Freedom, Oh Sweet Freedom!

They took my chickens away. This has been a long flock. A good flock of chickens that grew well, but a hard flock for me to survive. I mentioned in a previous post that it is a great way to lose weight. I started the flock at 183 pounds, and ended the flock at 165. You don't lose that much weight doing nothing. I work by myself for the greater part of the flock, and I go until I can't physically take it any more. Then I hire someone to help me for the last week or so. Oh man, it was so good to have help that last week. This flock went for 66 days. Those are some big chickens. Big, and I might add that this flock was very healthy, so they were well enough to think that THEY owned the houses and decided I was an intruder. By the time I was getting the houses ready for the catch crews to come I noticed something pulling on my pants legs. I turned around and had three roosters taking turns attacking me. They were just running up and grabbing my pants, pulling on them and backing up. then the next one would come over and do it. I scared them away, but when I turned around to go back to work they just came back and did it again. Luckily when I ran the drill to raise the drinker lines up they got scared and ran away. Can't be mad at anything that grew so big it thought it could take me on in a fight. That is all I want from my chickens. Grow big and make me proud. In case you were wondering, chickens are very soft. don't tell anyone, but sometimes when I am working in the houses on something broken they will come and sit next to me. Occasionally I will pet them. As long as you pet from head to tail, with the feathers they like it. Yes, I feel guilty sending them all to slaughter at the end of the flock. I just tell them it is time to move on to a bigger house. One where they can play outside all day and the weather is always nice and sunny. 

I also think they are smart and bond together. I often wonder why frequently I find two chickens dead next to each other. Did one die, and the other die of sadness for the loss of his friend? In a huge chicken house, what are the odds that two would die within inches of each other? I'm just saying. 

I will assume that my brother Joe is already revoking another of my man cards. I should just shut up before I completely run out of cards. 

On another note, one of the more difficult things about chicken farming is dealing with the pay method. Think you have trouble budgeting with your week to week check, or your every two week checks, or even on a monthly pay schedule? HA! My last check came the first week of December last year. It works like this: You get paid for the chickens when they pick them up and weigh them, then they wait a week to compare you with the rest of the growers for the week, and then pay you based on your ranking in that group. (I won't even go into my opinion on that lame method of figuring out pay rate.) 

So last November I had my chickens picked up, and then the first week of December came and I got paid. Yay! Money to buy Christmas presents! So December goes by, and well the economy is bad and the company doesn't need as many chickens so they extended the times between flocks. Instead of 10 days between pick up of one flock and drop off of the new baby chicks, they extended it to almost six weeks. December went by still no chickens and the first week of January they called and asked if I was ready to take chickens. Apparently someone else was not able to take chickens, so they needed some one who could take them right away. I wasn't scheduled for at least one more week. I of course said "yes". Let's see, already one month has past since I got my check, and I am just scheduled to get new chickens at the end of the week. Now I get the chickens and the flock lasts about nine weeks. This flock went 66 days. Then they pick the chickens up, and I have to wait a week until I get paid. That means I have not taken in a dime from the farm in all of December, January, February, and finally in the middle of March I will get paid again. That is three and a half months without a check! Good thing my wife has her degree in business management and knows how to budget money or I would be eating steak and lobster for about two weeks, and 'mac and cheese' and Ramen noodles for the remaining three months. 

Luckily things seem to be getting better in the poultry industry. The out times appear to be coming down a bit and are now down to about four weeks. Still it will be a long time until the next check comes. Let's all hope that something good happens and I get chickens earlier than expected so I can go less than three months with out being paid this time.