It’s that
time of the year when I regret living where I do. The beginning of March, The
weeping willows branches have turned yellow and from a distance on a sunny day
seem to have a golden glow. The day light hours are getting longer. The Juncos
are long gone and I get my yearly longing to put an order in to Murray McMurray
hatchery for a batch of baby chicks. I got my interest in chickens back in the
late forties when I would sneak into Parker Davis’s coop to get in out of the
wind and cold. I would set there and watch them for hours. For some reason they
fascinated me, and they still do. I am sure the other kids thought that it was
eccentric behavior at best. But oddball is probably a better term, as I
had a lot of different interests than my peers. The old adage “rich people are
eccentric, poor people are crazy” proves that I am not eccentric.
When I first
moved to Virginia Avenue the Thibedeau’s had chickens, Rhode Island Reds
roosters and on Sundays one would end up in the pot. We were real young then
and it seemed like a one year thing as the roosters and the two sheds soon
disappeared. I do recall searching for
bugs and worms for them and Victor claiming the dominate one as his own and
sagaciously named him Big Red. I also recall chasing a rooster around the back
yard and having David Burke come over later and tell me his mother and father
where listening to Beethoven and having a big laugh about how my scrambling
around was in time with the music. So maybe my interest started sooner than I think.
I often wonder how I can recall things like that which happened more than
sixty-five years ago but cannot remember someone’s name fifteen minutes later.
The first
birds I raised were Rhode Island Reds that I got from Hardy’s Hatchery which
use to be on route 133 in Essex Mass. I
had made a coop out of scrap wood and old doors. It was ugly as hell but it
served its purpose for a few years. The first batch was definitely a learning
experience. Trial and error was how I learned. If any of you remember or have
heard of Don Buddin who had recently finished a mediocre career as the Red
Sox’s shortstop you would have seen that I made many more errors raising my
chicks then he did playing shortstop. In fact compared to me he was a gold
glover. Priscilla please feel free to correct my selective memory.
The first
batch started out in a Scott toilet paper box in the backroom of the house. A drop
cord with a 100 watt bulb for heat, a couple of saucers for food and water and
eight chicks all females. I actually picked
them up at Hardy’s Hatchery the day they were sexing or culling the chicks. The method they were using was vent checking as
these were purebred. They would gently put the pullets into small cartons and
flip the cockerels over their shoulders into large tissue boxes. I never went back
to Hardy Hatchery, mainly because I wanted to move on to Barred Rock hens, and
other sex-linked types that Hardy’s did not breed. And I was not real happy
with what I thought was a little inhumane treatment of the cockerels. As you
can guess vent checking could be somewhat hit or miss according to the
expertise of the sexer, and many customers would end up with a rooster or two
when they thought they were getting all pullets. After a couple of days it was plain to see
that just a big box with no bedding and half assed feed and water stations was
not very practical. So in all of my infinite wisdom I decided to move them to
the basement. The reason I did not put them in the pit to begin with was that
most springs it became somewhat fen like down there. On top of some First
National wooden tonic cases and some scrap wood I put into another toilet paper
box some wood shavings, a small water font and feeder that I purchased at the
Agway on Wenham Street in Danvers. So back to the infinite wisdom part, I
picked up the Scoot toilet paper box and headed for the cellar door. Needless
to say with the soggy bottom the chicks and the dishes the bottom fell out as I
was half way there. All the wet newspapers, mushy feed pellets, water and
chicken shit on the living room floor. Chicks running everywhere and me
slipping and sliding in hot pursuit thrilled Priscilla to no end. The chicks
eventually made it out to their coop in the back yard and started laying eggs
towards the end of August and were very productive until December when the
winter weather slowed them down. They were pretty productive that spring and
summer. One morning in the fall I found them all dead with their heads and crops
missing. People said it was probably a dog.
I did not believe it than nor do I believe it now. It’s true that there
was no leash law back then and it was not out of the ordinary to see dogs
roaming around. In this day you see one and you think that somebody is having a
fit wondering where it is. Back then I knew most of the neighborhood dogs and
they knew me and for one of them to get into the coop with no visible means of
entrance make no sense to me. But some kind of a weasel or raccoon could
somehow do it. I still have the two rock eggs I bought to induce those girls to
start laying and I think of those times when ever I see them. They looked
realistic at the time. However for some odd reason a couple of years ago I
decide to spray paint them a Greek blue as the orthodox and traditional Easters
fell on the same day that year and (traditional is probably the wrong term,
theology is not one of my strong suits) tuck them into an Easter basket. However
they dried a very pretty robin’s egg blue. I am sure if I ever stuck them into
a robin’s nest the poor mama robin would swoon.
The next
batch of chickens were Plymouth Barred Rocks and to this day are my favorite
breed. They are very docile, good looking stout birds and prolific layers.
Their molting season seems to be shorter than other breeds. Their wattles
and combs stand up well in the winter cold and the pecking order seems almost
nonexistent, they appeared to be broody but were never put to the test because
Brewster was not a resident of this flock. Somewhere tucked away are a bunch of
blue ribbons these birds won at the Topsfield Fair. I have mixed emotions about
entering my birds into the fair. The
second year, somebody had entered some sick birds needless to say all of the
entrants were affected. When I brought my bird’s home they were soon all sick.
I managed to get them through it but they were never as vibrant and as robust
as they were prior to the fair. That plus the fact it was plain to see that the
judging in all of the barns at the fair was odd to say the least. In the
poultry barn it would not matter to the judge if the chicken they were testing
quaked like a duck. The only thing that mattered to them was the name of the
entrant as ribbons were secondary to best of show. So with the health of my
birds a priority I decided to never enter a bird into any poultry show. But
maybe someday I might submit a posy in a horticultural barn. The most
outstanding memory of the fair was the last day of the show. I went there with
my daughter Lisa who was about eight years old at the time. As I was loading
the hens into the poultry carrying cages, one got nervous and jumped out of my
hands and started to scamper all around the barn. The bystanders for some
strange reason were as scared as that poor little hen and started acting just
like her. The little hen going one way clucking like crazy, the people going in
the other direction audibly scared, you would think the Tasmanian devil was
running loose. Lisa three foot tall at most darted under the tables and deftly
upended the hen and calmly carried the now docile bird back to its cage. The embarrassed
sighs and sheepish looks of that throng were priceless. To this day I rue the
fact that I do not have that little escapade on film.
I did not
raise any chickens for quite awhile after that until I landed in Gilford New
Hampshire. As an employee of Triple Trouble Farm I had as my residence a
beautiful big house two acres of pasture and a perfect little barn. Triple
Trouble Farm a rich man’s dabbling consisted of a beautifully landscaped
estate. A picture perfect for show only nonworking farm about a mile away and a
pick your own Blueberry and Raspberry operation on the side of a mountain next
to the Gunstock ski area. And the previously mentioned caretaker’s house.
Idyllic sounding indeed, but Triple Trouble turned out to be just what its name
implied. But for a few years doing the
things I loved outweighed the bad. I managed to raise chickens, Turkey’s sheep
a steer and do some gardening while I was there. The barn was perfect for me as it was built
for horses and had perfect chain link separated stalls. In the summer George the steer stayed out in
the pasture which I fenced off half for him, the other half for the sheep. In
the barn I kept the chickens in one stall the turkeys in another. The two empty stalls would be cleaned and
waiting. Every two weeks I would rotate the birds into the empty stalls and
then clean the other two. This way the birds were always in clean conditions.
When winter came the lamb and turkeys went into the freezer and George went
into the barn and became part of the two week rotation. I have pictures of Joe
down in the barn dressed just like his Father. He loved going down there with
me. In the photos he looked like he was going to grow up to be a shit kicker
just like me. Sadly the house and
acreage was the only good thing about my Triple Trouble experience. I miss that
barn and life style more and more every day.
My last
aborted attempt to raise a few hens was in a little shed that I had under the
elevated deck at my house in Salisbury Mass. I did not keep them for much more
than a year because it was just too close to the house. I was working as a dispatcher for Rayproof
industries at that time. They had made a shed like structure for testing
equipment for the stealth bomber. They decided it was not adequate for their
purpose and were in the process of disposing of it when I rescued it to be my
last chicken coop. I talked the owner of the truck company that we used to transport
it for me. After putting on a new roof and door it was semi adequate for the
hens. I ended up giving those chickens to a hippy like family in Amesbury
Mass.
Finally
after my tedious and wordy lament about my love affair with poultry, I get to
the gist of this whole sad tale. I said
I regret living where I do. The house itself a humble mobile home suits me just
fine. It is the yard and the shed that bother me when spring arrives. There are
so many trees that it is really difficult to grow things that I really enjoy. I
have become semi proficient at growing shade gardens. But it is not the same as
all the wonderful things you can grow in the sun. But I figured I could adjust to
that because with that beautiful two sectioned shed I can finally raise some
chickens again. So with that trade off I made the move. Much to my dismay I
found out to late that raising chicken in a utopia like Seabrook New Hampshire
was a no no. But in New Hampshire it is
legal to carry a loaded concealed handgun. There are no laws on bulk purchases,
ammunition regulations or magazine sizes. Background checks are not required
nor administered when purchasing a firearm. Fingerprints, ballistic filing, and
even safety provisions for children are neglected. But you want to raise six
hens? What are you some kind of a deviant. So my neighbors can have snakes.
Rats and attack dogs but I must refrain from raising socially unacceptable
dangerous fowl. So every spring I give myself a mental kick in the ass for not
checking this out beforehand. So I have to be content with my growing
conditions and learn to live with the type of plants that like the shade. I
refer to them as shady ladies. In retrospect that’s what I probably need, a
shady lady!
