The Science of Eggs : Adventures in Chicken Husbandry

We have a real chicken flock now. It started last summer, when we inherited five chickens (two of which are roosters) from our neighbor. They were a joyous addition to the family, but we eat a lot of eggs. Three hens definitely wouldn't cut it. This spring we added nine chicks to the family, and they are now large teenage birds (and one of them has also turned out to be a rooster).

Now, to round out our chicken experience, two of our original hens have gone broody. Henny Penny and Goosey Loosey are sitting on nests of eggs.

Ducky Daddles checks on the mothers-to-be

We don't need any more chicks. We now have a flock of fourteen, which is plenty. But I'm a mother myself, and I understand those motherly urges. Plus, I think it'll be fun to watch the mama chickens raise their babies. It's much less work than me raising them! However, I didn't want them to hatch a ton of chicks, so I was keeping an eye on how many eggs they had in the nests. One day I noticed Goosey Loosey had ten eggs in her nest. I marked them, and the next day several more eggs appeared [I was very amazed that she had layed four eggs in one day!] I took the new eggs because I wanted to keep things a little under control.

The next morning was Friday, which is pancake day at our house. We use this really awesome recipe from Feeding the Whole Family, in which you soak oats and buckwheat overnight in a blender. In the morning, you add an egg and a few other ingredients before whirring it up into a batter.

So I cracked my egg for the batter. My stomach turned, but I kept a light tone of voice for the kids. "Oh wow(!!!??) Look at this you guys."

Yes, there was a little baby chick embryo in our egg. It was in the early stages of development, but still obviously a chick. The next egg also had a chick in it. As did the other two. Obviously I hadn't been doing as good of a job as I had thought in keeping track of the eggs [I have since observed that the chickens will actually move the eggs around from nest to nest, which must have been how they tricked me.] We carried on with our pancakes, as if it's normal to find chicks in our eggs, but inside I felt terrible for killing Goosey Loosey's [or maybe Henny Penny's] babies.

Making our chick-free pancakes

After breakfast, we took our little egg babies out into the garden and buried them in the middle of the pea bed. I asked Jai if we should sing a song for them. Without hesitation, he suggested "Roll on Columbia." So we sang. Roll on, little chickies, roll on.

Living in the country, or at least our experience of the country, has given us many opportunities to discuss death. Our sheep killed by coyotes; the small creatures caught by the kitties; the animals we eat to sustain ourselves; these little chicks. Our children have seen the ending of life. I believe this is a good thing. I want my children to know that death is not scary; it is simply a part of life. I believe that life continuously regenerates itself, that this experience is just one of the many lives I will [and have] had. I teach my children that the spirit of God[dess] lives within each of us, and that spirit will never die.

Roll on, little chickies, indeed.