A common practice when butchering chickens is to not let them eat any food for twelve hours to a full day before you butcher them. The reasoning is that you want their digestive system to be clear of food when you butcher them, so it’s easier to process them. But birds have a high metabolism rate and not being able to eat for so many hours is distressing.

I find it gentler to let them eat uninterrupted, and spend a little extra care and time processing them. The big bulge on this unfortunate rooster is his last meal. When chickens eat, their meal first goes into their crop, a sack at the bottom of their neck. They can stuff a large amount of food in their crop. Then, at their leisure, they will digest their meal.

On a lighter note, I took another picture today of this young chick waiting quietly as its mother lays an egg. The chick is nearly the size of its mother. Even a bird with a small brain is capable of needing love and giving love.

Also see You Never See This on a Regular Egg Farm.

This two and a half month old chick waits patiently while its mother takes time to lay an egg. Some young chicks have a hard time growing up and leaving their mother’s side. This chick is one of the lucky ones. Of the billions and billions of chickens hatched and raised each year, only a handful ever have the luxury of seeing their mother lay an egg. It’s for these special chicks that a man and a hoe® exists. In this busy, super efficient world, there have to be a few places where mother hens have all the time in the world to raise their young, and where chicks can leave their mothers’ side when they are ready.

There are nothing but sun worshippers at a man and his hoe®. Living in the Pacific Northwest, there are times you doubt that a thing like the sun even exists. It’s hard to believe in things you never see. So when the sun comes out, you just have to bow down in amazement that such a marvelous thing crosses the blue sky.

Nothing beats taking a long nap in the warm sun. The best naps I’ve ever taken are with the sun beating down on me. The bright rays seem to penetrate to your inner core, cleansing every cell. You wake up feeling like you’ve slept a thousand years. I think the chickens feel the same way. Did you know chickens yawn too? Maybe that should be the distinction we make when we divide beings into sentient and nonsentient ones. If they yawn, they get the special treatment, otherwise … ???

Even the guard dogs nap in the sun. The great thing about living this far north, is that the sun is never cruel. Even in the middle of summer, it’s warmth is gentle, not the blowtorch blaze of a southern sun.

A sure sign of spring are small pullet eggs. The hens which hatched last spring are starting to lay eggs. Some may even become mothers this year. Below are some of the chicks from last May. Perhaps these eggs were laid by the chicks below, now that they are grown up. It does make you wonder what goes through a young hen’s mind the first time she lays an egg. “Woe! What was that, and what am I supposed to do with it?” Or what do they say when they chat with their sister after laying their first egg? “Rachel, you won’t believe what popped out of my but!”

This is Misasa with one her special chicks. I’m excited to see this one grow up because her mother is Hazel, one of the most stunning hens here. This one doesn’t have her colors, but she does have her neck and hairdo.

And this is Hazel’s egg, the very egg from which the chick hatched. It all starts with a simple egg. Though, I guess if you think about it, eggs are hardly simple things. They are quite complicated, amazing feats of hengineering.