“Ron, there’s someone coming up the driveway,” Nancy called into the attic, where I was getting down a bag of corn to feed the pigs. I quickly descended the ladder as Hurston came to a stop behind our car.
“Hey, you cracker! Look what I got for you,” he hollered as he stepped out of his pickup.
“What you got there, Hurston,” I asked.
“A box of chickens,” he crowed. “I found them on the side of the road. They must have fallen off the truck on the way to the processing plant.”
Covington County had lots of chicken farmers. The farmers built the barns and contracted with a company to raise their chickens from day old chicks to four-pound fryers. The process took about six weeks. When the time was right, the chickens were loaded into crates and stacked on the back of a flatbed truck for transportation to the facility where they would be butchered and packaged for sale in grocery stores.
My company supplied some of these farmers with propane gas for heat. Even in the summer, new chicks had to be kept very warm - over 100 degrees - for a week, then the temperature was gradually reduced as the chicks grew feathers. By week four, the chickens needed heat only if the temperatures were going to be very low. On the one hand, my company liked the chicken farms because they had 1000 gallon tanks, and a driver could drop a lot of gas at each stop; as much as 800 gallons. Most deliveries to homes were for only 100 gallons. On the other hand, the farmers couldn’t pay for the gas until they had been paid for growing the chickens, which meant that I had to extend credit for about three months. Management in Memphis couldn’t understand why my credit numbers went to heck during chicken season.
“I know these are meat birds, not layers like you want, but I figure they have to lay eggs sometime, otherwise there wouldn’t be any more chickens,” Hurston reasoned.
“This is great, Hurston,” I said. “We have some baby chicks on order at the Farm Supply Store, but they won’t be in for a couple of weeks yet. This gets us mature birds right away. Thanks!”
“You bet! I’d hide the chicken crate if I was you. Gotta run. Janice and I are going into Hattiesburg tonight. See you later,” Hurston replied as he turned around and left.
“Great! Another gift from Hurston that could get us into trouble,” I complained to Nancy, but I was thrilled to have mature chickens. We carried them out to the chicken pen and lifted them one by one from the crate. There were thirteen chickens crammed in there. “Lucky we got the pen all built. I’ll give them some corn tonight and pick up some laying pellets on the way home tomorrow,” I explained to Nancy. “Have you got a pan I could use for water till we get a waterer?” She wasn’t too thrilled about lending a cake pan for the chickens, but it would only be for one night.
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“The chickens are acting funny,” Nancy said when I got home from work the next day. “They act lifeless. They just stand around, not moving or clucking.”
We walked out to the chicken pen to look at the chickens.
“Maybe they don’t know what corn is,” I speculated. They were raised in a barn since they were hatched, and all they have had to eat is ground up feed. Let’s see what happens when I give them some of the laying pellets I brought home.”
I dumped out the old corn, which was starting to turn sour, and filled the trough with laying pellets. The chickens came over to the trough and looked at the pellets, but made no attempt to eat it. I was sure they were starving, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t eating. Dumb chickens. What could I do? I know! I’ll dig up a worm in the garden. Chickens like worms. Surely, that would inspire them to eat.
I got a shovel and went to the garden. In no time, I had a couple of worms, which I took into the chicken pen. I placed a worm in front of a chicken. It perked right up. All right! Now we are getting somewhere. The chicken eyed the worm carefully and pecked at it. It missed! Another try, another miss. What is going on here? Another chicken came over and tried to get the worm, and missed. At this rate, the worm would escape before it was eaten. Of all the chickens in the world, how did I manage to get retarded ones? “Now cut it out, Ron, that is just your natural optimism coming through,” I thought. Stupid chickens. I watched more carefully.
Suddenly, I understood why they couldn’t pick up the worm. Confined chickens are debeaked to keep them from pecking each other. I had heard stories that if a pecked chicken starts to bleed, the other chickens will try to peck the red spot off, which just causes the wound to bleed more. Blood will be spattered onto other chickens, which would also be pecked until the whole flock would be pecked to death! To prevent this, farmers cut the tips of the beak off, which removes the sharp point of the beak. The chickens never learn that their beak is gone! Commercial feed is ground up and the chickens just sort of push their shortened beaks into the feed to eat. Realizing this, I mixed the pellets into a mash. Get out of the way! The chickens came running. It was hilarious to watch them hurl their heads into the mash in a desperate attempt to get some nourishment. I watched them eat until they all had their fill, drank some water and went into the shed for the night, where they crowded into a corner and went to sleep. I locked them in. If they weren’t smart enough to get on the roosts, a possum or raccoon would make quick work of them. At this point, though, I was happy enough realizing I had figured out why they weren’t eating. Maybe in a couple of days or a week, we would be getting some fresh eggs!
I wonder if Hurston has some prank up his sleeve about the chicken crates.
