I had it. Bad. My brow dripped with sweat as I pored over the pages of poultry guides. I stopped eating, too busy learning how to integrate chickens into a garden. I huddled under blankets barely able to focus on anything but speckly, spotty, streaky plumages. I tossed and turned, dreaming feverishly of the best breeds for northern climates, egg production, foraging ability. I developed a chicken twitch, spontaneously crying out “CHICKENS!” and grabbing my husband’s arm while bulging my eyes at him. Diagnosis: I had chicken fever.
The fever began mid-winter when the best man in the world agreed that it would be fun to try raising chickens. I rubbed my hands together with glee and not a little Machiavellian joy. My dad was born in the country and my mom grew up on an orchard. There must have been some latent Alien-like farmer just waiting to bust out of my gut.
Just for the record: I know I'm not a real farmer. There's no way I can work that hard. I like my naps.
I knew chickens were just the first step in my plan to be that crazy lady living off the land with all those animals. Not quite an animal hoarder, but definitely a collector. Perhaps even a kick-ass breeder of endangered livestock breeds.
While Mr. Practical (husband) thought it would be nice to get a few homegrown eggs a day, I planned to have several of each animal I could keep, a veritable ark of disappearing breeds. And honestly, he knows what I am. If he wasn’t in the picture I’d already have 17 dogs, each with three legs or one eye. I have a soft spot for the downtrodden in the natural and domesticated world.
So, Part 1 of my evil plan: start with a few chickens. Once that’s a roaring success, slip in a few turkeys, “just a few to raise for Thanksgiving”, then on to pigs and goats and cows and maybe alpacas, because they’re just so fun and easy!
Whoa! Okay, ease up there cowgirl. Let’s just see how the chickens go.
Stay tuned to find out how I cured my chicken fever. Mostly with a lot of hard work. Yuck.
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