What was I thinking? Not about the romantic country life for sure. Pretty history is recalled in well-manicured English formal gardens with afternoon tea served on the terrace. The view is perfect as garden gnomes and fairies toiled during the night with weed removal, no doubt; hummingbirds flit from foxglove to foxglove to drink sweet nectar, and not a blade of grass is out of place. Wait...this is not reality, but I do confess that I had imagined my flock of chickens would stroll and strut in the garden only pecking out the bugs that I did not want and only pulling apart the unwanted weeds.

In the spring, I took an urban homesteading class and it was all good there. We covered many items and it seemed Pollyanna-perfect when it came to raising chickens: get a bunch of birds, grow them for eight weeks and then (though Pollyanna might not say this), it's "off with their heads" and into the freezer. One of the choices I had to make was the sex of the birds: males grew faster and therefore put on meat faster, so males they were. On May 14, I picked up 52 male meat birds and all the accoutrements: waterers, feeders, food, and heat lamps too. One feeder and one waterer quickly grew to three sets. In only a couple of days, I had to divide the chicks into three batches. They needed lots of heat as little peepers and could not go outside until they were at least three weeks old. However, when the batch of 52 was clustered together, they generated too much heat and needed more room. I think that they generated more heat in degrees Fahrenheit than was reached in my home last winter.

We tend to name and personalize all living additions to our farm. Naming the animals and talking to them every day, all the time, brings us closer. We lost little bird Jericho within the first 24 hours, which no doubt indicated a congenital issue. When I noticed Jericho to be sluggish, I scooped him up and carried him around with me for hours to see if he would perk up with motion and activity. But it was not to be. He is buried on the farm now. We do not have names for all of them - we ran out of cute names for chickens rather fast and they quickly ran out of cute as well.

The birds did lose their cute quickly. It took a week. They were bald! They picked on each other quite unmercifully despite the added spacing and the abundance of food and water. They were after each other endlessly. Pick, pick, pick and peck, peck, peck. Pecking order means something later in their growth but it started early with these bruisers.

The birds had plenty to eat and drink and more space than the chicken houses (also called tractor pens) I have seen on the internet and in books. The housing units are called tractors because they are they are technically mobile and you are supposed to be able to move them with the assist of a tractor. I just could not see the need for starting the real tractor three times, just to move the pens six feet. Therefore, I set up plastic rollers to facilitate the pens' six-foot move. I moved the units every other day and this served several purposes: a clean area, fresh grass, fresh bugs in the grass, and the aftermath from each move served as fertilizer. The pens do not have wire bottoms and the chickens stayed in the pens during the very slow and methodical move. I tried catching the birds one at a time and placing them in a holding pen for the move, but it proved too traumatic to the birds and for me as well. One bird keeled over after the move was completed; fortunately, I haven't.

The pens were built to a height of four feet so I could climb in to tend to feeding and watering. Tractor pens are 10' x 4' x 4' and each have steel roofs and walk-in doors. I had to install half doors inside the pens as the chickens tried to scoot around me and headed for wide-open spaces. If I closed the door when I was in the pens, the locks sometimes fastened and there I was, locked in the pens too. Picture that? I think I overbuilt them. My main objective was to keep all the chickens safe from predators, and second, sheltered from the elements. I even made each pen roll down awnings from an old tarp that is both a sun blocker and a nighttime protection from chill. Way overbuilt.

In addition to their grain, I picked bugs from around the yard and garden to give to them. They used to be scared of everything but the grain but soon they went right after the bugs and chased after each other to snatch the treat from each other's beaks. After I moved one of the pens, a grasshopper was the object of their desire and met with that expected twist of fate quite fast.

Soon the birds were ready to be processed, as I couldn't tolerate any more losses to the flock. The most recent loss was a double header on a Saturday. I was away for about four hours and came home to an odd sight. Four feet were sticking up in the air from what I thought was the friendliest coop of the three. I will spare readers the gruesome details, but I was not pleased with these boys. They did not play well with others. In six weeks, 52 chicks had dwindled down to 38 birds. I called the processor who had a cancellation due to a big nasty old fox attacking someone else's chickens. He also told me that humidity can cause a bird to die and I could have a daily loss as a result of weather. By this reading the meat birds are a mere memory and in the freezers of three folks around the county waiting for a good feast of well-grown poultry. What started as cute chicks took an ugly turn of late, and perhaps that is why the chicken crossed my plate, er... road.

I am more hopeful with the bees I am now raising.