Thanks to everyone who took time out from a “spring” Sunday afternoon to stop in at CLUCK the Chicken Store to learn all about choosing and raising healthy chicks. A huge thanks to Melissa Leonard and Julia Naber who provided the fabulous information. We consider ourselves chicken enthusiasts, not experts. Julia and Melissa are experts! We learned a lot and we hope our standing-room-only audience did too.

Melissa taught us, for example, the proper way to hold a chicken. Turns out we were doing it wrong all these years.

And both Melissa and Julia gave some excellent health advice regarding all kinds of chicken issues and potential ailments you don’t necessarily pick up from reading books, magazines, on-line sources or even from other knowledgeable chicken pals. We were delighted to have them at the store, and, we must say, Melissa does an exceptional imitation of broody hen noises! But, of course, she has many, many years of experience because she’s been involved with raising and showing prize-winning chickens since she was a little girl growing up on her parents’ dairy farm in southwestern Wisconsin.

If you couldn’t make the seminar, you can still stop by the store and pick up some of the excellent handouts Melissa left for us. And Julia, who is a fourth-year vet student with a specialty in production
animals, said she would be available to answer your chick-related health questions. You can contact [email protected] if you want to know how to get in touch with Julia, who has raised a
variety of baby fowl in multiple ways, from under broody hens to incubators.

Thanks, too, to our friend and resident coop builder, Jeff Jicinsky, who showed several ideas for building inexpensive brooder boxes, and Twain Lockhart from Nutrena Feeds, who provided some chicken-related door prizes. Twain and his wife, Heather, are also good friends with a wealth of experience with chickens who are ready and willing to share their knowledge with others.

We continue to be amazed at the number of people who are interested in learning about chickens. We felt like the store was filled with lots and lots of good energy and good people who all share our love and fascination for chickens, and all of the other critters with whom we share our lives.

Our only disappointment was that people didn’t eat all of the green Peeps we bought in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. We did, however, go through all our lemon/lime bars and oatmeal cookies! Thanks,
everybody; it was a great fun.