Barnyard Tales: From Bra to Brooder, a chick story

It was about nine am. The scene looked eerily similar to other ones I’ve seen. White feathers mingled with old hay and dust on the barn floor, a sure sign of an attack. Chickens are locked up at night to prevent this from happening, but somewhere along the line this hen had decided to leave the safety of the hen house and raise a clutch of her own without the added safety. We didn’t even realize that she had a nest elsewhere until it was too late.

Something had carried off the hen, leaving nothing behind but a few wisps of white. It looked like the barn cats had gotten the chicks. Sunday was shaping up to be a bad day.

It hadn’t been a raccoon, because the hen had been taken. It almost had to be a fox, but she had been on the floor in the same stall as the barn dog. How did a fox get in? WTF, Milk Dud? Worst barn dog ever.

Captain America, my dad, and I pondered this as we searched in vain for more clues, or maybe an injured hen. It was then that I noticed the sound, niggling on my nerves. Was it a barn swallow? Did they have chicks yet? But no, it was the insistent peeping of a chick in a horse feeder, across the barn from the massacre. Had she hatched the chicks in stall seven then? Only to have a few leave the nest and she flee the safety to protect them in stall two? It seemed to be so. I wound my fingers around the tiny balls of yellow fluff and gingerly cradled them close. One of them had already passed away, frozen to death; but one was healthy and the other wasn’t quite gone yet. I knew just what to do.

I ran towards the house, “MOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!” I sprinted up the stairs and shoved the handful of chilled chick at her. “I found baby chicks. The momma is missing. Warm these up!”

“What?” She blinked at me and then started examining the golden fluff.

“He needs warmed up. The one is okay, but the other is probably dying. I’m going to see if I can find the hen.”

“Yeah. I think he is dead.”

“No he’s not. He blinked.”

“Okay give them here.” She promptly shoved them under her shirt. You learn quickly as a woman on a farm that the best place to revive cold newborns is in your cleavage. It doesn’t matter what they are: kittens, puppies, chicks… okay calves and foals wouldn’t really fit, but I digress.

I couldn’t find the hen anywhere. It was starting to look more and more like a fox in the horse barn was our culprit. CA and I ran to the feed store for chick starter, and I fought the urge to buy another chick to keep the one little peeper company because I was pretty certain that even the power of nestling in a brassiere wouldn’t revive the other one.

I got home and ran upstairs with my load of chick probiotic and feed only to find mom still in bed. “Thank God. Set up a brooder. I can’t stay in bed all day!” She then pulled down her collar to show two happy little chicks curled up and warm.

“Maybe you should just wear them in a tank top? They would be so happy, and you could use your hands, momma chicken!” She glared at me. “Okay, okay. I’ll find stuff to set up a brooder.”

So, back out to the barn I went in search of a heat lamp and some sort of chick container, but what did I hear? A soft “peep, peep, peep” came from the roof of the tack room. I wrestled a ladder around and what did I find at the top? Another freaking chick. I scooped him up and ran him back inside the house. How in the hell did he wind up on top of the tack room?

I tried to shove him under one of the other hens, but she glared at me and then fled like she had no idea what to do with a baby. Such great mothering instinct…

Back in the house we introduced chick three to his siblings in the mineral tub turned brooder. Mom hung the heat lamp off of her inversion table and fretted over their temperature. My tank top suggestion was turned down, again.

Thinking my good deeds for the day done, I went over to the Hill to meet CA and fix the seeder that I broke two weeks ago. We even got the bonus of meeting neighbors who were four wheeling on land that they thought was theirs, which wasn’t. After finishing up with all that CA left to tend the MO farm, and I started feeding. Mom and dad offered dinner, and we ran in town. So it was almost eight pm when we got home and I was walking towards Guilty Grin with full feed bucket in hand when I hear a very faint “peep, peep, peep” coming from the wall. Yes, the wall. The SOLID WOOD WALL AT THE WHOLE OTHER END OF THE FREAKING BARN. WTF?!

I ran in and grabbed a flashlight and drug the ladder down the aisle way to peer into the tiny crack between the wooden stall wall and the tin outer wall of the barn.

And there was a barn swallow.

And a chick.

Fuck.

I ran back in and told mom and dad that there was a bird stuck in the wall, but it would require property damage to get it out. Bless her soul, my mom looked up from her bedroom brood box and her response was to ask my dad to go out and take a look: “take the siding off, it’s falling down anyway.” Which it isn’t, except for the down spouts that I ripped off with the manure spreader while I was in high school because I have no spatial reasoning ability whatsoever. So, at 8:30 last night we were ripping the siding off a horse barn to rescue a chick trapped in the wall. Still not exactly sure how he got all the way over there.

That’s farm life. 

This is why I can't have nice things.

That is what my legs looked like at the end of Friday's feeding.

Why?

Because the ole gals have been chatting around the hay feeder and decided that the new fangled birthing options out there sounded like they'd be great to try. Here's a hint, cows shouldn't have water births.

They should also not have births close enough to the lake that the calf could fall in and make it look like a water birth.

They should also not ATTACK people who happen by on the tractor in the nick of time, strip their shoes off (because I have lost boots by wading in lakes before), and jump in valiantly to save their newborns from hypothermia or drowning.

You'd think they'd be grateful, instead I'm nursing a few bruises and pulled muscles from running away from an angry momma. Fortunately my dad heard all my yelling (something along the lines of: "You stupid witch! I'm trying to help! I'm not the one who decided to have a baby in a f-ing lake!") and interceded with the four wheeler and a big stick. 

Everyone is fine, other than me with my lower back which was twisted in the getaway - or by face planting because I didn't put my boots back on (which really, look at my feet, you wouldn't either) and slipped on the "cow mud" by the feeders. 

Friday was not my day.

This is why I can't have nice things...

But Saturday was. Isn't he the sweetest? Really, who needed a decent pedicure anyway?

Ninja Skills

Have you ever felt the feeling that you were being watched? That slow niggling feeling crawling up the back of your neck? You cast your eyes around behind you, willing some shape to form out of the darkness. Something, anything to explain the sensation away. But there is nothing in the black. No sounds alert you to the fact that you are being stalked. Still, your skin crawls and you can't relax. The primitive anticipation of danger is especially intense when you're alone in the country.

What is it out there? A coyote? A bob cat? A cougar? A Sasquatch? A bad case of reading too many Lets Not Meet stories on Reddit and being somewhat convinced that there is a deranged person living in the barn loft that you wouldn't even know about until the jump down and attack you from behind?

Okay, probably not those last two, but Tuesday night I definitely knew something was off. I shrugged it off as my overactive imagination, or perhaps being watched by an opossum. It was dark. I was at my parent's home feeding chickens and playing the ever popular "try to count black cows in the dark" game. I had just started pouring grain for the horses and stepped out of the grain room to grab a bag of sweet feed when I saw her.

She peeked her head out of the inky black and into the light of the horse barn, causing me to scream like a little girl and experience heart palpitations. All that was visible was her white blaze, as my scream caused her to turn tail and run. I ran from the barn to find, nothing. She had vanished again. How 1,200lbs of horse can be COMPLETELY SILENT, and invisible is the mystery of the week.

Meet the creature that stalks you at night, Zippy. The horse ninja. Schrodinger's horse. 

If you put a horse in a fence, but don't see the horse; does the horse cease to exist? 

No, the fence ceases to exist. . .

Screw the cat who walks through walls. She is Zippy, the horse who walks through fences!

Horses are a$$hats.

Have you ever been eye stalked by a cow?

 

You know those people at the gym that stare at you while you exercise? That make you feel judged, and badly about yourself? The ones that make that internal voice go, “Oh crap. I’m not working hard enough. Fast enough. I must look horrible in this spandex shirt!” Yep.

Meet the mother of those people. A cow.

You're not even able to work fast enough to keep me fed. Amateur.

Let me set the stage for you. A few weeks back I posted about my abusive relationship with the cows and I mentioned that I had spent several hours cleaning the barn. This is a set of before and after photos of the lovely project.

Something doesn't look quite right.
And no, it isn't the fact that the stalls are full of 30 years worth of junk!

Step one complete! Note the height change!
Also note that this is about when I realized that my radio was on AM.
And that was why I couldn't listen to anything other than radio Disney...
I was dedicated dammit. I also know the words to "Let it go."

Let it go, let it go. I'm not cleaning this anymore!
Let it go, let it goooo! Almost ready to close up the doors.
I don't care. What the cows say.
Let them moo onnnn!...The hay never bothered me anyway!

You see that wonderfully compressed timber? And the one with the hole in it? Yeah. That was what prompted my cow-stalking gym time. The dang barn was falling down. It is always something! 

And yes, I have an entire barnyard version of the song. Go ahead. Judge all ya'll want. When Disney comes knocking on my door you'll see! ;)