“What’s your favorite farm animal?” I ask the smaller children on the farmhouse tour. The answer could be a pig or a horse, or nothing at all. Myself, I find sheep to be a little rambunctious and they will head butt you if they can. Goats are pretty much like dogs and just want to be loved.
My favorite farm animals, however, are the baby chicks. They are full of sweetness and pre-fluff feathers. On the farm, the new chicks are kept under a heat lamp to keep warm. If raised by a mother hen, she will constantly use her beak to push the baby chicks under her feathers to keep them warm. The hens are very good mothers.
One time, a bunch of baby “peacocks” hatched on the farm. The peahen’s babies, (peachicks), were, also, super cute but they had a wild temperament. If picked up, peachicks will immediately peck at your fingers. They also have extremely sharp toe nails on their feet. They actually looked pretty much like baby chicks except for oddly shaped foreheads.
What are peacocks and peahens doing on a farm? Southern farmers kept the birds as “watch dogs”. The peacock’s unusual and very loud cry could be heard throughout the farm and would signal the farmer if anything was amiss. No thank you to a fox raid on the hen house.
So, after careful consideration, the baby chicks remain my favorite farm animal. As for everyone else, pick one out if you can.