A Mother Clucker Has to Do What a Mother Clucker Has to Do

There aren’t any human children at the farm. A lot of you parents out there probably think – well heck, you don’t have a clue what it’s like to stay up late at night worrying about a sick child, cleaning up unending messes, never having enough time to get everything done that you’d like to while stepping around the little inhabitants of the house/farm, or not being able to take a much needed vacation for time away. While I recognize that attitude that some may have, I have to respectfully disagree that I haven’t felt a lot of the same emotions or had the same frustrations that these parents have.

I’ve stayed up late at night worried about my big dog, Ozzie, as he ate something that caused him to become so lethargic that I thought he may pass away through the night. I’ve nursed some chickens back to health from a respiratory issue, removed infections from their feet and then had to gently ease some out of this life into the next. There really isn’t a veterinarian around these parts that would doctor a chicken and really, why would they?

I’ve been able to take one overnight vacation (for 2 nights) in the last year and as the farm grows – that one luxury may be fading too. Anyone know of a good farm watcher?

It’s not that I’m bitter about it, I’m truly not, but there are multiple sacrifices that have to happen on a day to day basis with growing, running and maintaining a farm by oneself. My friends try to be understanding when I bow out of a much needed evening out at 8PM, my need to run home and feed everyone, collect eggs, and lock everyone up for the night so they don’t end up on the coyote/raccoon menu, taking precedence over partying. There’s nothing quite like knowing that the things that you are raising are constantly under threat from being eaten. Imagine that with human children for a moment.  

The mess they leave behind

There are still 19 chicks in my basement at the time of this writing and I can only imagine what the parent of a human teenager feels like as I raise these little ones. They eat voraciously, are incredibly noisy and are absolutely making a complete mess of their inside brooder. It will take days if not weeks to eradicate the dust and the tiny first feathers that they shed to make way for their adult plumage. My “free chicks” that I received from a friend for raising said friend’s birds as well, have totaled well over $50 so far in feed and growing. 

That being said, when these birds “leave the nest” as teenager birds and go to the large coop – I will worry for the first few days that they’re eating enough, that they’re staying warm enough, and that they’re not being picked on too much by the larger adult birds.

No, they are not human children but I think that parents of human children would worry about their teenagers in much the same way. Granted, these human children don’t typically need to worry about getting “eaten” by a hawk or other ground predator – but there are other dangers out there that a teenager has to watch out for.

I may not be a human mother, but being the Mother Clucker that I am – I’m going to raise these little ones and the other animals to the best of my ability and hope that they grow up well and are nice to one another. I'll take their sass and clean up mess after mess just because I love them. When things get too rough and I need a tiny amount of time away, that, dear friends, is why I have a great relationship with the brewery in town. Just know that I'll have to be home by 8:00PM. J