Chicken Rancher

Why do men want to be ranchers? Growing up in Iowa (or any rural area for that matter) gives a man the feeling of being in touch with the bucolic side of his personality. I was raised a city boy, spending all my time in the city until I moved to my own house and only then, did I live in the country. Okay, it was only a couple of acres, in between a couple of towns, just on the edge of the city limits…but I still considered it a “rural“ country estate.

And since I have lots of land, I decided that I could be a “chicken rancher“. It would be a great learning experience for my kids. And I could have fresh range chickens and eggs whenever I wanted. Of course, being a man, I first checked out the closest meat locker so I wouldn’t have to clean the chickens. I didn’t want to be responsible for that big of a mess. I couldn’t imagine raising all those chickens and having to get them ready for the freezer all by myself. Knowing my wife and kids all the chickens would have names and become personal pets before this adventure was complete. What would they think of me then? This would have to be a secret mission, they couldn’t know what was really planned for the unfortunate poultry.

I also had to check out the local chicken emporium. Where does a chicken rancher buy the chickens? And do you start with the chicken or with the egg? As far as I knew, chickens were always on the farm, and they multiplied right there, on the farm. Which I did discovered they do, if you have a few of the right ones to start with. With a little searching I was able find a local hatchery that would get this new adventure started with nothing more than a phone call. Like expectant parents, my family anxiously awaited the call to tell us that the baby chicks were ready for delivery. Then I loaded all of us into the car, excuse me, the ranch truck, and headed out to pick up our new “charges“.

Let me tell you, I went all out. I bought 25 “special” chickens. These are the kind with ornate plumage that look like they are wearing fancy feathered shoes and hats, many of which were also wearing “hairy” spats. These special chickens came in multiple colors and promised us blue and brown eggs. And as my wife reminded me, these were going to be mobile lawn ornaments. Decoration only, not to be confused with the eating variety. And she reminded me of another benefit of owning chickens, we would no longer be buying eggs at the local store. That’s if we could find them. That was the key, you had to be able to find the eggs scattered around the yard!

I also bought 25 of the “mutant” chickens. These were the “raised for frying” variants. I was warned early that these mutant chickens would grow very rapidly. They would be ready to fry in about six to eight weeks. If they weren’t sent to the butcher shop timely, they would start to experience minor health problems like heart attacks and leg failures. The description sounded a lot like the plot to a super hero cartoon. With all the warnings, it felt like I was in a science experiment gone wrong. All these “mutants” did was sit in front of the feeder and eat. No exercising, no eating bugs, no scratching the ground like in the cartoons. Just eating, pound after pound of a special, very expensive, weight gaining chicken food.

The description was right, these mutants were not active chickens. They spent their days lounging around the yard, usually in front of the feeder gaining weight. And they spent their nights lounging around the yard, usually in front of the feeder gaining weight. Their exaggerated metabolism made these chickens grow so fast they were hot to the touch. I started to worry, if they grow that fast, maybe they won’t stop! I kept my kids away for fear that the mutants might be like feathered land mines. I now know the reason we added that special chemical into their drinking water, it kept them from growing too fast and exploding.

The mutants did have their problems. Foxes picked off a few. I saw one sitting eating one minute and then fall over from heart failure the next. And a few just stayed in one place, because they couldn’t move. But at six weeks the remainders were ready for the freezer.

But as I said, not by my hand. I only remember one time, as a kid, being around chicken butchering on a farm, I didn’t want to be tormented by that headless vision again. And I wasn’t going to subject my kids to that traumatic memory either. So I loaded all the chickens into a specially designed chicken hauling trailer, hitched it behind my “ranch truck” (aka - a Mazda RX7) and hauled them off to a chicken depository. By the cover of darkness, and a lone distant street light, I was able to unload the chickens at the meat locker. I left all the chickens in holding pens behind the building, writing my name on the tags attached to the wire cages. In a clandestine move that was reminiscent of a Miami Vice episode, I was able to drop off the chickens with the plan of picking them up the next afternoon on ice, and nobody (not even my kids) were the wiser. Well, except maybe the chickens!

I did it. No more store bought, expensive, confinement chickens for my family.

I pulled off a “real man” experience. I fed them, raised them and hauled them off to be processed. And I was getting fresh, range chickens and it only cost me about $10.00 a pound.

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