Beside the Stream

One summer we raised mallard ducks on the pond, hoping they’d fly off in the fall with the wild mallards who stop by the pond on their migration south.  But the mallards we raised didn’t leave.   They weren’t tame at all–they were raised to fly away–and we didn’t want to winter them over.  So we shot the ducks from across the pond, and scalded them in the lobster pot.   The plucking was horrible, the gutting was worse, and neither of us even like duck.  The only way Bob agreed to raise chickens was if someone else processed them… and the local slaughterhouse doesn’t do fowl.

Last summer I asked our local chicken farmer if he’d process chickens for a fee, and he said yes.  His wife Holly was at the Farmer’s Market, and I explained that I got chickens thinking of her husband saying he’d process them.  She said that she normally didn’t do any extra chickens, but since…    

It’d take about an hour and a half to do 23 chickens, she said.  It’s the clean-up that’s the problem.   So somehow it transpired that she’ll do my chickens as a separate run, and I’ll clean up.  That’s one thing I learned about chickens.

The second thing I learned is that they should be slaughtered at 8 weeks.  I have six weeks to go. 

Meanwhile, the chicks were much more interested in the world this time out.

They stick close together, but they pecked at the flowers and scratched the ground and generally looked around.   

You can see they have a little set of wing feathers,  

and this chick has the first hint of tailfeathers.

It’s hard to believe they’ll be grown in a month and a half. 

People say, I bet you fall in love with them and keep them for eggs. 

I wish.