New Birds in the Flock
Now that the last batch went so well (chickens that is, in the incubator), the Farmer’s Wife feels as though she has this all-figured-out. She can hatch chicks with the best of them. So…the incubator is given barely a day to rest before it’s reloaded–this time with twenty-one fresh-from-the-chicken-eggs (boy, are our girls tired). The timer was set. The egg-turner switched on. Water was added daily, and twenty-one days later….nothing. Twenty-two days later…still nothing. Twenty-five days later and one egg began to quiver. The Farmer’s Wife watched it excitedly. There was to be a beginning after all! Several hours later the chick emerged, flopped around, and finally, laid still on the base of the incubator. The Farmer’s Wife watched in horror, but knowing from past experience (she did have this all figured out, you know) that this is how it works, that the chicks look like they’re barely alive and then waalaa–they’re fine. And it was true with this chick as well. It was perfectly fine. The Farmer’s Wife scooped it up and placed it out in the waiting broader to stay nice and toasty as it waited for it’s tiny feathered friends to join him. The Farmer’s Wife waited. The chick waited. The Farmer’s Wife went out to visit the chick, who was laying down, listless, waiting for it’s family to arrive. The Farmer’s Wife gently patted it’s head and said soon, soon.
And then she went back inside and looked into the incubator, but none of the other eggs were making a peep.
The Farmer’s Wife sighed. She knew what she had to do.
“Stay with the chick. Give him a pat on the head every ten minutes,” she instructed her son.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She sighed again. “To go get that chick a family.”
And that is just what she did. She went to the store that sells such things and asked for six chicks of any and all kinds to be a family to her new chick.
The lady who worked at the store that sells such things dove deep into the bin and pulled out six of the silliest looking chickens the Farmer’s Wife has seen in her life. Each are black with big tuffs of white hair on top of their heads.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I wanted six chickens…”
“These are chickens,” she was answered. “They’re Polish Rangers.”
The Farmer’s Wife frowned. There went her perfect flock of golden-tipped Wyandottes–now all of them would be walking around with crazy tuffs of white hair on their heads!
She sighed again, very heavily that time. It couldn’t be helped. The little chick needed a family, or it would not make it.
She took her box filled with crazy chickens back home and made the right and proper introductions.
The tiny little Wyandotte looked up at the Farmer’s Wife, expecting more patting. Instead, it was greeted with the most glorious sound–cheeping and chirping! He ran over to investigate. He let out a cheep and a chirp of his own.
The Farmer’s Wife smiled. Her little chick didn’t seem to care one bit how crazy those chickens looked, so neither would she.
(Oh. And it was a good thing the Farmer’s Wife went and bought those chickens, because not one of those other twenty eggs in the incubator made a peep.)
