CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories by J. Posthumus (read after txt) 📕

were doing okay, so I went to check on the brood hens next. There were a bunch out there, all of them trailed by their babies. Some were still little yellow fluffballs, and some were starting to get patches of feathers. I wouldn’t mind watching them all afternoon, but then I thought about my lunch in the fridge and having to wait until the big boss left before I could eat it. I thought maybe I could dash in and grab my sandwich and get out of there without being seen.

I turned the corner of the feed shed, and thought I was home free when I saw a city man just standing there. He was a tall, gangling fellow, looking out of place on a farm in a business suit. I thought the suit didn’t fit him much better than my overalls did me, but I didn’t say nothing. I was still hoping Jake would step out, and I could sneak away, when he turned and looked at me with a jerky head-tilt. I was stuck.

“Hey, Mister! You lookin’ for Jake?” I walked up to him, not sure if I should put my hands in my pockets or not. I know how to be polite and shake hands, but I wasn’t about to give him my dirty hand to shake. City folks don’t like it. So, I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” he said. He kept tipping his head from one side to the other, looking around like he’d never seen a chicken farm before. And here I’d thought that Mr. Harvey would know his way around a farm. Or maybe Mr. Harvey was sick, and this was a substitute. Well, I guess everybody has to be new to a job, but why they sent a fellow like him by himself was a puzzle. Maybe him not knowing anything would be good for us, though.

“Jake’s probably in the shop or the office, Mister. Do you want me to fetch him?”

“There’s no need to interrupt,” he said. The city man kept looking around. “Maybe you can show me the place while he’s busy.”

I knew Jake wouldn’t like that at all, but I didn’t see where I had a lot of choice. “Okay, Mister.” I thought hard. “How about we look at the incubators? They’re right over here,” I said, real loud like. Maybe if Jake heard us, he would come on out.

The city man walked across the yard kinda funny, picking his feet up high like he was trying to keep his shoes from getting dirty. Every now and then he gave his foot a little shake. His face was all squinched up, too, and I thought to myself, well, at least I got enough sense not to wear my good shoes to a farm.

He looked impressed with the incubators. He should be; they’re practically brand new.

“Yessir, they keep the eggs at a constant temperature and humidity, and turn the eggs too. When they’re about a day from hatching, we slip them back to the hens. We get less breakage and loss this way.” Not all hens are good brooders. They don’t always keep their eggs warm, and sometimes they push them out of the nest.

“Marvelous!” City Man said. “However do you get them back to the right mothers?”

I thought he was funning me, so I just played along. “We got them numbered by which hen laid ‘em. Then their mamas take them outside to this field here,” I led him to the nearest patch of green, where the hens and young chicks were moving through some grass we kept short just so we could find the chicks. I figured since this was his first sight of a chicken farm, he’d rather look at the little chicks. They’re kind of cute, at least for the first few days.

“Your females are quite small,” he said offhandedly. I didn’t know if he wanted me to answer, so I didn’t say anything because I don’t know all the breeds of chickens. “And these are how old?”

City Man pointed to a hen and a dozen or so tiny balls of yellow fluff. I say “pointed” but really, he didn’t seem to do much with his fingers except flap them in the general direction of the chicks.

“Oh, ‘bout a day old. They grow real fast. We can bring them from hatching to mature in ninety days.”

“Ninety days!” City Man looked surprised. “That’s amazing!”

I wasn’t about to tell him some outfits down the road did it faster. “Well, we make sure they get the best feed. It’s organic corn and stuff, and you see they spend all day out in the sun in the field. Very healthy for them, too. We don’t do any hormones or antibiotics here.”

“Yes, this looks like a very healthy place,” City Man said, looking about him with that strange jerky movement. His dark brown hair was thick and much too long, almost a crest on top that flipped and flopped about whenever he moved his head. He gave me another one of those funny head-tilt looks. “What about education? Who teaches the chicks?”

That nearly floored me. Why he wanted to make fun of me when he looked so foolish made no sense, but then I figured he just felt out of place and wanted to show how he was better than us yokels.

“Well, them hens is mighty smart, so I reckon their chicks are too. They learn everything they need to know without us having to lift a finger.”

I smiled at City Man, but he didn’t smile back. He just nodded like he believed me.

“Impressive,” he muttered to himself, and thought for a bit, then turned back to me. “I can see that you and this—Jake—are very good caretakers of the young. This establishment will be suitable.”

“Suitable?” I said, confused. “Suitable for what?”

He pulled something out of his pocket that looked like a ball of light in swirls of pale blue and green. “Did you