Chickens or kids, there’s really not that much difference

I mentioned a couple weeks back that Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter) had lost her mind and we are now raising chickens. Turns out I may have overstated the “losing her mind” part.  The idea wasn’t as crazy as it at first seemed.

We have eight hens (pullets, if you’re a chicken person; I’m not; I have no idea what a pullet is, other than it eats a helluva lot of chicken feed). They’re still living in the guest bathroom, ensconced in heated plastic bins with chicken wire tops on them.

I have to admit, at first I thought the idea was ridiculous. Mrs. T (fLF) and I both grew up in the city and have absolutely zero knowledge of anything ag related. Everything I know about farm life I learned from reading “Charlotte’s Web” and watching the movie, “Babe.”

Neither of those sources went into sufficient detail to give me the knowledge needed to establish an agrarian lifestyle. Fortunately, it’s not exactly rocket science.

Rising chickens, it turns out, is a lot like raising kids. When Aubreii, my first child, came along, I was practically a kid myself. At least from the neck up.

I had no idea what fatherhood would entail. Does anyone? And if they did, would anyone be crazy enough to go through with it? Sometimes, ignorance can be a good thing.

Then came Jordan and, via marriage, Jim Bob. It took all three of them and over 20 years before I felt I’d gotten the hang of the whole parent thing. By then, of course, they were grown. God knows I made mistakes along the way. Still, none of my offspring have climbed a water tower to take pot shots at student nurses, so I guess I did OK. Or maybe I just got lucky.

Either way, I’m hoping the same formula holds true with raising these dumb birds. The learning arc is accelerated, of course, but so far, it all feels very familiar.

As with the kids, when the chickens first entered our home, they were cute, little bundles of downy sweetness, impossible not to love. The girl at Tractor Supply Company cautioned me to not “cuddle” them. I did anyway, even though they are – according to the literature – lethal balls of contagion just waiting for their chance to transmit the super-flu to every last human being on the planet.

Just like kids.

Contagious or not, they were cute. Super cute! I sat in the guest bathroom for hours on end just watching their goofy antics as they tumbled to and fro in their never ending search for a warm spot in the wood chips. They seemed genuinely grateful for each refilling of the food and water containers, chirping happily day and night.

But as with kids, that baby stage didn’t last long. Within a week the downy, yellow fluff had begun to fall off and was replaced by scruffy feathers best described as the bird version of zits.

Like teenagers, they seemed to have sprung up overnight. They were no longer sweet and cute. They were lanky, unattractive, demanding, moody. Any of this sounding familiar, parents of teens?

They began to squabble among themselves. There’s always an abundance of food and water in those plastic bins, but still they find reason to quarrel. And those sweet, little cheep-cheep noises they made at first? Those have been replaced with angry bawk-bawks that leave little doubt as to their meaning: “Daaaaad! Henrietta is molting on my side of the cage again!”

Fortunately, those “teen” days are almost over already. In another week they’ll be moving outside to the coop I recently built them, which is considerably nicer than the house I live in myself.

I feel ready to let them out into the wider world. Sure, I’ll still feed and water them, just like I did with my kids when they first moved away. But if one of them wants to move back into the house, well, that’s not happening.

Likewise, they can forget about me loaning them any money. Other than that, raising chickens is a lot like raising kids.

I got this.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530