Yes, I Love Fresh Farm Eggs
“Honey, remind me that I love fresh farm eggs.”
“Huh?” DJ looked up from doing diagnostics on our pickup, which ended up having to go to the shop.
I was bent over, maneuvering in the “chick pen”, trying to avoid the swathes of netting I had draped
over the top to discourage our growing kitten Rio from happy hunting. This spring, we’ve had batch after
batch of hens setting nests, hatching out chicks. When we find some with fresh babies, we’ve gathered
mama, nest, babies and still-hatching eggs into cages which we’ve then transferred to the versatile little
pen which we’ve used sometimes for dogs or goats.
I am not in a good mood. I had just introduced the hen which had been setting (forever, it seemed)
under the saddle racks in the barn. I had slipped some Americana (Easter Egger) eggs under her, in
addition to a few other varieties we wouldn’t mind to have a few more of. But after hatching out her
own four eggs, she abandoned the others to their fate. Just now, when I released her and her chicks
into the pen, already inhabited by another hen and multiple somewhat larger chicks, the mamas got into
a rooster-style fight, raising up and having at each other in the best of all-or-nothing boxing tradition. In
the past, multiple hens had often shared the pen with their babies with never an issue.
Thus, my efforts to gather one irate hen and eleven chicks ready to graduate to our electrified poultry-
netting pen.
So far, I’d managed to collect the mama and two babies. As I would circle the dog house shelter one
way, they would escape the other. Little Sara did her best to help, but chick-herding was not yet one of
her developed skills. Finally, I gave up and begged DJ for help. Again.