FREE CHICKENS!
Collecting unwanted culled chicks from the local hatchery and raising them.
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PHOTO BY THE AUTHOR
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While on a trip to the local garbage dump to gather leaf
mulch (conveniently prepackaged in plastic bags), my friend
Tom and I discovered a yellow heap of dead chicks lying
near an air-befouling incinerator.
In answer to my shocked questions, Tom explained to me that
the local hatchery often dumped its "worthless" rooster
chicks there ... birds that—since they couldn't
produce eggs—"nobody wanted".
Well, that pile of dead birds set my brain to working, so
later that afternoon Tom and I drove to the hatchery and
told the dealer that we'd be glad to take a batch of those
doomed roosters off his hands. The gentleman was most
agreeable, and we left with instructions to pick up our
gratis fowl on the following Friday. Our great
chicken-raising adventure had begun!
A FREE BROODER, TOO!
While we awaited the appointed day, Tom and I prepared a
home for our expected babies. First, we secured a large
fiberboard box (the size that washing machines and
refrigerators are shipped in) from a friendly appliance man
and placed it on its side in our garage. The inside corners
were rounded out with sheets of cardboard (to keep the
chicks from bunchin' up and squashin' each other)
and—for a heat source— we hung a 100-watt light
bulb 18 inches above the "floor" of the makeshift brooder.
With this low-cost housing completed, it was time to move
in the "furniture". A coffee can, placed upside down in a
"throwaway" aluminum pie plate, was dubbed a feeder.
Another pair of the same items—with the addition of
two sticks glued to the inner surface of the
pan—worked as a "waterer". (The sticks held the
coffee can a quarter-inch above the pan's bottom and
allowed the water to rise to that height.) Of course, we
could've purchased small feeders or waterers for under a
dollar from the hardware store, but this was a low-buck
operation.
We had no ground corncobs, cut straw, or wood chips for
floor litter, so we just lined the bottom of the brooder
with several layers of newspaper and hoped for the best.
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