A story, then a few thoughts.
My parents were newspaper people, so I was generally raised and went to school in large cities. I count myself blessed to have spent most of my summers on the farm in central Ohio where my mother grew up, pitching in to help my grandfather and his father with haying, cultivating, and taking the wheat off. Animal husbandry would have included (always) hogs and chickens, and (most years) the annual beef critter. About the time I hit my teens, there'd be a cold-weather, week-long trip to the farm to help Grandpa with the butchering. The story that may be helpul here, though, is of the earlier years.
Grandpa was a farmer all his life. At some point, though, he looked around and noticed that all the old home-town, general-practioner-type physicians had retired. The doctors that could paint a sore throat, lance a boil, or set a broken bone. After they were gone, it was twenty miles from our farming community to any kind of medical help, routine or emergency. Grandpa, recognizing that, got on with the Kiwanis, and set about on a project to find funding to build a community health facility and recruit a couple of doctors to the (then) emerging field of family practice. As the project progressed, it came to take a lot of his time.
I recall the summer I was 11 years old. I said one thing and did another that (I never intended either) brought a tear of pride to the old boy's loving eye. The first was the day that I remarked that I thought it was pretty cool that he looked as comfortable, and was the same guy, whether he was dolled up in a pin-stripe suit or totin' hundred-pound grain bags on his shoulder dressed in his denim bibs. The other was the day he got back from a meeting about the health center project. He always scheduled those to be able to get home in time to do the feeding before supper. He was running late that day and rushed upstairs to change when he got home. I caught him at the back door, and let him know that the evening chores were all done. He looked at me a little askance, so I ran down the checklist, walked him through a report of what I did that mirrored his own routine.. Sows and pigs all tended to -- ear corn, feed bunk had plenty. Boar grained and the customary ration of ear corn. Pet pony fed. Eggs gathered, washed, graded and in their crates in the cellar. Everyone's water in good shape. He couldn't quite believe I'd picked up the drill, and tossed out a couple of small things he always checked on while he was about the chores, and I filled him on my observations of those same details. It was a pretty proud day for both of us.
It's those last details Grandpa questioned that I wanted to get to regarding your questions. We all have our drills/routines that we've gotten into to take the best care we can of the animals that rely on us. We all go about it differently in our own ways, and Grandpa's skepticism that I had gotten it done the way he would was justifiable. That I did have everything done "his way" was a joint accomplishment, for him being the sort to share the little details by way of teaching me, and me being the kind to pay attention and learn. From that time (even though I was too young to get any further off the farm than my bicycle could take me), we had a trust that I would be there to take care of the evening chores so that he wouldn't have to break off a meeting about the health center to get home to do them. We never had to say a word about it after that. If he wasn't home far enough ahead of suppertime to get the chores done, he could trust that I'd see to them.
Point is, chicken sitting is like babysitting, or me tending to Grandpa's animals. We each have our ways. You mentioned that your sitter has been been farming for some number of years. I have an idea (especially after her question about brooded eggs making for chicks!!) that her experience has not included a lot of chicken time. I'm prepared to be wrong about that guess. At the same time, given other accounts I've heard/read about sitters that just don't show up and other horror stories, I'd say you're pretty fortunate to have her.
My suggestion would be to invite her over next time you have a hen go broody, show her how you toss the old girl off the clutch, and show her where the gloves will be if she needs to do the same while you're gone.
The hatchlings you'll have . ? . ? You can cull the eggs now. Or let them hatch. If any of the chicks have deformities as you cite them having had in the past, culling is a part of husbandry, whether for the good of the herd/flock, or the individual animal. Never pleasant, culling requires an odd grit of character. If it's right, the misgivings of anticipating having to do it will evolve, very quickly, to a certain relief, even a kind of comforting satisfaction, of having done what was right.
As far as your time and plans, I sense that you do have a need for the occasional sitter.
(This is where I come to dread online exchanges. Please dont misread the rest of this -- or anything said above -- as a slam on you. It's not.) You have the advantage of a sitter who actually shows up to see to feed and water and keep an eye on things. That's a BIG plus. I shouldn't expect that you'd ever have the kind of relationship with her that I had with my grandfather, but if you expect her to deal with a broody hen in your absence as you would on your own, she needs an understanding of what you are aiming for and how you go about it. Share that kind of thing with her (and show her where the gloves are if they're needed), and I expect she'll be even more reliable for you than she has already.
My parents were newspaper people, so I was generally raised and went to school in large cities. I count myself blessed to have spent most of my summers on the farm in central Ohio where my mother grew up, pitching in to help my grandfather and his father with haying, cultivating, and taking the wheat off. Animal husbandry would have included (always) hogs and chickens, and (most years) the annual beef critter. About the time I hit my teens, there'd be a cold-weather, week-long trip to the farm to help Grandpa with the butchering. The story that may be helpul here, though, is of the earlier years.
Grandpa was a farmer all his life. At some point, though, he looked around and noticed that all the old home-town, general-practioner-type physicians had retired. The doctors that could paint a sore throat, lance a boil, or set a broken bone. After they were gone, it was twenty miles from our farming community to any kind of medical help, routine or emergency. Grandpa, recognizing that, got on with the Kiwanis, and set about on a project to find funding to build a community health facility and recruit a couple of doctors to the (then) emerging field of family practice. As the project progressed, it came to take a lot of his time.
I recall the summer I was 11 years old. I said one thing and did another that (I never intended either) brought a tear of pride to the old boy's loving eye. The first was the day that I remarked that I thought it was pretty cool that he looked as comfortable, and was the same guy, whether he was dolled up in a pin-stripe suit or totin' hundred-pound grain bags on his shoulder dressed in his denim bibs. The other was the day he got back from a meeting about the health center project. He always scheduled those to be able to get home in time to do the feeding before supper. He was running late that day and rushed upstairs to change when he got home. I caught him at the back door, and let him know that the evening chores were all done. He looked at me a little askance, so I ran down the checklist, walked him through a report of what I did that mirrored his own routine.. Sows and pigs all tended to -- ear corn, feed bunk had plenty. Boar grained and the customary ration of ear corn. Pet pony fed. Eggs gathered, washed, graded and in their crates in the cellar. Everyone's water in good shape. He couldn't quite believe I'd picked up the drill, and tossed out a couple of small things he always checked on while he was about the chores, and I filled him on my observations of those same details. It was a pretty proud day for both of us.
It's those last details Grandpa questioned that I wanted to get to regarding your questions. We all have our drills/routines that we've gotten into to take the best care we can of the animals that rely on us. We all go about it differently in our own ways, and Grandpa's skepticism that I had gotten it done the way he would was justifiable. That I did have everything done "his way" was a joint accomplishment, for him being the sort to share the little details by way of teaching me, and me being the kind to pay attention and learn. From that time (even though I was too young to get any further off the farm than my bicycle could take me), we had a trust that I would be there to take care of the evening chores so that he wouldn't have to break off a meeting about the health center to get home to do them. We never had to say a word about it after that. If he wasn't home far enough ahead of suppertime to get the chores done, he could trust that I'd see to them.
Point is, chicken sitting is like babysitting, or me tending to Grandpa's animals. We each have our ways. You mentioned that your sitter has been been farming for some number of years. I have an idea (especially after her question about brooded eggs making for chicks!!) that her experience has not included a lot of chicken time. I'm prepared to be wrong about that guess. At the same time, given other accounts I've heard/read about sitters that just don't show up and other horror stories, I'd say you're pretty fortunate to have her.
My suggestion would be to invite her over next time you have a hen go broody, show her how you toss the old girl off the clutch, and show her where the gloves will be if she needs to do the same while you're gone.
The hatchlings you'll have . ? . ? You can cull the eggs now. Or let them hatch. If any of the chicks have deformities as you cite them having had in the past, culling is a part of husbandry, whether for the good of the herd/flock, or the individual animal. Never pleasant, culling requires an odd grit of character. If it's right, the misgivings of anticipating having to do it will evolve, very quickly, to a certain relief, even a kind of comforting satisfaction, of having done what was right.
As far as your time and plans, I sense that you do have a need for the occasional sitter.
(This is where I come to dread online exchanges. Please dont misread the rest of this -- or anything said above -- as a slam on you. It's not.) You have the advantage of a sitter who actually shows up to see to feed and water and keep an eye on things. That's a BIG plus. I shouldn't expect that you'd ever have the kind of relationship with her that I had with my grandfather, but if you expect her to deal with a broody hen in your absence as you would on your own, she needs an understanding of what you are aiming for and how you go about it. Share that kind of thing with her (and show her where the gloves are if they're needed), and I expect she'll be even more reliable for you than she has already.
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