future chicken run
Chickens. My host
family raised a lot of chickens. They
may have sold one or two during the year, but most of them were for their own
consumption. In the Spring, in early
March, the family has collected about 50 eggs that are showing signs of fertilization
(candling). They set up two table top
incubators in the family dining/sleeping room.
Twice a day the eggs must be turned in the incubator so they don’t
develop abnormalities. The temperature
has to be maintained at a steady 85 degrees.
Water is added to maintain the humidity and towels are wrapped around
the incubators to avoid heat drain.
Three weeks to a month later the first signs of life emerge. The tiny chirping sound of the first chick
caught my ear about April 1st.
Stage two of chicken raising also takes place in the all
purpose room. What used to be a sleeping
space on a raised part of the soba is now a chicken pen. An actual fence has been built to keep the
chicks in a 5 ft x 15 ft space. There
are about 50 small chickies, all yellow, black, or brown. They are all chirping, probably saying they
are hungry. We give them dishes of
chicken feed to eat twice a day. These
chicks will continue to live and chirp in this space until the threat of cold
nights is past. Maybe until May 1st
? Do they ever quiet down inside? When it gets darker in the room, they chirp
even louder. I guess they’re afraid of
the dark. Is this why we call scared
people, “chicken”? Can you imagine
living with the chirp and sleeping with the light on so the chicks are quieter?
When the weather warms up, the chicks will get a pen outside
where they can get climatized to the outdoor life. Of course they don’t like the rain, so you
have to provide a way to cover them. When
they are big enough to escape the pen, then they can roam the yard on their own
for bugs and other food. When they are
grown, they will be invited one by one to become soup or “zeama”.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment