Chicken Soup - Part One
A Faux Real Story
The month of November is usually home to one of many farm turning points at the Genuine Faux Farm. This is the month when we find ourselves tending only one flock of poultry (instead of four or sometimes five). It is also the month when we typically finish sales of our poultry and vegetables. All that remains is to care for the hens and harvest their eggs.
That, and all of the other things we do here. But, that’s for another time.
Typically, the ground freezes and our options for working on the farm are limited by the reality of short spans of daylight hours and weather conditions that are frequently not conducive to outdoor work. But, in the weeks just before that, there is a huge push to get things into Winter-mode. That effort can be pretty exhausting as we know our time to complete it all is short. But, the good news is that my time becomes more flexible on the other side of that push.
At least I like to tell myself that. Let me have that bit of fantasy because we’re in that big push before the snow flies right now.
But, one thing is true. I do find that I often have a bit more energy for writing starting in November. So, I thought I would revive the Faux Real Story series for your reading entertainment. Enjoy!
One of the first broiler flocks at the Genuine Faux Farm
We begin our story at a point early in the Genuine Faux Farm’s history - a period we call the BDC era (Before Digital Camera). It was also the first (or maybe second) year we raised broiler chickens (birds for meat). So, needless to say, we didn’t have much farm infrastructure to support that enterprise. To go along with limited tools and resources, we had an equivalent amount of experience and knowledge.
Yes, you read that right. We didn’t really know what we were doing - or what we were getting into. At least we weren’t trying to raise a hundred birds in our first flock. We had at least that much wisdom. I seem to recall that the number was more like 25 birds for the flock that appears in this story.
We did know we wanted to raise the birds on pasture and we also knew we would need a “portable” shelter so we could move them to fresh pasture periodically. And as I say that, I notice that I also didn’t tell you about another thing we didn’t have available to us. In addition to being short on infrastructure, experience and knowledge, we didn’t have much disposable income.
So, we made do.
Our local mechanic offered us a pickup truck topper (free for the taking) and we had plenty of old lumber from the various buildings that were falling down on the property. All we needed were nails (or screws) and some chicken wire and we were in business. In fact, you can see our first shelter on the right of the picture shown at the top of this article. That image was taken years later (2013) when we pressed it back into service. At least we had a tractor to help us move the building in 2013.
The shelter was big enough for broiler chickens to walk around inside without any problem. We also realized we might need to get in there if there was a problem with an injured or ill bird. So, we built it up high enough so we could crawl in there if we had to. But, I can tell you that we really didn’t think we’d have to do that. I think we had an idea that we could just tip the building up and over if we really needed to get to them.
Unfortunately, the old barn lumber, combined with the pickup topper, made the building rather heavy. In other words, our “movable” building wasn’t very. We had a pickup and a lawn tractor, but no tools that were going to make moving the thing any easier. As a result, the building stayed where we built it - even though it wasn’t exactly where we planned on having it.
A storm visits the farm
Our farm, for the most part, is flat. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t low spots and high spots in our fields and our pastures. And even though we didn’t have much experience, we were already aware of the places puddles formed during heavy rains. We weren’t so silly as to build the shelter in one of those holes. It was in a higher spot, but it was still closer to one of those “puddle havens” than I would have liked.
Still, we hadn’t seen the puddles reach to the area where the building was. And, it was later in the year - past the wetter springtime months. We figured everything would be fine.
We raised our chicks in our makeshift brooder area and the day came where we felt they were ready to go out on pasture. We loaded the birds into a cart and put a board over the top to keep them inside. We then pulled the cart, complete with small birds, to the building and put them in. Then we set up their feeder and a waterer.
And the birds seemed happy to be there.
And they looked good.
And we thought we had done a fine job.
I don’t recall how long it was after we moved them (maybe a week or ten days), but a big storm system pushed its way in to stay for a few days. And that storm brought rain. Lots and lots and LOTS of rain. We were about to learn our first truly hard lesson when it came to heavy rain and our farm. We discovered that, if we got eight to ten inches of rain in a 24 to 48 hour period, everything becomes a puddle - not just those low spots.
We noticed the problem as we went out to do the evening chores. The water had reached the little building filled with young broiler chickens. A quick look showed us that our little birds were exhibiting signs of hypothermia and we knew we would lose them if we didn’t do something.
A sidebar for context
Now let me remind you of some important information.
The shelter was big enough for a broiler chicken to stand up and walk around with plenty of room for their avian body. A small human might be able to duck-walk in the building. But, someone my size would have to crawl around in there, and it wouldn’t be comfortable. Also, let me remind you that chickens, when they need to evacuate their bowels (how’s that for a fancy way to say “poop”?), are not picky about where they do it. Let’s just say there is a reason we clean out the chicken room and put new straw in there periodically.
And, finally, this shelter had no perches and no floor. The floor was the ground the building sat on.
It’s important that you understand all of these things for the next part.
Swimming with broilers
Once we discovered that our birds were in danger of dying in the cold water, we went into action. We had clean straw, so we hurried to get a couple of bales. Then, I crawled into the building. Cold, muddy, excrement-filled water became my new reality for the next eternity while Tammy pushed straw to me from the outside. I moved birds and began building a straw bed that was as thick as it needed to be to get them up and out of the water. As I did so, I moved birds onto the straw.
For some of the worst cases, I held the bird in my hands to warm it up a bit. Once it started to squirm to get out of my grasp I knew it was warm enough to set on the straw.
We repeated that process until the entire shelter had a new bed of straw - and all of the broilers were up and out of the water.
Tammy was soaked and covered with straw because, of course, it was still raining. I was soaked and covered with straw and… other stuff. Let’s just say it wasn’t my favorite kind of chicken soup.
We decided we had done what we could and we finished the rest of the chores and then went in to clean up and warm up. The lightning moved in not long after we completed our emergency efforts and the crashes of thunder emphasized that our decisions had been made and our actions taken. Now we had to try to sleep and wait for the dawning of a new day to find out how many carcasses we would have to dispose of.
Alls well that ends…
The next morning, Tammy and I probably took some shortcuts to get ourselves out to see how our little flock had fared. I suspect we skipped breakfast and showers and whatever other morning habits we had at the time. But I will admit to walking slowly out to the “scene of the crime.” It was one of those “you wanna know, but you don’t” sort of things.
The rain had, thankfully subsided and there was some sunshine peaking out from behind the clouds. The ground squished under our feet, but the farm that had been a giant puddle just hours ago now simply had puddles in the low spots. Bigger puddles than usual, but at least they were puddles with edges.
As we rounded the corner and the building came into view we heard “normal chicken sounds” coming from our rescued fowl. And when we opened the door we found all of them accounted for and moving well.
We hadn’t lost a single bird.
I might not have liked the chicken soup, but the rewards of our efforts were good for the soul.
If we each had a dollar for every action taken to preserve animal life (not just protect our inve$tment$), we'd be millionaires, Rob. Thanks for doing the right thing, as icky as it may have been.
[I recall, many years ago now, a moment when I was really proud of my Dad. (Not something every youngster at that age could say about a parent.) We'd had dinner at a friend's house. My Dad, I, and several of the other men went for a stroll after dinner to see the septic tank installation that was being done.on Harold's land. As we approached the deep, watery, open hole, we heard splashing. A stray dog had fallen in and couldn't get out. Every one else was resigned to letting the dog drown. They sighed and began to walk away. My Dad, dressed in his nice clothes, lay down on the muddy ground, reached into the slurry and extracted the dog, who went on its way. My Dad wiped off the slime and the grime and continued on his walk with the others.]