Momentary Magic: Spring Chicks

Spring chicks just arrived this morning in the mail.  I have them under a red bulb heat lamp.

There was a time when my flock self multiplied.  Chicks were hatched on this place naturally and grew up being cared for by a mother hen.

Then one day nature in the form of coyote stole in and changed all that in one sad summer afternoon. The saddest part of all?  Coyote wasn’t even hungry.

What a waste.  All those lifeless bodies.  All the joy drained out of the hen yard.

Now the joy has returned in the form of Spring Chicks.

They don’t have mothers to raise them or to keep them warm or to teach them how to scratch the soil.  Even so, they figure it out.

It is miraculous that 54 tiny chicks can be packed carefully into a cardboard box, and shipped across the country.  The miracle is seeing the soft look on the faces around me when I pick them up at the post office.  The woman at the counter handing them over with blessings and well wishes.  The people in line murmuring that it was worth the wait just to see a box of chicks arrive in tact, their robust chirping filling the post office lobby.  A sign they are healthy and alive.

I drive them home with the heater cranked up into the 80s in my car, and I coo reassuring words to them all the way.  And when I unpack them-another miracle.  They are warm as toast.  The box is warm.  Tucked under their little straw mat, there are two heating packs, still warm after 40 hours of travel.

I find myself warming with gratitude.  It has not always gone this well.  The last batch of chicks arrived chilled through.  I lost about 17% of those chicks.  It took them a long time to even begin to thrive after being so compromised.

But these chicks stayed warm.  They not only survived, but they are vigorous.  Eating and drinking right away.  They haven’t passed out on their little faces with their little wings spread out, like I have seen others do in the past as they try to recover from the stress of being shipped in the mail.

The loud complaining peeping from being packed together in a box for a day and a half, has been replaced with the soft conversational chirps as they chat among themselves.

Right now I can hold 3 in the palm of my hand and all 54 chicks fit comfortably in their 100 gallon stock tank.  They will soon outgrow it, but for now it is the coziest place in the house.  Just the right size for newly hatched chicks.

Welcome home, dear ones.

Thank you for being a part of my life, and allowing me to be a part of yours.

Thank you for the miraculous joy you bring with you.