Chicken or Egg?

After church today I headed out to my parents house in part because it was a beautiful day to be out and about and partly because I hadn't seen them in a coon's age. When I showed up though, they weren't home! Where do parents go on the weekend? Well, these parents took a drive of their own out to Farm & Fleet on route 30 (far west.....think almost Iowa, at least in my mind). When they got back though, they did have one interesting nugget to pass on.

As it turns out, today was "free chick day". Now, when I heard that, the idea of moving to the suburbs jumped dramatically on my life goals list. Maybe I've been going about trying to meet the right woman all wrong? Apparently in the suburbs, if you go far west enough at least, they just give them away! Take your pick. Wow!

Alas, no, that is not the case and the suburbs are not some type of utopia. In fact, "free chick day" actually meant free baby chickens or turkeys. I thought this was quite odd. A mess of farmers actually go to Farm & Fleet and, of course, they do have chickens. Interestingly enough, both of MY PARENTS had chickens growing up. Really? Yep, my dad's family had a rooster and four hens. Now, I know nothing about chickens, except they provide the essential parts of both my Denver omelet and Hooter's wings. Mmmmmmmm.

So let's have a little chicken education. According to Wikipedia, hens can lay up to one egg every 25 hours and my parents confirmed that they lay pretty much every other day (which I thought was pretty amazing). With four hens, you could easily have a dozen eggs a week, not bad for any family much less a depression era family in rural Pennsylvania. Here's some more good info out of Wiki that I found interesting: "Chickens will try to lay in nests that already contain eggs, and have been known to move eggs from neighbouring nests into their own. Some farmers use fake eggs made from plastic or stone to encourage hens to lay in a particular location. The result of this behavior is that a flock will use only a few preferred locations, rather than having a different nest for every bird."

Where else are you going to find that kind of information except on my blog?

Did I mention this show on BBC America called Robin Hood? It's on Saturday evenings and if you haven't seen it yet, you have to set up your Tivo to record it. There have only been two or three episodes, so it's still early in the series. WATCH this show! It's awesome.