In early January we made the decision to get even more serious becoming self-reliant. We decided to buy some Cornish Cross chicks to raise to be processed. We thought 10 would be a good number, but planned to order 20 just in case we encountered a loss, like we’ve heard you unfortunately tend to do with this breed. Since we could potentially have extra, we offered homegrown, natural whole chicken to our friends and family. We got such a great response, we had to up our order… to 50.
No biggie, I thought. My view of 50 is a bit convoluted, I guess. $50 doesn’t seem like a lot these days… However, 50 chickens is a lot. We made the leap anyway. And since we had a big response, we figured we could try to raise 2- maybe even 3!- batches of chicks this year, to refill our own freezer, as well as our family and friends. Patience being a virtue that I not-so-much possess, I placed the order to come the end of January. No biggie, I thought.
Living in Indiana, I know January into February can sometimes be bitter cold, dead of winter months. But I also know that sometimes February, especially, fakes us out and tricks us into believing Spring is so near by. I had the good faith that this year would be like that, too. Bring on the baby chicks!
Mother Nature has a hard time hearing, I believe. I said chicks– not snow. Since my chicks have arrived, so has a cumulative 8 inches. Some has melted, and then snowed again on top, but in 2 weeks it has snowed 4 separate times. Thankful now that I did order 50, because those babies are so snuggled together, warm as a bug, and still doing just fine. However, don’t think it hasn’t been an adventure every day since.
Did I mention next week we’re expecting to get 12″-16″ more?!
You can check out the process of getting chicks, look around our neck of the woods, and tag along as we do what we gotta do to make sure these babies are happy and warm.
