Life on the farm.

Well, here we are.  The proud weekend guardians of 16 baby chicks, all just a few weeks old.  Chaos continues to reign at the Otto house.  Why should this weekend be any different?

Background story is that Margaret's class hatches eggs and raises them in to baby chickens before donating them to a local farm.  The kids learn about the cycle of life, and responsibility for caring for animals and pets.  Each weekend a family takes the chicks home to feed and care for them over the weekend.  Lucky me, I found out on Thursday night that Margaret had volunteered us to be this weekend's care givers.

So here we are, down on the farm, Fairfax County style.  The difficult part of this is that I was given no instructions on how to care for the birds.  Margaret's teacher was out of the classroom proctoring end of year testing and had left no instructions.  100 year old substitute was barely in control of the class, and no help at all.  What do baby chicks eat?  How often do they need to sleep? Do I leave the warming lamp on at night?  Will they freeze if I don't leave the warming lamp on?  How can I keep my two dogs from eating them within 15 minutes of arriving home?  I got some quick (if disjointed) tips from the kids in the class before schlepping the birds, warming lamp and all, home for the weekend, armed with a can of corn meal and a very, very excited 7 year old.

I am realizing, as I type this now, that I should have called my beloved Father in Law for tips as he grew up (reluctantly) raising chickens on his family farm.

Donovan was elated as well and Margaret was in her element showing him the ropes, and shepherding the various kiddos that stopped by to visit the menagerie.   We quarantined the chicks in DTO's (basically unused) bedroom and set up a baby gate to keep the oh-so-curious Nelly out and the chicks in.  **Special thanks to the Carra-Maxes for lending us a BONA-FIDE baby gate instead of the jacked-up makeshift one we had rigged, since we had donated all of our baby paraphernalia long ago.

My valiant husband had given me a kitchen pass for the evening to help me wind down from my dreadful week.  So right after TBall games, I high-fived him as I ran out the door, promptly ditching him, the kids and the chickens as I went out for a movie and cocktails with the mommy of one of MEO's BFF's.  So while NylonThread and I were catching a movie with drinks after - Steve was left alone with absolutely no instructions on how to deal with the chicks.  Good thing MEO was there to walk him through it. 

Arrived home to find chicks alive and accounted for and Nelly locked out the back door on the deck.  After tolerating several hours of persistent and gleeful 'cheeping', Steve had turned off the warming light to find that the chicks immediately shut up and sacked out for the night in a big pile in the corner of their brood box.

I was inspired and sacked out too, only to wake several times during the evening - fearing the chicks were too cold without their light and slowly perishing from hypothermia, fearing the dogs would bust in and get them, and having a nightmare that Nelly ate 13 of the chicks, which finally kept me up for the rest of the night.  

My Nelly nightmare was so funny and tragic at the same time.  In it, I pop into the room to check on the chicks to find Nelly sitting there, all swollen belly, lolling about, unable to get up she is so stuffed.  A look I have seen on her before when she knocked over the dog food bulk container and eats a month's worth of food in one sitting.  She is such a glutton. 

I peek in the box and see three remaining chicks, cowering in the corner.  NO NO NO!  In desperation, I open Nelly's mouth and find a live bird sitting on her tongue, all puffed up and trying to stay warm.  "Peep!" It says.  I reach in and pull out the unharmed chick, only to see another, just down her throat.  I pull that one out only to find another wedged down her gullet and pull that one out too.  Apparently, she has eaten so many chicks, she literally had no more room in her stomach, so they were sitting in the throat, waiting for room to go down, but unable to escape.  I spend a few more minutes with my arm halfway down her gullet trying desperately to reach any other survivors.  I am fretting (with my arm down her throat to the elbow) about the fact that I came home with 16 chicks and will be returning with only 6 when I wake up in a sweat and realize I am done for the night with sleep.  Perhaps I shouldn't have been reading, right before bed, about the greek myth of Cronos eating his children.  Or maybe it was heartburn from the few sips of Mint Julep I had.

Anyway - half the weekend down and all chicks remaining alive so far.  After a couple near misses today, Nelly may live on the deck for the entire weekend as far as I am concerned.  Pictures and video to follow soon.