Naughty, Naughty Chickens

The chicks are still sort of cute and yellowish. They get measurably larger each day. I know this because I am doing a daily check on them (and recording my observations on log sheets). In a couple of the pens, some troublemakers decided to hop into their feeders and scratch around. They are in floor pens with deep cedar shaving litter so they have plenty of scratching material. We'd prefer that they not toss their food out since one of our experimental variables is total food consumed per pen. Hard to determine that if they are pitching it all over the place. I ratted the naughty chickens out to my advisor, she laughed, and told me to raise the feeders so they'd really have to reach to get their dinner! What, we are trying to turn them into giraffes, I said. (That's a classic Lamarckian joke right there. How about that, I can be funny in French and in animal nutrition studies.)

In one of those "you can't make this shit up" stories, I ran into that troublesome, Lewis-Black-channeling-prof while I was out at the poultry barns this afternoon. Turns out he also does poultry research--on dietary factors that affect rooster sperm motility. I SWEAR TO YOU THAT THIS IS THE TRUTH! He's got an entire barn filled with the damned things. They screech and crow continuously, and you can hear them a good couple of hundred yards away. I've not dared to peek in there, mainly because he is using the barn located on the most remote corner of the property. I'd have no excuse whatsoever for being there. And DO NOT ask me how he obtains the samples. Jeebus on a cracker.

We chatted for about 15 minutes and he told me that he's decided to change the class up a bit, for the better, I think. He suggested that my comments made a difference. He even made some jokes, some normal type jokes, not screaming, profanity-laden Lewis Black rants, and smiled...and I realized that for the entire 10 weeks I was in his class last term, I had never seen him smile. Good grief.

But now that we've sort of broken the ice, I think I'll approach him about the general topic of poultry research. I've matured my vet school research from looking into specific schools to matters of funding--how will I pay for this expensive folly? Turns out there's money in chickens. There are groups that will pay a lot (most? all?) of your vet school bills in return for a couple of years of service in the poultry hinterlands. I'd like to get some outside opinions on that.

I should mention that my current advisor asked me if I was sure if I wanted to go to vet school as she had a big grant coming in and needed a PhD student...! Forget plastics, the future is in chickens.

I know quite a few of my friends have said, oh, you'd make a great vet, I'd bring my little Fluffy to you! Well, I'm not so sure that I'd be the best clinician. But I'm not in vet school yet, am I? Chickens may get me there, but I may be helping you care for your Fluffy when all is done.