Every week when I'm at TSC I stop and look at the chicks & ducklings. I always tell myself "You got enough birds already, move on!" And I always agree with myself and move on.
I have about 30 pampered hens, 50 chicks, a jillion Coturnix quail and 1 viscious hateful assault duck.
I'm not some emotional woman overwhelmed by the "aww they're so cute" factor prone to spontanous purchases. I'm a grumpy old man and don't care much for cuddly, cute, precious and all that crap. I hatch my own so you'd never catch me buying chicks at a store.
I learned from reading these boards that rich people buy their chickens from a breeder and poor people hatch their own. Newbies, city people and everybody else buys weak, diseased, inferior hatchery stock from the feed store. Me, I'm just a cheapskate that squeezes a penny till it's thin as a dime.
Anyway, Tuesday they had straight run special of Cornish, RIR, and ducks. I looked at them little fuzzy butts and thought "Hmmm...$1.99....Won't hurt to get a few meat birds." My heritage roosters have about as much meat as a scrawny buzzard. Them being cute little fat yellow & white tennis ball looking rollie pollies running around going peep peep peep had nothing to do with it. Chicken dinners is what I was thinking about because it was 5 pm and I was hungry. It sounded like they were saying eatme eatme eatme. Nahhh...I got enough birds already. Get my feed and go home, I told myself.
I went to the feed aisle, loaded up my buggy and headed to the check out. As I approached the chick section I took one last look and told the lady "Gimme me 5 of those Cornish Rocks." The chick lady said the minimum purchase was 6 chicks. Darnit, that's $12, I only wanted to break a $10 bill, not a $20 bill. "Ok, gimme 6 of them Cornish Rocks then. Catch me the biggest fattest ones in the tub." She said reason they were so big is they were 2 weeks old. Well, if I gotta break a $20 I mezwell get an even 10 chicks so....."Gimme 4 of them Rhode Island Reds too." They were much smaller, she said they were 3 days old, just got them in the day before.
If I'm lucky one of the RIR will be a rooster. I need a new RIR rooster because mine is about 100 years old and serves no purpose other than being a feed hogging yard ornament.
Ok, I only wanted 5 chicks and now I'm getting 10. They're multiplying and I haven't even made it to the check out yet. At the check out I give the cash register guy a dumb look and ask "Do you think this is enough feed for my 10 baby chicks?" I had 150 # of feed in my buggy. He just grunted cause he doesn't like me because every time they ask for my phone # I tell him I don't have one and even if I did I wouldn't give it to him.
On the way home I'm thinking why in the heck did I just buy chickens? What am I gonna tell my wife? I'm not worried about her being mad, I was worried that she might LOL @ me for buying store bought chicks. What am I gonna tell my other chickens? I feel guilty like I'm cheating on my own loyal hens. Maybe my wife is in the house watching tv and won't see me pull in the drive and I can go hide my new store bought chickens real quick. I hoped she was making supper but she can see out the kitchen window and see me in the chickenyard. You can see inside every one of my pens & cages from any window on the back side of my house. If all goes well, I can sneak unseen through the chickenyard and into the brooder pen and put my new chicks into the brooder cage with my last hatch and act like they been there all along. They're about the same age and size. Maybe she won't notice the new white and yellow chicks mixed in with my last hatch, which is all black chicks.
No such luck! I walk around the corner of the house with a sack of feed on my shoulder and a box of chicks on my hand and there she is, as usual, smoking a cigarette at our break area table that's about 20' from the main pen door. Oh crap, BUSTED! My blood runs cold. I start to panic and feel like a trapped animal. I want to run but there's nowhere to run. I want to hide but there's nowhere to hide. Like the possum running back & forth in the road when the killer headlights are approaching.
Instanly my training kicks in and I regain control of myself. I kinda turn sideways and try to hide the box of now LOUDLY cheeping chicks behind my leg and try not look at her as I walk past. She's younger and smarter than me, has all kinds of college degrees plus she can read minds. She smells a rat. She takes a drag from her cig, disdainfully blows smoke in my direction and asks, no, she demands, "What did you buy." The scary thing is that she was smiling. OMG she knows! How does she know? The people at TSC musta called and told her. Probably the cute pony tail girl that works the hay trailer. She don't like me because last month I told her if she'd go for a roll in that hay I'd buy the whole trailer load. Whoa, calm down, maybe I'm just being paranoid and she's smiling cause she's glad to see me. So I explain to her "Feed, what the heck do you think is in these big yellow bags I'm always toting into the hen house?" Those chicks didn't peep 1 time on the way home but now the little box in my hand sounds like it contains a whole broiler house full of chickens. She just keeps smiling at me but her smile is saying don't even try it you lying piece of worthless filth. She's been married to me 3 long years and has me figured out. So I hand her the box of chicks and dissappear into the henhouse with my head hanging in shame to stack the feed.
Honestly folks, I haven't bought a store bought chick since about 1977, till last Tuesday. It was a different experience anyway.
I have about 30 pampered hens, 50 chicks, a jillion Coturnix quail and 1 viscious hateful assault duck.
I'm not some emotional woman overwhelmed by the "aww they're so cute" factor prone to spontanous purchases. I'm a grumpy old man and don't care much for cuddly, cute, precious and all that crap. I hatch my own so you'd never catch me buying chicks at a store.
I learned from reading these boards that rich people buy their chickens from a breeder and poor people hatch their own. Newbies, city people and everybody else buys weak, diseased, inferior hatchery stock from the feed store. Me, I'm just a cheapskate that squeezes a penny till it's thin as a dime.
Anyway, Tuesday they had straight run special of Cornish, RIR, and ducks. I looked at them little fuzzy butts and thought "Hmmm...$1.99....Won't hurt to get a few meat birds." My heritage roosters have about as much meat as a scrawny buzzard. Them being cute little fat yellow & white tennis ball looking rollie pollies running around going peep peep peep had nothing to do with it. Chicken dinners is what I was thinking about because it was 5 pm and I was hungry. It sounded like they were saying eatme eatme eatme. Nahhh...I got enough birds already. Get my feed and go home, I told myself.
I went to the feed aisle, loaded up my buggy and headed to the check out. As I approached the chick section I took one last look and told the lady "Gimme me 5 of those Cornish Rocks." The chick lady said the minimum purchase was 6 chicks. Darnit, that's $12, I only wanted to break a $10 bill, not a $20 bill. "Ok, gimme 6 of them Cornish Rocks then. Catch me the biggest fattest ones in the tub." She said reason they were so big is they were 2 weeks old. Well, if I gotta break a $20 I mezwell get an even 10 chicks so....."Gimme 4 of them Rhode Island Reds too." They were much smaller, she said they were 3 days old, just got them in the day before.
If I'm lucky one of the RIR will be a rooster. I need a new RIR rooster because mine is about 100 years old and serves no purpose other than being a feed hogging yard ornament.
Ok, I only wanted 5 chicks and now I'm getting 10. They're multiplying and I haven't even made it to the check out yet. At the check out I give the cash register guy a dumb look and ask "Do you think this is enough feed for my 10 baby chicks?" I had 150 # of feed in my buggy. He just grunted cause he doesn't like me because every time they ask for my phone # I tell him I don't have one and even if I did I wouldn't give it to him.
On the way home I'm thinking why in the heck did I just buy chickens? What am I gonna tell my wife? I'm not worried about her being mad, I was worried that she might LOL @ me for buying store bought chicks. What am I gonna tell my other chickens? I feel guilty like I'm cheating on my own loyal hens. Maybe my wife is in the house watching tv and won't see me pull in the drive and I can go hide my new store bought chickens real quick. I hoped she was making supper but she can see out the kitchen window and see me in the chickenyard. You can see inside every one of my pens & cages from any window on the back side of my house. If all goes well, I can sneak unseen through the chickenyard and into the brooder pen and put my new chicks into the brooder cage with my last hatch and act like they been there all along. They're about the same age and size. Maybe she won't notice the new white and yellow chicks mixed in with my last hatch, which is all black chicks.
No such luck! I walk around the corner of the house with a sack of feed on my shoulder and a box of chicks on my hand and there she is, as usual, smoking a cigarette at our break area table that's about 20' from the main pen door. Oh crap, BUSTED! My blood runs cold. I start to panic and feel like a trapped animal. I want to run but there's nowhere to run. I want to hide but there's nowhere to hide. Like the possum running back & forth in the road when the killer headlights are approaching.
Instanly my training kicks in and I regain control of myself. I kinda turn sideways and try to hide the box of now LOUDLY cheeping chicks behind my leg and try not look at her as I walk past. She's younger and smarter than me, has all kinds of college degrees plus she can read minds. She smells a rat. She takes a drag from her cig, disdainfully blows smoke in my direction and asks, no, she demands, "What did you buy." The scary thing is that she was smiling. OMG she knows! How does she know? The people at TSC musta called and told her. Probably the cute pony tail girl that works the hay trailer. She don't like me because last month I told her if she'd go for a roll in that hay I'd buy the whole trailer load. Whoa, calm down, maybe I'm just being paranoid and she's smiling cause she's glad to see me. So I explain to her "Feed, what the heck do you think is in these big yellow bags I'm always toting into the hen house?" Those chicks didn't peep 1 time on the way home but now the little box in my hand sounds like it contains a whole broiler house full of chickens. She just keeps smiling at me but her smile is saying don't even try it you lying piece of worthless filth. She's been married to me 3 long years and has me figured out. So I hand her the box of chicks and dissappear into the henhouse with my head hanging in shame to stack the feed.
Honestly folks, I haven't bought a store bought chick since about 1977, till last Tuesday. It was a different experience anyway.
