Learning Curve

Nine PM, saturday night, I received a call from the Waterbury Post Office: there was a box of chicks there with my name on it. The birds weren't supposed to arrive until tuesday morning, but that point was moot. They were here, whether I was ready or not. I was not.

That first night, with the heat lamps and pen in the barn yet unassembled, the chicks came into the house with me. I settled on two plastic clothes hampers for temporary quarters, under a reading lamp appropriated for what heat it could give. I cranked the thermometer up to around 75, unbearable for me, but not even warm enough for the infant birds. It was past ten by the time I was ready to open the chirping box and see the fluffy cargo.

Inside, crowded together, were 101 day old chicks of various colors, representing perhaps half a dozen brown-egg laying breeds. There were Rhode Island Reds, Black Australorps, and breeds I won't be able to identify till they're older. All were equally cute.

It's almost impossible to avoid hyperbole when describing the cuteness of a baby chick. They are built as if with the specific intent to tug on the heart strings, so small, so innocent, so...cute. Few other words fit so perfectly. They trundle around, peeping, taking tentative steps, preening their downy fuzz. As I gently transfered the chicks from the cardboard box to the hampers, it was as if I was dipping my hands into huddled life itself, coming up with soft handfuls of sweetness and light. It was tough to not melt right away.

I'll interject to say the birds, despite being shipped across country from Iowa in a cardboard box, in late February, arrived in good health. I'll give due credit to the McMurray Hatchery for fine chicks (though I'd no basis for comparison) and an expertise that brought the birds swiftly and safely to me. I'll use them again.

After a night of constant chirping that no doubt drove Blitz crazy, I woke early to set up a more permenant home for the chicks in a barn stall that I'd begun to turn into a brooder room. I'd read extensively about just how to keep the newborns, about the temperature needed, about food, water, space, and about just how fragile the little chickens were, vulnerable to drafts and dampness of any sort. I'd read that keeping them close was fine for the first few days, better than having them spread out over a larger area, and so I hung the heat lamps over a large rubber trough, which I'd bottomed with layers of hay and pine shavings. I filled a tray with feed, and placed the waterer in the center, and after a few hours of leaving the heat lamps on, I used a thermometer to make sure the temperature was right for the birds. I moved the birds first back into their traveling box, then down into the barn, and slowly placed them into their new home, taking time to dip their beaks into the food and water, so they knew where it was. They were a little crowded when they all were unloaded, but they seemed warm, and were finding their food fine. They seemed perfectly ok, and I checked in on them constantly through the day and into the evening.

This should be a fluff piece about getting chicks for the farm, about how cute they are, about how having birds is great. But this post isn't about that. It's about how the next morning, I came out to the barn and found 18 of the chicks dead, crowded into their waterer, and once wet, unable to make it through the night. 18 was a lot, and as I slowly gathered them from out of the water trough, one by one, the count seemed to never end. Wet, limp, they seemed even more frail, even more slight than they did when they were fluffy and alive. Two other chicks seemed destined to die, weak, damp, listless. I left them in with their sisters, and hoped for the best.

The chicks died because I didn't know what I was doing. The space I'd provided the chicks was not enough for them, and now, in hindsight, that's very clear. In the grand scheme of things, 18 dead chicks out of 101 might not be so uncommon, and in comparison to the thousands of chicks and chickens that die or are killed every day, my tragedy was trivial. But it stung. I had been entrusted with this chirping mass of innocence and naivete, and within 48 hours I'd let the birds down. It was a taste of something that I'll have to get used to as a farmer. It's a feeling I'll no doubt have when I kill a pig or send a steer to slaughter. But this was different; this was a mistake.

When you're dealing with living things, when you take that resposibility upon yourself to raise them, when you only have secondhand experience at best, the learning curve can be very sharp. Those 18 dead chicks are a taste of failure, a taste of what I'll have to face up to again, if I really expect to do what I'm doing. It hurt, more than you'd think given the tiny stature of the victims, but there was little to do. I tried to focus on fixing things, pushing forward.

I built a new space for the chicks, a frame made of tall plywood, with ample room for movement. I bought a third heat lamp, paranoid about keeping the chicks warm in what's turning out to be a bitter early March. By early afternoon Monday, the chicks were in yet another new home, and this one finally seemed a proper fit. One night passed, with no deaths, and the two chicks who seemed on death's door began to perk up, though even now one seems to be less fit than its fellows. Relief began to fill me, and I began to feel good. The next morning, though, one chick was dead. One chick, I told myself was not bad, comparatively. It really wasn't. I don't know why that chick died, it could have been anything, since the body was dry, and the crop was full of feed. Though I was responsible in the bigger picture, it wasn't my fault. In the days since, I haven't lost a bird, but I know I could at any moment. It's something I'll need to get used to, this occasional loss, this sense of having let down something blameless.

There's a learning curve there, a sharp one, and one I'm just now skidding into. I keep my hands on the wheel, and my fingers crossed.