Today’s supermarkets sell pork, beef, veal, lamb, chicken and turkey. Very little of what is on display looks anything like the animal it is from.

I wonder how many youngsters today ever get to see and touch a real live chicken. When I was growing up, we lived in a neighborhood that was developed for housing, but we also had a good taste of what farm life was like. We raised rabbits, pigeons, ducks and chickens. Not all at the same time.

When Mom wanted to serve chicken for dinner, she had to go out in the back yard and catch one.

One of our neighbors had a flock of chickens that ran free over the surrounding fields. It would have been too expensive to fence in the flock, especially since many chickens are capable of flying over a 5 or 6 foot fence.

When the lady of the house wanted to cook a chicken, she would tell her son to get his gun. Then she and her son would go out on the porch and the lady would tell him which one she wanted.
_____

_____
One time Mom and Dad raised a small flock of maybe 10 or 12 bantams. That’s a breed of chickens that only weighs about one pound or less. Sort of like a Cornish.

She served all but one, a feisty little rooster that she couldn’t catch. I remember the wishbones of those little chickens were painted with gold paint and strung like beads into an interesting conversation piece.

I remember other breeds, Leghorns, Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Minorca and Wyandots. Those are different colors, different sizes and some lay brown eggs.

The larger hens lay larger eggs and provide more meat per bird. A good laying hen like a Leghorn will lay an egg about every other day for a total of maybe 200 eggs a year. Champion hens might lay 300 eggs a year. When the time is right, a hen will lay about a dozen eggs and then sit on them for 21 days until they hatch.

Although her eggs may be laid over a period of 10 days or so, all the chicks will hatch within 1 or 2 days. During the 21 days she incubates her chicks, the hen rarely leaves the nest, not even to eat.

When chickens are allowed to run free, the farmer will build nests for them and put a glass egg or two in it. The hens will get the message and lay their eggs in it.

I remember after we got rid of our dog, his doghouse was empty for a while. When Dad went to take it apart, it was full of eggs put there by chickens from neighbor’s flocks.

Newly hatched chicks are cute and cuddly. They are covered with a pretty shade of yellow fuzzy down. Kids enjoy holding such a beautiful little animal. Stores used to dye them in pastel colors for Easter. Now you can rent one or more for a few days.

Newly hatched chicks are cute and cuddly. They are covered with a pretty shade of yellow fuzzy down. Kids enjoy holding such a beautiful little animal. Stores used to dye them in pastel colors for Easter. Now you can rent one or more for a few days.

Some families buy little chicks for Easter gifts and keep them as pets. When the chicken grows up and is ready to be served at Sunday dinner, the kids may refuse to eat their pet.

When an egg changes into a baby chick, it’s the white of the egg that is converted into the chick and the yolk is the food that keeps the embryo alive. A newly hatched chick does not need to be fed for the first two days of its life.

Dad would order maybe 100 chicks that would be delivered by mail to our house and they would arrive hungry.

Once in a while, an egg will have two yolks and I have heard of an egg that had no yolk at all. Eggs can be inspected by being candled. A bright light can be directed through the translucent shell in a darkened room and the inside of the can be seen just like an X-ray.

Scratchfeed for our chickens was fairly inexpensive and somehow anything that was inexpensive was referred to as being only “chicken feed.”

It is recommended that a flock of chickens have one rooster for every 12 or so hens. There is an old chicken joke about the farmer who was angered by the low egg production of his flock of 12 hens and 1 rooster. He threatened them by hanging an ax in the barn. They got the message right away. The next morning there were 13 eggs in the nest.

My cousin Jimmy lived on the west side of Cleveland and to him, we were farmers who raised our own food and ate rabbits.

In spite of his disdain for our lifestyle, he would help himself to generous portions of my Mom’s breaded chicken every time he was invited for dinner. On one occasion we got even with him when Mom served a platter of mixed breaded chicken and rabbit. He ate plenty of both and didn’t know the difference.

I often hear people complain when a rooster wakes them up by crowing at sunrise. I don’t remember any of our roosters doing that. I remember when we had a feisty little red rooster who would chase a much bigger black one all over the yard.

The lifespan of a chicken is five to 10 years with a record of one living to age 16. Castrated chicks are called capons and they grow bigger and are supposed to taste better. Such surgical alterations are illegal in some countries.

My favorite chicken dish? Chicken Paprikas.