngster, I helped my grandmother clean their eggs. My grandparents had a lot of chickens — more than I could ever handle. I have to say, if my grandma was still living I think she would have gotten the biggest kick out of my chicken venture.



Angie Bicker is the lifestyles editor with the Clinton Herald. She has been with the Herald since 2001.