5.5.2023

“Mad Matter: "Have I gone mad?"
Alice: "I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

–Tim Burton, Alice in Wonlerland movie

I have somehow accidentally started a small fowl farm; a living assortment of chickens, quail, duck and turkey.

I’ve had the chickens, but this spring decided to add another fifteen in three or four batches, raising them all in brooders positioned on my laundry room floor.

brooder: an enclosure or other structure, usually heated, used for rearing young chickens or other fowl.

Then came hatching thirty quail eggs I bought off a local woman located in Jeanette. I met her in a Kohl’s parking lot and with my payment made online, she handed me a box of fertilized quail eggs and I offered a homemade loaf of bread, for good measure, which she took happily. The eggs incubated (in the laundry room–the unofficial baby bird barn) for twenty days. For the first seventeen of those, I had to turn the pretty spotted eggs–similar to the size of a robin’s–three times: morning, noon and night.

On the eighteenth day, one hatched. And it was all alone in the incubator, like the lone survivor of an apocalypse. It was smaller than a ping-pong ball. The chick peeped all day so loudly, I could hear it throughout the house, even with the laundry pocket door pulled shut. Two days later, one more hatched and they both went into a quail brooder.

With such an unsuccessful hatch rate, I contacted the “quail lady” asking if she had any live birds (I didn’t want to do the incubation again–not ever again) and she happened to have some that just hatched. So I picked more up, this time at a Pet Smart, added hers to my two and made a clutch of ten baby quail.

Hours before I cleaned the incubator of unviable eggs, another cracked open days after it was due, and this time I happened to be right there, switching clothes from the washer to dryer, when it began pecking at its shell from within. I stood silent for the few minutes it took, peeking through the clear plexiglass window of the styrofoam incubator. It was pretty amazing to see.

At the beginning of April, three ducks shipped from a hatchery in Ohio. However, they arrived late and I think they had a scary journey here. They were frightened when I opened the box and have been terrified of me ever since, no matter how well I take care of them or how much I offer treats.

I’ve learned that ducks are very different than chickens. Messy beyond belief because they cannot stay away from water. So their food and poop becomes saturated and the pine shavings that make the foundation of their bedding is soiled within one or two days. Their brooder was moved down into the basement; I had to draw the line–having stinky ducks in the place where I clean clothes was too much. What would Mom think of me? So down in the basement they went.

Once the baby chickens got to be about five and six and seven weeks of age, I acclimated the new flock into the coop with the big hens and everything seems to be good on that front. The older ones peck the young ones to show whose boss and they establish what is known as “the pecking order” like a group of teenage girls. But it became very obvious that I need to extend the coop somehow by the time the chicks are full-grown and laying. I have about two months to do so.

I needed a quail hutch (they do not free range like the chickens and prefer to be in an enclosed space) so I searched on Facebook Marketplace, finding four for $125. I only needed one, but at that price, they were a steal.

After speaking with the buyer who had multiple offers, Chris and I took the kids and went to a farm in Irwin with a trailer attached to our truck. I gave the man an extra $20 because he was so kind and held the hutches specifically for me, but I saw his face immediately turn sour as the cash touched his chubby hand.

“They’re $125 each”, he said. I could feel Chris silently seething at me. He’s been on me about money lately because he is singlehandedly finishing the basement. And is on a timeline because Allison is moving home from Ohio at the end of the month (YES!) and is going to stay with us until she gets acclimated and decides where to live in Pittsburgh. All our extra money and his time and resources are going towards the project.

The hutches were a $500 mistake.

But I wasn’t going to let them go to waste.

So I found flemish rabbits for sale.

Of course Chris was hesitant, as he has been for every new step in our twelve years together. But I had a bunny post-college that lived to be eight; I was familiar with the animal. So on Everett’s seventh birthday, we drove to the boonies and he hand picked two males. I named them Bigwig and Hazel from Watership Down, a favorite book I’d recently found in Half Price Books and re-read. I think that’s where the idea of getting bunnies seeded. The accidental hutches made the sprout and seeing Everett hold the six week old balls of fur were the confirming flower; I knew it was a good decision to add them to our little “farmette” as I like to call it.

farmette: a small area of land used for backyard animals with a modest garden; a hobby farm or country home that serves as an intentional lifestyle not a main source of income.

I planted wildflowers and basil but the “modest garden” will come in time.

When I’d buy batches of chicks at Tractor Supply, I’d talk to the salesman about my chickens and setup and mentioned my hawk problem. I chatted with a man for twenty minutes who told me how turkey will keep aerial predators at bay and bam, was totally convinced that I needed turkey. But there was getting past Chris. And turkey seemed like an absurd addition. Quail was one thing. Ducks were another. More chickens was to be expected. Rabbits were a bonus. But Turkey?

So I’d sneak the wild birds into conversation. Like one night while we were brushing our teeth, looking out our big bathroom windows into the woods and at the coop and I said, “Imagine if there were turkey down there just roaming around as our pets.”

He got giddy and said how awesome that’d be or something to that effect. Meanwhile I’d already placed an order through the Ohio hatchery for three.

I ordered a straight run, which means unsexed, because I couldn’t decide what combination of male/female to get and simply left it up to the Universe.

Two days ago, the turkey came. I had just dropped Marion off at pre-school and Forrest had fallen asleep in the car, so I thought I’d do him a favor and put him down for a short nap. As soon as I shut his door, not wanting to waste a minute of the permissible peace, I got my journal out to write and simultaneously, as my pen met the paper, the post office called. You could tell the post worker wasn’t used to reporting a live bird delivery; her giddiness was contagious, and I decided right then to leave and retrieve them.

I could hear them peeping when I opened the office doors. And I just thought, I’m coming my little turkeys!

During the seven minute drive home, the school nurse called to say Everett wasn’t feeling well, so I picked him up, too, turkeys in tow, waiting in the car, safe inside their shipment box.

I needed to get them in their brooder but got Forrest up from his nap first, as to not tarnish his afternoon sleep. But he surprised me. He wasn’t sleeping. He was bouncing around his contained crib, naked with no diaper. There were pellet sized terds dropped all atop his mattress and the floor and his sheets were drizzled with puddles of pee that freely exited his body while he apparently played the entire time I was gone.

I stripped the sheets and blankets, put him in the tub, made Everett lunch, got Forrest dressed, gave Everett pizza in his room while he relaxed and watched T.V. and drove to get Marion while Forrest complained in the car, like I’d prematurely ruined his fun.

For every second of that insane hour, I wondered if someone was playing tricks on me, just to see how much I could handle. I was tripping on the baby gates and I even dropped an egg I’d gotten from the coop while doing so. Splat. I stared at it, broken and leaking on the kitchen floor and felt as if I was looking at myself. What the hell am I doing? Turkey?

My last batch of baby birds for this spring were two more Peking ducks from Tractor Supply. I figured if the ducks were going to be so much work (we are building them their own enclosure with water because eventually it will be easier that way instead of housing them with the chickens as they currently are), I might as well get a decent amount of eggs from them. But these ones have been challenging. They are very friendly and respond to my hands for cuddles and treats, but I noticed they were walking strange, having difficulty standing and their feet were awkwardly turned inward. One even flipped over in the middle of the night and couldn’t right itself. Clifford must’ve heard it struggling and barked and I got out of bed to check for raccoons because I’d left feed on the front porch. But it was the duck, stuck on its back. It was pathetic and sad and broke my heart.

After researching the internet, the most logical explanation is a vitamin deficiency. Unlike chickens, they need niacin, and I made a point to make sure their starter pellets had that added nutrient; it worked fine for the first three ducks. But maybe these ones needed more. So I’ve been hand feeding them nutritional yeast throughout the day and adding B3 to their water. I think they’ve improved a little bit, but can’t yet tell if that’s wishful thinking. In a few days I’ll know.

This invasion of animals all started because one Sunday afternoon I had an excess of eggs. I posted them to Facebook and they sold to a lovely woman I used to babysit for. And ever since then I’ve been trying to grow a little something out of having chickens; I even applied for a booth at the Murrysville farmer’s market that runs from June to September.

Ten printed and filled out application pages later, with lots of back and forth e-mails, I am approved, but don’t think I have enough volume to make it worthwhile. That’s partly why I’m going bird crazy.

And I’ve learned I’m a nurturer. I knew that because of the way I care for my children, but the birds definitely step me up on that “need to take care” spectrum.

I don’t entirely know what I’m doing but it feels right and I am learning, every time I’m cornered into a problem. Like the duck’s deficiency or my chickens eating their own eggs. Most days I’m overwhelmed by the amount of things that depend on me: the kids, house, birds…even the twenty or so houseplants that rely on my weekly watering schedule. But when I go out to do “chores” after the kids are sleeping, I am at peace. And by summer, everything will be streamlined; our coop will be expanded, the ducks will have a small dug out pond and eventually the turkey will (hopefully) watch the chickens while they roam the woods, taking my place as hensitter.

Ideally they will just live in our woods and roost in the trees at night, knowing I am a safe place for comfort and food. As chicks, they are already so friendly. Right now they’re black and brown and tan and their little wing feathers are growing out of the foundational bones in a tube-like fashion. One is more quiet than the other two and is always under it’s heating plate; it likes to fall asleep in my hand. They’re so soft and playful and I just love them.

Bet you never would’ve guessed your daughter would say that about turkey, but here I am.

When I picture this little animal venture a year from now, I see myself with a little egg business that creates extra cash I can feel proud spending because I earned it. Until someone starts to pay for the workload of a homemaker, I am employed for free. So cash in my hands, as little as it is from eggs, feels good.

It is entirely frustrating to not have my own income. I couldn’t possibly contribute more to my household. I make use of every minute; I have to.

I remember you telling me you didn’t have time to pee and I couldn’t believe how dramatic you sounded. But I understand now. It’s true.

Being a mother is a thankless job. No one sees what I do. And on long tough days, I want acknowledged, like any good worker would at any other job. A raise, an award, or free doughnuts in the communal lounge.

When you mother, you just do your best and trust that its enough.

I look at my kids and know I’m doing good, even though I tend to forget a lot, as if my brain can only handle so much information and responsibility and certain things seep out in overflow, like the innards of that egg I cracked.

Everett told me a few months back while we were laying on his bed, having a conversation,"Mommy, you're just not smart because you forget when I have library and I didn't wear orange on orange day. And you forgot crazy hair day in kindergarten." He's in first grade. He remembered that. And I immediately imagined in an exaggerated scenario, him cowered in a corner and crying shyly as he silently wondered why his mommy didn't do his hair "crazy" like the rest of his class.

His comment hit my center, right where my mothering heart beats strong and proud, shattering my maternal confidence. I know wearing orange may not seem like a big deal; I didn't think it was, that's why I continually forgot these things, because it wasn't a priority.

But I’m getting better. Setting more reminders. And I volunteered for his Christmas party back in December and will be going on his zoo field trip this month. He likes when I show up and show my love.

My kids are the best part of my life but they're the thorn that is constantly pricking. The laundry. The daily alarms going off for what they need for school. (Orange day?) The making of meals and asking for snacks. And teetering the time within each day between five people. I have myself to feed and wash and nourish and take care of. And within that, three children who have different needs and important times on the clock. And a husband who just wants to spend time with his wife each night when the said thorns are sleeping.

Balancing all these individual schedules is where my anxiety comes from, filtering through my body the way I imagine arthritis would, first throbbing at the fingers and then all over. I'm just constantly trying to squeeze time into time. Time to eat. Time to do my makeup. Time to journal. Time to meditate. Time to feed the animals. Time to run the vaccuum. Time to get to the barn. Time to cook. Time to feel human and not like a robot running on a remote.

And maybe everyone feels like this, even without kids. It just feels like more bubbled pressure when there are other lives you're in charge of, and not just your own.

So creating this little fowl farm gives me an individual sense of purpose, one that is entirely different than my kids. I felt like this last spring when I began horse riding, finding something outside of the house that was for me. (And Marion.) What if I could create enough cash to help put a dent in a horse’s monthly board? Or a vet bill? Or pay for the farrier?

Once all my chickens are laying, along with the ducks and quail and I have a realistic volume to truly sell, if I made $200 a month, I’d be happy. I haven’t calculated what I’d need to do in order to make that, but eventually I will. Right now I lose money when selling eggs because of the cost of feed and cartons and packaging. I make them “boujee” and create something a little extra special than grocery store eggs. Eventually I will price it all out and figure the margins, etc. Right now, I’m just learning and going with it.

$200 is insignificant to most working people. But to me, that’d be incredible. It wouldn’t come near covering the monthly cost of a horse, but it’s something. And selling eggs brings me joy. Sharing them with my community makes me feel seen and happy.

So I’m going to do it. Somehow.