The Stresses of Parenthood

I got an email this week from a parent of one of my former students. It seems that she is undertaking a research project and needs a little help from the farm. In her high school (yikes!) science class they have an assignment that requires them to identify variables and all of that fun stuff. She has decided to hatch eggs and see how things like egg thickness impact hatchability. Enter the farmer.

She is needing about 24 eggs to hatch and was wondering if she could buy some eggs to hatch. I agreed to give them to her as long as I can have the chicks back to butcher later in the summer.

This is a LOT of pressure as a parent. Who says that these roosters are doing their job? I know they are “practicing” but maybe they have no idea what they are doing out there. We never had that “talk” that farmers should have their roosters. They could be completely inept in the reproductive arena. I haven’t had any talks with the hens as to their level of satisfaction, so I have no idea where we stand. And what about these hens? It’s possible that the chicken house is built on a naturally occurring radioactive hotspot. What if the hens are all sterile and are just putting out the eggs so that I don’t have some sort of “I could have done better” parental angst? At least I am not conservative enough to require a wedding before the offspring arrive. That’s a lot of weddings. It’s also VERY expensive when you are the parent of both the bride AND the groom. Then there is the question of the legality of the polygamist chicken household.

When chickens lay the eggs they don’t need to sit on them and keep them warm right away. Eggs are able to “wait” a bit until the hen has a big enough clutch to be worth it. As long as the eggs stay at a reasonable temperature (like cool room temperature) they will still be viable. I told the parent that I would pull the eggs when they are ready and hold them until I have 24. What if I accidentally put all 24 in the oven and ruin them all? What if I decide to pop them all in the freezer for some reason? Aside from the mess I would have, I would also deliver eggs that will ruin her project. Oh no!!!

Those parents with just a few kids sure have it easy. I sort of feel like the Duggars over here. I’ve got a whole house of chickens I am trying to parent. It’s so hard to instill values and a moral compass to so many offspring. On the “up” side, if any of them appear to be immoral or get mouthy I can always butcher them and have dinner. Try that, Michelle Duggar!

In the next couple of weeks I will be turning this gathering of eggs over to be hatched, and in April I will turn another group of 18 over to a first grade teacher to hatch with her students. I will end up with a nice freezer full of organic chicken to eat for the fall and winter. That certainly sounds good. I don’t often roast whole chickens, so I need to start amassing recipes for the oven and crock pot. I’ve also got to remember to take lots of pictures of the chickens so that when the 1^st graders are older and ask where their chickens are I am able to tell them they are roaming freely on the farm (and show them pictures).

This all brings up another project. With a couple dozen new chickens coming I am going to need to build a new coop. I have the building itself, but it no longer has a fenced yard around it. At one time it was a chicken house but the fencing has been taken down. With the chicks hatching a couple of months apart I will have to have two places to put them. If chickens have not been raised together it is difficult to put them together, as they end up fighting to the death. I do not need to have some ½ grown chickens to eat. Cornish hens are pointless.

This parenting thing is so stressful.