* ** The Chicken Machine ** *

The man brought the machine home from an auction. "Look!" he yelled excitedly to his wife. "I bought a present for you!"

It would require a long study of the particular dynamics of this marriage to explain his wife's sudden dread. "Is it alive?" she called back, refusing to come out of the house.

"Not yet!" he responded enthusiastically, "but it will be!"

"I thought you went for fence posts?" she said, timidly peeping around the door.

"Gone before I got there. But this thing is great! Come out here and look! When I saw it, I just knew you had to have it." He was oblivious to her reluctance.

"I don't want it." Her refusal was abrupt. Her study of the marriage dynamics had taught her to nip these things in the bud.

"Yes you do," he said. He lugged a large, round, gray object across the yard and deposited it at his wife's feet. "Of course," he said, "it will need to be cleaned up. God knows how long it was in the back of that barn."

He had a gift for understatement. The thing was filthy with caked mud, feces, and dirt dauber nests. She was not amused. "What is it?" she finally asked.

"It's an incubator!" he laughed. "I got it for almost nothing."

"What does it do?" she asked, although she already knew. She was stalling.

"Why, you put eggs in it and chickens come out," he said.

"Oh, no," she said. "Decidedly not. I don't have time for this, and you'll walk off and leave me with it. No way."

Marriage dynamics took over. The thing ended up in the pile of other fine gifts in the barn.

** **

Blistering heat gave way to cooler days and very cold nights. In the entire summer, not one hen bothered to stay on a nest long enough to hatch an egg. Hundreds of eggs were given to anyone who wanted them. Dozens of eggs were consumed until the family could bear them no more. Even more eggs of uncertain age were found and disposed of, for fear of disease. Free-range chicken farming had hit a new low.

Hens were snatched occasionally by predators. By the beginning of autumn, there were less than a dozen hens left, and they were getting old. When a certain red hen disappeared, the family didn't bother to look for her. They thought she was dead.

The day she proudly led her two small chicks out of her hiding place was a happy one for the family. For one thing, it meant their old rooster was able to perform his duties, which had been in doubt ever since his arrival.

The next day another chick hatched. The third chick should have had some time to steady itself before leaving the nest, but the hen was inexperienced. She walked off with the other two chicks, leaving the third to flounder alone. While the family debated whether to intervene, the chick died.

The man found the chick and several more unhatched eggs in the abandoned nest. "Say," he said, "let's get the incubator out and see if we can hatch these eggs!"

"It'll burn the house down," she sniffed. "I forbid it."

He installed the incubator in the dining room while she was at work. His own study of the marriage dynamics prompted him to make it a science project for their brood, thereby ensuring that any move on her part to rid herself of the odious machine would be met with mournful entreaties from people other than himself.

Several days passed without the emergence of a single chick. The incubator, which had been none too clean to begin with, began to stink. The man and his wife faced each other one night with the incubator between them on the floor.

"I guess they won't hatch," he said in a small voice.

"I guess I'll throw them out after the kids go to bed," she said in a strong, clear, 'I win, I win!' voice.

A chick peeped loudly. Amazed, they looked inside the incubator. There were only eggs. They searched outside for the chick they thought must have gotten separated from the red hen. Both of her chicks were safely under her fat red body.

They returned to the house and began the nightly ritual of locating their children, counting noses, and getting them all ready for bed. When the house was quiet, the man and his wife stood over the incubator again.

"Let's get this over with," she said. She took the lid off of the incubator. A wet, freshly-hatched chick sat among the other eggs. "What the hell?" she said.

"HA!" he said, in an 'I win, I win!' voice. "KIDS! Come look what YOUR MOTHER did!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, ever after ensuring that she was inextricably linked to the miraculous event. "SHE'S got a baby chicken!"

** **

The first chick was followed by two others the next day. Several more eggs remained. After another week, the man and his wife faced each other over the incubator again.

"Look, you did a great thing," she began in a 'let's be reasonable' voice. "This thing reeks, and surely the other eggs aren't going to hatch at this late date?"

"Ok," he agreed. "We'll start with some fresh eggs tomorrow."

"Of course," she lied, knowing the hens had stopped laying.

When she opened the incubator to throw the eggs out, four more wet chicks greeted her.

** **

Raising chickens in a dining room is not sanitary. The family was forced to take meals in the living room in front of the tube. Meaningful conversation at table could not happen without a table. The weather continued to be too cold for the baby chickens to survive the night in the barn, and the red hen could not be induced to assume responsibility for them either. As they grew feathers, they began to shed feathers. It was altogether unpleasant for the wife. Eventually the stink in the incubator drove the man to agree with his wife that the last of the eggs should be thrown out.

Unfairly, in the wife's opinion, the hens began to lay again. The man refilled the incubator a few eggs at a time. The other chickens finally got big enough to live in the barn. On the happy day the wife got rid of the little beggars, she spent hours sterilizing every surface in the room. She had a fine meal planned, one that would require a table to properly serve it all.

As she finished the last swipe with the bleach-laden cloth, her children heard a peep emanate from the incubator. "It's starting AGAIN!" they screamed happily.

Chickens should never be counted before they hatch…but there are dozens more eggs in the incubator as I write this, and four more are added every day.

** **

-- helen (this_a_real_address@yahoo.com), November 08, 2001

Answers

surprise!

-- real address (this@aint.a), November 08, 2001.

"Surprise! .... "

"Is it alive?", he asked warily ..... Knowing what happened the last time a story started that way.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 08, 2001.

This story is too strange to be fiction. Don't forget to turn the eggs, and keep some moisture in the chicken machine. You can hear them peep before they hatch.

BTDT.

-- gene (ekbaker@essex.com), November 09, 2001.

Hey, gene! Do you want some free chickens? Will the mail service accept live animals, or do I need to vaccinate them first? How do I find out?

-- helen (slowly@disappearing.under.mounds.of.fluff), November 09, 2001.

Helen, I read this neat story in the newspaper the other day about a farmer in UK who discovered that if you keep sheep in with your hens, your hens lay about 10% more and that the eggs are less fragile. Just a little hint to help your problem along ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), November 10, 2001.

Hmmmmn.

If the chickens are maled without a return address .... does that make them infertile, or vacsinnated?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 11, 2001.

Two more babies today. Funny you should mention harder eggs...one hen laid an egg that was just the egg stuff inside the soft sack that should be encased in the hard part of the shell. We were going to try to hatch it anyway...but...but...this has never happened before and we didn't know... it...needed moisture and it... dehydrated most horribly over night.

-- helen (more@due.this.week), November 12, 2001.

Helen, console yourself with the thought that it would have died anyway, if you hadn't tried to incubate it.

You can name one of today's hatchees after me as a birthday present if you like. I'm 32 yet again ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), November 12, 2001.

sweet laughter and tears

fall soft as lover’s whispers

days flow into years

--------------

blow out the candles

your wishes all have come

happy birthday true

------------

Happy happy!

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), November 12, 2001.

Tricia, may I PLEASE gift you with the chicken that bears your name???

-- helen (they@want.to.watch.tv), November 13, 2001.

Another chicken. Deformed feet. It eats and moves around. sigh...

-- helen (who@knows.how.many.more?), November 14, 2001.

Lon, thanks for the birthday haiku! It's lovely :-)

Helen, you can *try* to gift me with a chicken, but exporting animals to Canuckia probably takes some special licence and would cost waaaaaaaaaay more than any chicken's worth. You could always gift it to a cat or dog instead >;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), November 15, 2001.

helen,

How thoughtful of you to offer to send me some chicks. I believe they can be sent through the mail, but I have no proper place for them. If I had a safe place for them to sleep, I would take them in a minute.

Having had chickens before, I have rejected the notion that they may stay in the house.

enjoy your flock.

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), November 15, 2001.

Crippled baby insisted on living. We took some posterboard and made a little snowshoe and used a bandaid to keep his toes spread out in the proper position. The other foot is so badly messed up that this approach didn't work, but he is able to stand and hop on the snowshoe. He eats and drinks and is otherwise healthy.

He had to lie on his back with his feet in the air while I got him fixed up. They go to sleep that way, but I thought he died. It was very traumatic. =O

-- helen (shoulda@gone.to.vet.school), November 16, 2001.

(((((Helen)))))

You are a neat lady!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), November 16, 2001.

Gayla, that is very kind of you. However, I am a lady who stinks of some type of animal poo even in church (when I forget to change into my nice shoes, or I accidentally wore my nice shoes into the poop area). I'm a total failure as a farmer. Nothing goes right. But the chick is healthy, so maybe he'll grow up to be yet another free-range dinosaur descendant. The goats are getting to be a problem and everyone I offer to GIVE them to backs out. The mule ... let's not go there. He's starting to kick. So no sweet and tender pears for him unless he begs nicely. Which is not the way to handle a mule. sigh...

-- helen (looking@at.apartments.with.a.no.mule.policy), November 16, 2001.

Helen: Wonderful writing so far! Brings back lots of not-so-fond memories of my teen-hood spent on a farm. We kids spent every Saturday shoveling poop from the chicken house and spreading fresh cottonseed hulls only to have to shovel them out again the next Saturday. We, too, had an incubator, although I can't imagine it in the house. It was a monstrosity and held around 80-100 chicks.

What dumb critters those chicks were! Fresh food and water were things to trample through and mess in, and the peeping would drive you mad! We never went to the effort to hatch the eggs ourselves; we used the incubator to warm the chicks until they got past the "if I get too cold, I get rigor mortis" tendency.

Of course, we also had to watch out for the sickly or runty ones. They were the ones at the bottom of the 'pecking order.' Ever wonder where that phrase came from? It means that if you're weak or sickly, some bigger, stronger (and often dumber) chick comes along and starts pecking on you until you have big bald spots on your neck and they keep you from your food. Then of course, you get weaker and everybody pecks you. Blood is drawn and then, that's all she wrote!

And don't even start me on pig stories! Phew, what a smell!

-- LindaMc (jmcintyre1@mmcable.com), November 17, 2001.

Chickens?

Teenagers?

Which has a cleaner room? .... on average, that is.

Are chickens less expensive? ... on average, that is.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 17, 2001.

Robert, I believe that whether the chickens' room or the teenager's room is cleaner depends on which gets the shovel more often :-)

As to expense, there's no doubt that chickens are cheaper per eaches, but teenagers offer the hope of grandchildren to spoil someday ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), November 20, 2001.

Oy vey...yesterday I checked the incubator after working all weekend when I wasn't in church...sniffle...and nobody had remembered to keep water in there with the eggs. One was trying to hatch, but the egg was too hard for him to peck through.

(You know what happened...)

Anyway, ok, so I'm gonna help him a little bit. Got some shell off and found that the "paper" liner in the egg had dried out around the little booger like tough shrinkwrap. He still couldn't get out. While I'm working on him, three other eggs who should have hatched exploded in a cloud of nasty mist. Apparently the rooster isn't making a complete round of the ladies.

Every time I tried to remove the "paper", he screamed bloody murder. So I put him back into the incubator with lots of hot water in the bottom to sort of steam him loose. Several hours later, he was mostly out, but the egg was stuck to his behind. We took him into the bathroom and ran warm water into what was left of the shell. When he got loose, he was bleeding. yech.

We put him into the incubator to warm him up. Today I had to go to work, and I didn't want the kids to start howling about a dead chick, so I didn't look at him. When I got home from work, there were THREE chicks in there, all dry and healthy. So I don't know which one I bonded with. :)

This is getting out of hand. I know you aren't supposed to count them before they hatch, but there are an awful lot left in there.

-- helen (eggs@and.ham.instead), November 20, 2001.

Ye gods. I went to check on the new three, and two more are hatching. This is getting exponential in scope...won't any of you PLEASE take a chicken?

-- helen (with@chick.chick.here.a.chick.chick.there), November 20, 2001.

Why did the chicken take the road?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 21, 2001.

I've seen people get chicks for their kids at Easter, but I don't think it's a traditional Christmas-type gift. However, you could give one to each of your relatives and not have to do any Christmas shopping. :-)

Helen, you're a good chicky-mommy. LOL

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), November 21, 2001.

God Almighty! When I got home from work there was another one.

-- helen (moving@into.my.car), November 21, 2001.

Twenty hatched. The other two dozen eggs went way over their 21 day incubation period before I threw them out and removed the incubator. Yesterday the last batch of little ones went to live in the shop building. The intermediate age little ones went to live in the hay side of the barn. The oldest little ones are now free-range. The crippled one is still with the tiniest babies instead of with his age group. One foot works normally, but the other one is twisted. He can walk, though.

The dining room seems strangely empty. Thank God.

Chickens imprint on whatever they see when they first hatch. This is the only explanation for the adoration the free-range babies express toward my knees. It is nearly impossible for me to walk in a straight line outside. But I sort of like it. :)

-- helen (no@more.chickens.in.our.house), December 11, 2001.

Can I make an impression on your knees too?

Hmmmmmnnnnnn. That didn't sound right.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 12, 2001.

Robert, impression? Is that what you call an imprinting, an impression? My mom always told me it was important to make a good first impression, but I didn't think it had anything to do with becoming mommy to a bunch of chicks...

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), December 12, 2001.

hellow if it is possible for you i wonderd if you could tell me the exact tempreture that the eggs should be heated by and also the usefull technics for bringing out a chiken from its egg by heating or using a light resource like a bulb or some thing like that ore any other sort of chikenmachine that could be handmaden , with any othere information about eggs and chiken like the amount of moisture the eggs need or the duration that they have to be heated or ... . with spesial thanks . sicerely yours ( alireza memarian)

-- alirezamemarian (alirezamemarian@yahoo.com), April 09, 2004.

Hmmmmn. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmn.

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 09, 2004.

I'm disappointed Robert. I felt sure the "handmaden" would grab your attention.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), April 10, 2004.

If you get irritated at your Palm Pilot, is it a case of handmadden?

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 11, 2004.

I need the Chiken machine such as Prosted prostar1800 and hanybeny500 the rates and used machines and Where can I found the machines?

-- Hatem ahmed abdel Razek (hatemahmed34@yahoo.com), May 13, 2004.