Posted by Shawn & Annette in Activities, Outdoors on March 14, 2011
We stopped in at the Sonora Feed & Supply in Sonora yesterday, to pick up some bird seed. I was out of just about everything. While I was there, I found out that their baby chickens, ducks and other assorted birds will be delivered on Thursday. I tried to talk the hubby into letting me get a baby chick, but he wasn’t giving in. Darn!
Later in the day, we stopped in to the Tractor Supply Company in East Sonora, where I got to see lots of baby chicks. They were totally sold out of ducks yesterday but the baby chicks were so cute. I really wanted to hold one but the sign said not to touch them. I was totally bummed out.
When I had the farm in Ohio, we used to get 300 baby chicks every spring. It’s still pretty cold in Ohio this time of year, so we kept them in a pen in the diningroom. It could get pretty loud in there. Fortunately, we only had them in the house for a couple of weeks. Who could stand it for much longer than that? But the kids really loved having the birds in the house for that short period of time.
One year, we ended up getting talked into to taking home 10-pheasants and 10-turkeys, someone had ordered and never picked up. That year my favorite joke was:
Do you know what the only thing dumber than a turkey is?
Answer: A turkey farmer!
We were told at the feed store that in order to get the turkey’s to eat, you have to put shiny things in their food. How crazy is that? We had marbles in there, coins and a few other things for them to peck at. We didn’t lose a single one, until they were almost full grown. Some darn fox decided he liked turkey more than us. We ended up raising 4-birds to maturity. We lost 6 to the foxes.
The pheasants all made it, and not knowing what else to do with them, we said a prayer for their safety and turned them loose into the wild.
I plan to stop in t0 visit the chicks on Thursday. I hope they will let me hold them.
As far as the weather goes…
It rained all night long and the weather man is predicting rain for most of the week. Right now the sun is shining. Everything is drenched from the rain but I have a feeling most of it will dry out soon — but for how long? It’s 51 degrees outside. A nice day for a hike.