Henny Penny Or Chicken Little?

Oh, those cute little fluffy yellow baby chicks! I loved the month of April. Not only did it mean winter was over, it meant baby animals on the farm - calves and pigs and kittens and chickens.
Once in awhile a broody hen would hide her nest and hatch her brood of little ones, though Mom would try to find the nests before that happened. She would let the banty chickens nest though and raise their young. It was fascinating to watch the chicks peck their way out of the egg shells. And the banties were so much more colorful.

As soon as we were old enough to help the first job was to ready the brooder house. That meant shoveling out the crap from the year before, spraying some kind of disinfectant (I can still smell it, but don't know what it was), putting down a deep layer of peat or ground corncobs, hanging the heat lamps and checking their bulbs, putting chick starter in the little feeders and washing the waterers before filling them. There was some type of medicine we put in the water. It was a yellow tablet; again, I don't know what it was.
Once that was all done, we could drive to Clarinda and get our chicks. The magical date for this was the 21st of April. At least that is the way I remember it. There was a hatchery in Corning but for whatever reason, we always got our chicks from the Berry Hatchery in Clarinda. Perhaps it had to do with cost. Berry's gave 25 free rooster chicks for every 100 pullets. Our order was 200 pullets. I think there were years we bought extra roosters besides the 50 free ones.
Once we got them home, the chicks were taken out of the boxes one by one. Mom had us dip their beaks into the water before we gently placed them on the floor. By the time we had 250 to 300 chicks running around, we had to be careful where we stepped. There was nothing worse than accidently killing a baby chick. I remember when Leslie wanted to help when he was two. He picked a chick out of the box by the neck and held it up. I don't think he hurt it, but he was quickly shown how to hold one and told not to help anymore.
The chicks lived in the brooder house until the fall of the year. The previous year's hens were culled; those not laying were sold or became stewing hens. (Nothing better than chicken and noodles or chicken and dumplings.) As long as the old hens were laying well, we kept them.
Feeding the chickens and gathering eggs was one of the chores Betty and I had. I hated gathering and cleaning eggs. The worst was when a hen wanted to set and wouldn't get off the nest. When I tried to reach under her to get the eggs, she would peck me. I HATED gathering eggs. Each night we would count the eggs as we gathered them so we would know how well the hens were laying. We also knew as soon as the pullets started laying because their eggs were smaller. (Many of my diary entries noted how many eggs we got that day.)
I tried raising chickens a few times over the years. I know we had some when we lived on Tuck Corner. I ordered them through the mail. When they arrived at the post office, the postmaster called and said, "Come in and pick up your chickens!" I could hear them cheeping noisily in the background.
When we moved back to the home place in '95, we made one unsuccessful attempt at having chickens. Everything went o.k. until the chickens were about half grown and a predator started taking two every night. It was probably a fox. No matter how much we tried to keep it out of the old chicken house, it still got in.

During the time we lived there, I had many recurring dreams about forgetting to take care of the chickens in the brooder house. I would forget to feed and water them until they were all almost dead. I never understood those dreams. Did it have something to do with our trailer house being in the same location as where the brooder house once was?
Maybe I'm being nostalgic, but I would still like to raise chickens again. I don't know what Creston's ordinance is, but several towns/cities are now dealing with passing laws regarding Urban Chickens.
Oh, Henny Penny or Chicken Little? Definitely Henny Penny.