Always an adventure!

" It ain't all PROFIT"  That could be my grandfather's favorite quote.  I hear it often.  But how true it is of the entire Agricultural world.  We are not here to get rich.  It is a good thing.  We lost half of our first set of broiler chicks this year to a power outage.  While the power was not out long (we got home and immediately put the generator on) it was long enough to affect our birds.  They became stressed and in the following weeks had heart problems and water retention causing death to over 30 birds.  So much for getting a head start on things this year.  We scrambled and managed to add to our next order, but now we are a little behind.  It is amazing how 20 minutes can affect an entire set of birds.  The strangest part of the whole situation was that with the 60 broilers we also had 100 layer chicks.  They were in the same pen.  We lost zero layers, but lots of broilers.   These broiler chickens are a very fragile bird.  They are bred to grow (and that they do) so quickly that they are prone to many problems.  To be sure, I sent some birds away to a lab who identified the problem immediately.  I was relieved to find out that there were no diseases in the birds.  That was my biggest concern.  The lab said they were chilled within the first week (which I had not told them about) and that caused the heart situations and "water bellies".  Luckily we will be able to make up the missed birds later in the season, but it just goes to show how vulnerable everything is. 
  We have had our share of these moments (like the cows in the sweet corn last year) and I am sure we will see more.  Every day is always a learning experience.  As long as we come out of each experience with a new understanding that will help us to be successful, even bad situations can be great learning tools to help us grow.