Caring for the chicks

Most people look at their food and say, “My job is to eat it.” Now that I have chickens I look at my food and say, “My job is to take care of it, because this is a gift from my family.” I wanted to get chickens because I wanted to truly understand where my food comes from. 

When I cradled my first 6 chickens I felt scared. They were defenseless, young, and confused, and in that moment I did not know how to care for them. But I wanted them to stay alive because they had just become part of my family. 

When my chicks were young their bodies were not yet equipped to handle life’s problems on their own. They needed me to protect them, which meant they needed new rounds of food, grit, and water because they kept knocking the containers over, just like a toddler with a bowl of baby food. They needed a place to stay warm because their little fuzz-covered bodies couldn’t trap in the heat they needed to stay alive. Lastly, I had to protect them from my dog’s predatory instinct so I created their home from a screen-covered cardboard box.

As a chicken-dad, I had to teach my kids what to do and what not to do. For example, my chicks kept knocking over their food, so to prevent that I buried small chunks of tile under their food containers to stabilize them. Every day I cradled each chick gingerly so they felt loved and cared for. I cooed softly at them to build a relationship and make them feel safe whenever I approached.

Building the coop

During quarantine I worked with my stepdad to design and construct a stellar chicken coop in order to protect our chickens. We wanted to have a structurally sound chicken coop so we created a simple yet effective process for building it. First we researched designs that gave us ideas to work off of so that our coop would be eye-catching, protect the chickens, and fit with the setting of the backyard. We created our own design, then we made a materials list and headed to Home Depot to purchase lumber, hardware, fasteners, and tools. We created a frame by screwing together a bunch of 4 by 4s, and that frame gave us the basic structure to then add the details.

Once we constructed the frame we added more in-depth components to the coop such as the plywood floors, the shingled roof, the insulated walls, and the homemade windows and doors. I felt proud because we made our own window boxes that were secure, adjustable, and elegant. Finally came the long, slow, boring work of attaching shakes (which is a type of wooden siding) to the outer perimeter of the coop. When I started I said to myself, “This is going to be quick and easy,” but after a couple of full days of work I had only completed half a wall! At the end, I realized the beauty and reward of the time-consuming work I had done.

During this time I learned that if work seems boring and pointless, I need to think ahead to what it will mean to me afterwards. Sometimes working on the coop seemed tedious, but now I look back at what I completed and I am proud of myself that I did the hard work anyway. 

Backyard Eggs

Now that the chickens are older, when they see me coming they greet me by running towards me, expecting a tasty treat. That’s because every day I refill their food and water, and collect their eggs. I carefully reach into the nesting boxes and gently lift each egg so they don’t shatter. I still talk to them with silk in my voice so they feel comforted, just like they are back in their little box and small enough to fit in my hand. 

Once I get back inside I carefully wash each egg and place it in our egg cartons. What might I do with almost a dozen eggs each day? Starting in the summer of 2021 I will start selling them under my new brand, Backyard Eggs. I will have a website where my customers will place their orders, and a few days later find a fresh carton of organic, free-range eggs at their doorstep. I will deliver these eggs by bike with a trailer hitched to the back as a container.