RAISING CHICKENS ON THE FARM - PART I

  When I was a little girl, it was a given fact that we would get baby chicks each spring.  We would put in our order, usually at a farm store named Guthels.  I think we might have ordered our chicks from the local hardware store a few times.  It was always exciting to go get them.  They came in a box much like the one pictured.  The box had a lid.  Before opening the lid and on the way home, we would stick our fingers in the holes in the sides and let the little chicks peck us.  It never hurt, but felt rather funny.
This is a rather odd statement for me, because at one point I was rather afraid of baby chicks. I did not like the way their beaks looked---sharp!  The beaks were really not sharp.  There were a few years where the beaks were actually cut off at the tips before shipping.  This was to keep the chicks from pecking one another and causing sores or injuries.

     After we got them home, we took them to an old building called the "brooder house".  We had put new fresh straw on the floor, put up a heat lamp, and put out water and some feed for the chicks.  We had to put them under a heat lamp to keep them warm so they wouldn't get cold and die. We gave them feed on the floor on a newspaper at first, and then put the feed in a trough somewhat like the one pictured. 
We had to check on them 2 times a day and give fresh water and feed. It was fun playing with the small, soft, and yellow chickens.  We liked to hold them and let them peck the grain from our hands.
     Once the chickens got older, we would take the pullets, or young hens, and clip their wings with a big pair of scissors and take them and put them with the other hens at the big chicken house. If you did not clip their wings, they would fly out of the pen because they were not used to the other hens yet. The roosters were butchered for eating.  You could tell which ones were the roosters by their large red combs on top of their heads.
We had to catch the pullets and roosters with a long wire that had a hook on the end. You would try to get the hook around the chicken's leg.
 If you happened to hook one that was too small you had to get the hook off the leg and let the chicken go.
   The butchering process was quite an event and a lot of work.  I will tell about butchering chickens another time.