Peep, Peep

           Easter is Sunday, April eighth.  When I was a kid, people practiced a terrible tradition of giving chicks to children as Easter presents.  Chicks are fuzzy and cute and can live in a cardboard box.  Chickens are neither fuzzy nor cute.  They'll peck their way out of the box and walk around the house, pooping as they go.  Thank goodness that the only chicks we give today are made of chocolate or marshmallow.  I had my experience with chicks as a youngster.  It didn't have anything to do with Easter, though.  It was about the Hainesport School Science Fair.  

     I was in the seventh grade, and I needed a science project.  My teenage neighbor was visiting the house during the time I discussed the Science Fair with my mother.  Our visitor described a high school student’s project – the hatching of chickens.  The young scientist showed the hatching process from egg to fuzzy, yellow peep by breaking an egg into a jar of preservative each day of the 21-day incubation period. 

     I was fascinated by the idea of twenty-one jars of almost-chickens floating in formaldehyde.  Also, I was sure to win if I, a seventh grader, could reproduce a high schooler’s project.

          My parents set up a Sears incubator, a remnant from years before, when they raised chickens and sold eggs.  It was made out of gray metal, the same as garbage cans.  It resembled a giant cake dish with an equally giant cover.  The cover had a little window and some air vents.  The not-so-high-tech interior contained a light bulb, a thermometer and a pan for water. 

     As soon as the apparatus was set up in the basement, on top of the ping-pong table, I put the fertile eggs inside, plugged in the incubator and began my chicken production.

     I had learned that the eggs should be placed large end down and pointed end slightly up.  The humidity should be fairly high; that was the reason for the water pan.  To keep the temperature at 100 degrees, I adjusted the vents.  During the first eighteen days of incubation, I turned the eggs four to six times.  So that I didn’t miss turning any eggs, I marked the shells with an “X” on one side.  I didn’t turn the eggs during the last 3 days.

          Since my parents vetoed cracking open an example every day - it would be a waste of a good chicken and might be too gruesome a sight for the dainty first graders who would be inspired by our projects - I had to study pictures in books, then draw posters showing the twenty-one days of development.

     Everything came off without a hitch.  My written report was exceptional.  My posters were artistically rendered.  A fluffy peep, kept out of reach of children, attested to the success of my project.  I won first prize!

          In addition to the chick on display at the science fair, there were eighteen more of unknown gender running around one corner of the basement.  My parents viewed them, the girls at least, as a source of free eggs.  The excess eggs could be sold to pay for feed.  The boys would be meat on the table.  I had a feeling I would be working on this science project for years to come.

     As I said, the sex of the chicks was unknown because it is difficult to determine the male or female status of a newly hatched chicken.  It is an art that was, for years, known only to certain Japanese people.  Then, in 1933, the secret got out when two Japanese scientists published a paper explaining the technique of separating the boys from the girls.  For my family’s purposes, we waited until our brood started growing feathers.  By about six weeks of age, we could distinguish hens from roosters.

     The birds grew and left the basement to live in a rehabbed coop.  They could exit their chicken house and run freely in an enclosed area.  The fence was about eight feet high but, as an added precaution to prevent escapes, my father trimmed their wing feathers.   The girls grew into contented layers.  As planned, all but one of the boys became stewed chicken.  Maybe another child would have balked at eating his or her science project for dinner, but I don’t remember having felt guilty.  My attitude was probably tempered by the fact that tending chickens was added to my list of chores.

     My education in chickens continued for several years.  One of the first things I learned was that those sweet, fuzzy peeps grew up to be cannibals.  The poor bird at the bottom of the pecking order had a miserable existence.  If blood was drawn, the attack was merciless. 

     Another thing I learned was that chickens have a pouch in their throats called a craw.  It contains gritty things like little stones that they have picked up.  The craw grinds up what chickens eat before the food passes on to their stomachs.  Sometimes, the craw gets clogged up, making the bird crawbound.  This happened to one of our chickens.  In order to prevent almost certain death, my father disabled the hen, sliced open her neck, cleaned out the craw and sewed it up.
     Laying hens live about seven years.  As they age, they produce fewer eggs.  We kept the chickens three or four years and gave them away when they started eating all the profits of the egg business.  Finally, my science project had ended.

Me, tending my parents' original batch of chickens in 1955

     For all who celebrate Easter, have a wonderful holiday.  I'll be back on Monday.