Chicken farmer, really?

So, what started as an innocent trip to the feed store to get a few chicks for our sweet daughter this past Easter, turned into the start of a new "career" as a poultry farmer.  Let me backtrack for a second here.  Two years ago, my sweet, sweet husband called and said "hey babe, I got you a gift today!"  While Jay is very kind and caring, he is not the "spur of the moment" gift-giver as seen on t.v. To add to this, it was our anniversary (not the exact day, but from what I remember it was roughly the same week) so I started to get excited.  He told me he'd be home right after work and I would get my gift--the anticipation was killing me! Was it jewelry? Hmmm, while he has gifted me with some nice trinkets, jewelry is generally a Christmas gift so I knew that was out. Hmm...could it be a gift certificate to a day spa? As I toyed with the excitement of what this "gift" could be, I finished up feeding the horses and was outside playing with Caroline.  Jay pulls up to the barn and asks "are you ready for your gift?"  Beaming with anticipation, I said "of course!"  Then, that dear sweet man takes out a weed-eater box.  Hmm...not was I was thinking....is he serious?  Then I realized the box was moving--yes, it was moving.  Jay opened the "weed-eater" only to pull 3 hens and a cocky (yea, I went there) little rooster out of the box and let them go in the yard.  "Thanks,hon" was all I could come up with.  Then he was sweet and said "well, I knew we wanted fresh eggs, so here you go."  Glad I didn't ask for fresh bacon and sausage as well...or milk, otherwise I would be milking Katie the Cow every morning.  Needless to say they didn't last too terribly long, but we had our little "taste" of having fresh eggs around and knew we would do it again one day.

Fast-forward back to this spring. I called Jay to make sure he didn't mind that we got a few--apparently, you cannot buy just 1 or 2.  He assured me it was fine, but once they outgrew their trough-house (yes, I had an old water trough that the horses busted a while back just sitting waiting for a new purpose) we would either let them be free-range or think of something else, but he was not doing anything yet.  "This is your thing now, Kerri." So, we come home with our eight (you had to buy six, there were 8 reds in the pen...couldn't let the other 2 be alone) little hens and Caroline had her new project.  They were cute and easy...there were only 8, right?  Fast forward to two months later.  I am at work and my phone rings.  I answer and get "this is Donna from the post office, your chickens are here."  I reply with "ummm...I am sorry, did you say chickens?"  She assures me this is the number she was to call and that I had two dozen baby chickens sitting in a box on the loading dock waiting on me.  I thank Donna and tell her that a very nice man by the name of Jay will be up there shortly.  A super sweet call to said poultry purchasor and he said "great, they're here!" - I didn't ask another question.  I get home and there they are ...all 27 of the newbies.  You may just have asked yourself "27, I thought you said two dozen, Kerri?"  Yes, apparently they throw in a few "extras" ---just in case. So now fastforward 5 months and we are the proud owners of roughly 30 fowl children--well, 29 as one was murdered this weekend by Louie, the Polish Prick, I mean, Rooster.  More on Louie to come later on---at least, you now know he exists.