Wanna raise some chicks?

“When the constrictor clenches its coils around you, become mist.”

A farmer in an adjacent county, having heard about my chicks getting stolen, offered to lend me money for more and also offered to raise the chicks for their first few weeks.  I thought it sounded like a good idea, but I know how to make it a great idea. Instead of this other farmer raising them so far away, why don’t you all do it?

I’m serious. If you have an empty corner in a critter-proof garage, shed, or barn you could raise maybe 15 or 20 chicks for me. If you don’t have it already, I can provide a baby pool (for a brooder), feeders, waterers, bedding, feed, grit, and a heat lamp. You just keep them fed and watered and toss in fresh bedding as needed. At the end of three weeks, I’ll take them back home to free-range, and I’ll remove everything, including the soiled bedding (unless you want it for your own compost pile). That will give me enough time to get the house at Woodland Avenue habitable enough for me to move into by myself and to generally beef up security there (I’ve already started this). During that time, the thief won’t know where the chicks are, and even in the unlikely event that they find one batch, they won’t find all of them. By the time I take them back, they’ll be much, much harder to steal, as there will be someone guarding them at all times. We won’t say anything about when that three weeks starts or ends. There’s a light on in my broiler house, and it’s going to stay on whether there are chicks or not. That means the thief will have to make routine visits just to find out whether I have any chickens or not, greatly increasing their odds of being caught. Depending on how long it is until I can get chicks, that might mean the thief has to keep coming back to find nothing until August.

For your trouble, I can pay you a dozen eggs a week and give you a whole chicken once I slaughter them at seven weeks. Or, if you prefer, I could just give you a gift card for $30, which is also good for produce.

Three-week old chickens don’t crow. They don’t even cluck. They cheep like songbirds when they make any noise at all. Nobody will know you have them (or won’t know what they are). Even if you live in a place where raising chickens is prohibited, I’m guessing nobody will know enough to complain until the day they see me picking them up.

If you’re interested, send me an email at wayne@frijolitofarm.com . Participants will be selected based on proximity, available facilities, experience with animals, and how well I know you.