One of my occasional forays into my own story …

Since moving to our woodland farm in Washington, Randall and I have known we might want to add livestock. Chickens seemed like good gateway critters, especially since a chicken house came with the additional land we annexed last summer.

We decided we would, in fact, start with baby chicks this year. We picked out a breed called Norwegian Jaerhons because they were excellent layers, cold-tolerant, and good foragers (and because of Randall’s Norwegian heritage). We ordered them probably in January and were told we’d get them in April. In the meantime, Randall spent long hours rehabbing and optimizing the chicken house and pen. We joked that he had made it into a luxury condo.

In April we learned that the Norwegian breed wasn’t yet available, and we’d get them in June. We talked about switching to a less rare breed, but had our heart set on the Norwegians. We were told they would ship on June 14, and we’d get them June 15. The supplier would call us when they were shipped, and the post office would call us when they arrived. Neither call came. The supplier would not respond to calls or emails for about 72 hours. We finally got a voicemail saying they hadn’t had enough of the Norwegians and couldn’t fulfill our order. We had never gotten any indication that could happen. And wouldn’t you think they would have let us know of this lapse in advance of our waiting by the phone on the 14th and 15th?

So, we decided to see what we could find locally. No easy task, because chick season is pretty much over. We planned to check the feed stores (which turned out to be pretty much out of them) and Craigslist. I went on Craigslist early Saturday morning. The closest Craigslist is Spokane (about an hour and a half away), and I knew Ran would not want to drive too far to get chickens, so I wasn’t too hopeful. I decided to go back a week into the listings. There were literally hundreds of farm listings. I got back as far as last Monday and saw “egg-laying pullets [young female chickens], Kettle Falls.” It was the only Kettle Falls listing I saw and one of the only ones anywhere near our town.

We briefly considered whether we wanted pullets rather than baby chicks. We had looked forward to raising chicks. Randall talked poignantly of putting the baby things away. It was a little like planning to adopt a baby and then finding out you’d be adopting an older child. But with four-month-old pullets, we wouldn’t have to wait as long for eggs (they should start laying in about a month), and we wouldn’t have the annoyance of sexing chicks and having to get rid of roosters (we had planned to give them to the local feed store).

The gentleman selling them was doing so because he had recently been diagnosed with leukemia. He needed to build a larger enclosure for his poultry and couldn’t do so because he was too tired. He had five pullets and a rooster of each of the breeds we wanted (Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks). We decided to get three of each of the pullets. He had a third breed, but they weren’t good foragers. He and Randall caught them, put them in a big dishwasher box, and we brought them home. And they all lived happily ever after, we hope.

Our flock of girls is pictured above right.