Feeding the chickees

by Nicolas

I love feeding the chickens. It is rewarding and fulfilling because I am making the chickees happy. And this is my job on the farm. I get up early on the farm. sometimes the rooster crowing wakes me up and then I just roll over and go back to sleep. When I do get up around 630am, I go downstairs and put on my boots and go out to the shed.

First I put on my seed belt and it has a little pouch on it. And then I fill it up with a scoop from the barrel of chicken scratch. And then I put on my hat to protect me from the sun And I wander over to the chicken run. And then i open the gate and go in and say 'Hi chickees how are you today’ And then I put my scoop into my seed pouch and then I fling it out and around and the chickees all start moving around and eating all the food that I am scattering. They love to pick at it because that is how they eat. they are birds and they know when there is food on the ground. Sometimes I see them with a worm hanging out of their mouth so that means they know what they are doing when they are scratching about.

I like feeding the chickees because they all talk when I come to feed them and I talk to each one of them. i know each of the chickens by look and I gave them names like Stanley and Happy chick and all the young ones are also out and about and I can decide on names for them. That is a lot of names for all our chickens. We have about two dozen chickens and then there are all the peepers. This means the young ones. And I am specially careful to make sure that the little ones get some scratch or else the big chickens might eat it all.

When I am feeding the chickees, the hens and rooster more or less stay in the area where i scattered good seed. So then I have to sometimes pick up a little chick and put him down away from the others and then sprinkle some feed right there. And then the other chicks come over and they have their own little area to feed on. This makes me happy because i want all the chickens, young and old, to be healthy, happy and secure and this means making sure that every chicken gets some food to eat. I am very particular in realizing this.

And then when my little pouch is done with seed, then I go back to the shed and pour the last little bit of seed into the seed barrel and then I take off my little pouch and i hang it up on a nail that is on a girder and then I am done.