"Well, I do it for the feeling of fulfillment and the endless hours of entertainment I get from watching them," I cheerfully exclaim. The quizzical stares from my friends continued.

Suddenly from the group, "But Joe, don't they sorta stink and carry diseases?" Another friend cuts in, "They can carry that Avian flu and if you're not careful, I bet they could pick up that H1N1 stuff too."

From that very instant, I could tell I was in yet another pointless discussion trying to convince "city slickers" that raising chickens is more than the activity itself. It is more of a pondering, meditating time to reflect on the many activities of the day, while serving creatures that eventually will serve the family nourishment in the form of eggs and meat.

Joe Jones, like many of us, finds explaining his romance with raising birds hard to define, but ultimately, who cares?

I decided to go ahead and give a couple of yukkity yuks, cut down on lost time, excuse myself from the group and head down the hall to my last meeting of the day. Why do I always get in this predicament? I know that for all the people in my "corporate office" that I discuss chicken raising with, only a very few open-minded souls will understand my chicken interests. Others, well most of them, will laugh about my "redneck" ways and always cut in with a round of "You know you're a Redneck if...." I also know that only a "scant" few will ever see the light of my preaching and, of all things, convert over to raising chickens themselves.

So while that is a typical day at the office, it still does not explain what I see in the chore of chicken raising or why I have become so romanced with it. For those answers I have thought long and hard. It's not like a husband with three kids and a house in the country needs to add additional chores to an ever expanding "honey do" list. Nor do I need more hobbies to fit into my already crammed, shooting, hunting, fishing, grill building, Jeep modifying and gardening itinerary. It's also not like the daily chicken raising chores of feeding, watering, egg gathering, moving the chicken tractors and pen cleaning are the most pleasant of all things to do. I have come to the belief that it is the experience as a whole. Yes, I said as a whole. It's a Zen or enlightenment type of thing.

It goes something like this...Dead of winter, you sit there with your "scribble" paper, running through endless plans trying to decide what breed you want to experiment with in the coming spring. If you're lucky, the hatchery catalogs made it past the "wife screening" and arrived safely into your custody. Will it be the standard breeds or will you venture out and try a bantam or feather footed breed? Will you go for a standard order or will you mix it up and order a "hatchery special" where it will take months of growing time before you're able to figure out what the heck you got. Of course, there is also that always eternal, entrepreneurial spirit that drives you to buy more than what you need. You know, so you can sell organic eggs and become the "Egg Baron" of the local farmers market. We all know how lucrative that is!

Spring rolls around. Your order arrives in the mail or if you are lucky enough to live in close proximity to a hatchery, you go to pick up your parcel. You get your chicks home to the brooder and gently put them in. After getting everyone in, you post regular chick checks on the hour to make sure everyone is looking alert and knowing where the food and water are. Oh yeah, don't forget to check for pasty butt, my favorite. I count myself as a fortunate chick raiser in the fact that I have lost very few chicks in the brooder. It's always a sad moment when you realize one of your little guys didn't make it.

Days click by and the brooder gets cramped with quickly growing chicks. Meanwhile, frantic preparations are made to the lots and/or pens. Decisions have to be made about where to put the new chicks, where to put the existing chickens and of course the inevitable question of which to cull. This gets into the darker side of the chicken raising exercise.

Now don't take me as a terminal lynch man, but I know from the start that the vast majority of the birds I raise will eventually make their way into the old stew pot. It's part of that "lifecycle" thing. I've accepted the fact, along with my 9-year-old daughter, and in some small way I like to hope the chickens accept that fact too. I'm always puzzled by the "dark question" phenomenon. It's like when you're talking with a war vet. Somebody always asks, "Did you ever shoot anybody?" For chicken raisers it's, "Do you eat your chickens?" As soon as I answer "yes," there are usually several gasps and "I could never do that," comments. This usually comes from the same person or persons who are getting ready to go down to the Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I have always consoled myself with the fact that my chickens, prior to the stew pot, lived as healthy and fun a life as a chicken could live and when the time finally comes, it happens quickly and with a caring only a chicken raiser would understand. For the people that don't understand why we have to eat our "pet" chickens, all they would ever have to do is get only a taste of the home grown variety chicken to suddenly become a convert.

Another aspect that is dear to my heart is the camaraderie that comes from raising chickens. Out where I live I have a number of, as my wife calls them, chicken buddies. These are just normal everyday guys, usually gritty farmers much older than I, that work hard everyday and cherish what they have. When I visit with my buddies it's usually in a gathering of three to five at a time. The hangout is the local grain farmer's shed. Any and all subjects are discussed there—from weather, to politics, to ailings, to the younger generation. Occasionally there will also be a discussion over a spat (fight) that is brewing between neighbors. In fact, we don't even talk a lot of chicken talk. I guess everybody supposes everyone is an expert and knows what to do. The chicken raising just adds the common bond to the group. Those are good times, realizing that a simple life is a great life.

The last aspect of chicken raising I really enjoy, if not my favorite, is the time that I sit in my old plastic chair beside my chicken pen in the woods beside my outbuilding. It is very peaceful there, other than an occasional chattering mocking bird. I'll pick various times of the day to go out and sit, but usually my favorite time is after supper when everyone else plops down in front of the TV. I'll grab a choice beverage and head toward my chicken observation post. I can spend minutes or hours out there. It just depends on the mood, and the weather. I don't think that I so much as meditate, but ponder. Meditation is just too high a level of mental state for me. I don't even concentrate on solving problems much of the time. I just sit there watching the chickens and let thoughts and ideas pop in and out of my head. I've thought myself through many a thing out there. Some thoughts around starting a hackle business for fly tying. Then, some thoughts as crazy as writing an article for my favorite chicken raising magazine.