Scratch and Dent

I saw the little chick in the pen by itself and wondered why it wasn't in with the rest of the White Rock chicks but never gave it a whole lot of thought. Then Florence came up to the check out lane to tell me about the little chick, I told her I saw it but had used extreme willpower to pass it by and wasn't she proud of me? She said she wasn't proud of herself. I forked out two more dollars for the chick and told Florence to go get the little girl.

I went back in the store after dumping everything in the van. Florence was standing at the checkout counter, everyone around looked befuzzled, and that's when I learned why the chick was by itself in a pen. The clerk offered a refund but I found the assistant manager and told her what was going on. She was well aware of the chick's situation because she had moved the chick to its solitary pen. The assistanat manger said I could either get a refund or another chick. I kept saying, "No, no" and finally told her that we wanted THAT chick and we were willing to wait until it was good and healthy to bring it home. So we have a receipt for one White Rock chick, slightly damaged but otherwise in fine health. Geezo, we're buying our chickens at scratch and dent sales now!

So along about Thursday we'll be going back down to check on the chick and see if it's ready to come home. It just has a few scratches, nothing bad at all, and is eating and drinking just fine.

We also decided it was time to introduce the girls outside to scratch grain which to me sounds like a lot of fun if I were a chicken, but they didn't have any. When I asked the asst. manager about that, she said some moron had left six pallets of scratch grain and layer pellets outside the loading dock instead of bringing them in, and they had to pitch it cause it got rained all over so they're waiting for a shipment now. All they have is game bird food and starter food right now. *Sigh* I asked her if that person was still working there and she said, "Noooooooo!" The truck is supposed to be in Thursday, so maybe when we go to get the chick we'll be able to pick that up too.

Chickens! Ya gotta love 'em!

O.K. What happened is this. We went to Orscheln's to get more chick feed and against my better judgement I went to see the baby chicks. There was a pen of White Rock pullets with a sold sign. Right next was another pen occupied by one lonely little chick; a cute, very round little thing, but all alone. I figured maybe all the other pullets had been sold, the buyer didn't want this little chickie, and there she was, rejected, alone, nobody to play with.

She didn't seem ill or anything so I went to the check out line and told Barb about her. Barb pulled out a couple of bucks and told the cashier I wanted a chick.

I spotted the assistant manager and told her I wanted the little lonesome one and why she was all alone. She explained that the little one had been hurt, was doing much better, and was going to be fine. The isolation was so none of the other chicks would take advantage of or bully her.

It turns out the afore mentioned chick had hopped into the feeder and ate and ate and ate. She got so full she couldn't get out! The other chicks were unsuccessfully trying to pull her out.

Brenda, the assistant manager, finally took apart the feeder so the little glutton could get out. The poor chick was a scratched up from the feeder and all the help from the other chicks!

We'll probably be able to bring her home on Thursday. Everyone at Orscheln's knows she's my chick and the "sold" sign is now on her pen.

I've been thinking of naming her "Bonnie" as in Bon Appetit, but if any of y'all can think of a better name, please let me know. How could I have known that that cute little chick had actually gourmandized her way into isolation?

Florence who never dreamt she'd be living "Green Acres"