Letters From a Silverware Thief

‘Tis the season for chicks. That means early morning runs down to the post office to pick up a box of peeping fuzz-balls that the mail ladies are eager to unload.

This year I was actually prepared. When you place an order for chicks the company tells you the week they will arrive so it’s not like their coming is a surprise . . . yet somehow it seems every year I am running around the morning they arrive, trying to get the pen set up, and supplies gathered. So mark it on the calendar. This is one year I got everything ready ahead of time.

This year we got new layers and meat chickens. In more technical terms that means I ordered Araucana hens (chicks) from Murray McMurray and Cornish Giants (chicks) from Moyer’s Chicks. The idea was to have them both arrive at the same time, but I couldn’t get the two companies to deliver the same week, so the Cornish Giant chicks came the middle of May, and the Araucana’s came at the very end of May.

The Cornish Giants are amazing examples of selective breeding. They have been bred to put on weight at an astounding rate. These birds are truly bred to gain weight, and will reach ideal weight in 6-8 weeks (depending on the weight of bird you want). Compared to “normal” chickens this is a staggering gain in mass. They practically grow before your very eyes.

I only have one pen for holding chicks while they must stay under heat lamps, which is why I wanted both batches of chicks to arrive at the same time. Instead, this week I was faced with the dubious proposition of putting the little balls of Araucana fuzz in with the now two-week-old and already very large Cornish Giants. Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t mix chicks in this way, for a number of reasons, foremost that they might not get along. In other years I had mixed chicks and ducklings (another no-no) with mixed success. Nobody got sick, and they go along okay, (some squabbles, the worst being when the ducks wanted to eat chick toes,) but in spite of being a great multi-cultural experience the situation was less then ideal. So it was with some hesitation that I mixed the two batches of chicks.

I have been letting the Cornish Giants out into the regular chicken yard during the day, so it was only in the evening when I brought them back in that they got to meet their new friends. I find chickens an endless source of amusement, and this was another one of those occasions. Chickens are very sensitive and aware about territory. They have their “territory” that they roam during the day, and they have various “safe” places, in particular the place they go to bed at night. Invasion and alteration of such things can be very upsetting. Soon as I put the first Cornish Giant back in the pen the Araucanas and the Cornish Giants realized there was someone else in their home.

There was the simultaneous reaction of “Whoa! Who is the weirdo over there! And what is he doing in my home?” The Cornish Giants stood and peered, vaguely freaked out by the home invasion. The smaller (tiny in comparison) Araucanas crowded in a corner, frightened.

The Cornish Giants were practical. After a short observation they decided, “Weirdos are not hostile,” and so went over to the feed dishes and started to stuff themselves without another thought. Life is simple, don’t you know. The Araucanas weren’t so sure about the whole deal but a few were preternaturally brave and so came out to mix with the giants, somehow managing to avoid being trampled (in two weeks’ time the Cornish Giants were already 6 to 8 times larger).

Once the initial fear was overcome, the next question on everyone’s mind was whether the other group of chicks were actually something good to eat. If something isn’t an enemy, it might be something to eat. Such is chicken reasoning. I knew this was the next step, and this was what concerned me. If everyone could agree they weren’t enemies, and nobody was good to eat, everyone would be okay. The bigger Cornish Giants were the real concern, but after pecking at what seemed a few tasty looking spots on the smaller Araucanas they decided they weren’t edible, and in fact they were downright boring, and so the Cornish Giants took to ignoring the smaller chicks.

Most of the Araucanas remained somewhat intimidated by their larger brethren and so were satisfied with the same conclusion. However, there were a few exceptionally brave and curious Araucana chicks who would get right in the middle of the Cornish Giants, doing the equivalent of saying, “Watcha doin’? Is that good? Can I have some? What’s so interesting?” while the Cornish Giants stuffed their face.

Then when everyone was settling down for bed, a few Araucana chicks became fascinated with the Cornish Giants’ eyelids. Up-down, up-down, went the Cornish Giant’s eyelids as he lazily drifted toward sleep. “Hey, look at that,” an Araucana would say. “That little moving thing looks like a tasty bug. I wonder if I could eat it.” Up-down, goes the eye-lid, and chomp goes the little chick, biting the tender lip of the tasty looking eye-lid. “Ow!” Says the Cornish Giant, dragged back from the edge of blissful sleep.

The peck-the-lid-because-it-might-be-tasty incident happened over and over again. The little chicks didn’t seem to understand the blinking morsel wasn’t actually something to eat, and the lazy big chicks seemed incapable of realizing that when a little chick was staring intently at your eyelid and salivating it wasn’t a good idea to keep blinking lazily at him/her.

It’s been several days now, and it seems they’ve finally outgrown their “peck-the-eyelid” habits and everyone is getting along pretty good, though space is getting cramped.

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All chickens are very communal, but chicks especially so. This is demonstrated at night when they all sprawl out together under the warmth of the heat lamp. They look very cute when they do this, often stretching out their necks to rest a head across the back of the nearest companion like a nice comfortable pillow. They look like the pictures of peace, comfort, and exhaustion. But before such a picture becomes too idealized, one of the chicks stands up and says, “Boy, I need a drink,” or, “Gee, I could use a late night snack,” and so trots across all his dozing neighbors without so much as a “Coming through” as he heads off in search of a bite to eat. What follows is some version of “Roll Over” as several chicks squawk at having their heads stepped on and get up, only to step on someone else. Once everyone finally gets settled down again someone else decides they need to get up for a late night drink and the whole process starts over again. I sit watching them sometimes, and wonder how anyone gets a decent night’s sleep.