Perspective

This evening, our kids were in a full out fight. Yep, it happens. It’s part of growing up and learning.

And then, one of them comes in from his chores- checking on the new chicks in the brooder. And, he was sobbing. Two of his new chicks had drowned in the chick waterer. Everyone stopped. His sibling held him while he cried and explained what he saw.

One of the hard realities of farm life is death. We very closely monitor and treat our animals, checking regularly for signs of anemia or stress. We take “failure to thrive” animals like our bottle lambs into our home until either their mom can take them back or they can safely go onto pasture with a bottle. But accidents, old age and sickness still happen. We care for our animals so much that we have almost given up completely when we’ve had animals die.

In this case for the chicks, we don’t use just a water bowl. We use a special waterer for chicks. We simply forgot that these waterers sold for chicks cannot be used for day old chicks.

Thankfully I realize one of them, shown above, was still barely alive when I picked it up gently. After half an hour holding it under a heat lamp, rubbing and turning him, it cheeped once. Then again a while later. We continued to hold it, praying, and watching as he stood and puffed out, slowly getting his strength back.

Context- life is fragile. The rest of the night our kids sat together with their dogs, our three bottle fed lambs in the corner, the cat with her kittens, and listening to this one amazing chick cheep away.

Somehow, the fact of working a twelve hour day in back to back crisis calls- and our kids fighting- none of that mattered.

Update the next day, still doing great!