The Chicken Auction!!!

Friday night fun around Eclectic, Alabama seems to be the local chicken auction.  Yes, you heard me a chicken auction! The following is an account of our reason for joining the local folks in a riveting night of chickens!

We have had a small coup of chickens since November which has resulted in 7 hens and 9 roosters (8 of them are in the freezer!), however they haven't started laying yet so we decided to brave the chicken auction in our Mazda CX9 (definitely a city SUV) in hopes to acquire some hens that were already laying! But before I can go into that I must give you directions to the local chicken auction!

First you've gotta know where 9 is, once you find 9 then you just go down a ways till you see the tractor repair place. It's before the flashing light ( never mind that there are MANY flashing lights on 9) your gonna turn right at the tractor place, can't really say what the name of the road is.... but it's a right. You go down that road till you see a Mad-ex (it was actually Madix) sign, then you wanna take a left, now make sure it's the first sign cause that's a highway if you turn left at the second sign it goes to the parkin lot for the factory.... now, once you take a left you'll be on this windin road, but you just go down till you see a mobile home park, it's a nice one, isn't trashy you know, real nice and there's a sign right in front of it that says chicken auction, you just turn right there and follow that dirt road till you get to the auction. (Thanks for the directions Mike, I only had to turn around 2 times!!!)

After much laughter Eric has begun to understand what I mean when I say country directions!

Now that we have found the chicken auction, it is very clear that we are two things.

1. Out of our normal environment
and
2. Way OVER dressed! ( We did not have enough holes in all of our cloths to meet the requirements!)

No need to worry though this it isn't like the city where people give you dirty looks for coming to the event not quite in the right attire. We walked up to a building that was less than uniformed, I'd say they put it together with absolutely anything they could find, kids were running all over outside and trucks were parked all over in a field just across the way. The boys were in awe at the crazy appearance of all the busy people, animals were in a line at one end of the building, chickens mostly with a few goats, geese and ducks. We walked into the building where a stand held a sign;

"you must sign in with a VALID drivers license and
2 Phone #'s to bid or sell"

Eric signed us in and we received our number #429! There were a bunch of places to sit, old couches, used bus benches, recliners, and a few other unique seats that I really couldn't begin to describe. We chose the bus benches as the leather looked like a smarter and perhaps lice free choice (no, I am not a germaphobic but you know chickens can carry lice....) Once seated the auction still had a few minutes to start so we had a moment to get to know the people we were sitting next to and also asked a few questions as to how the even went down.....

The auction was fun, the auctioneer wasn't too fast which is nice for my sluggish ears and once the auction started the first item was a drill, it worked and the guy couldn't even get a buck for it. We should have bought it, could have gotten $5 for it at the pawn shop, but were weren't here for a drill, we needed chickens! The second item, well Eric just couldn't resist and in a few short seconds we became the proud owners of a who knows how old Skillsaw brand skill saw. It cost us $10 dollars!

The next item in the auction was eggs, fertile of course for those people who care to brave a 21 day wait for baby chicks that may or may not be born. Those eggs went for a great price, well over 5 dollars a dozen for most of them. Then there were some duck and turkey eggs, no good for incubation but they sold for $1.75 a dozen, we got two.
Bigger eggs for a smaller price! I have NO problem with that!

Only 10 minutes into the auction and we already have spent $13.50 and we have NO LAYING HENS to show for it. By this time I have realized that Eric did not need to hold the bidding card EVER AGAIN as he seemed a bit more bid happy than I care to deal with, it's like trying to tie down all eight limbs on an octopus.

When we finally got to the chickens there were all sorts to be sold, many different breeds and while the process went fairly quickly the kids were still a bit restless.
Some of the cages were sold directly after the chickens were sold out of them. There goes Eric again and we are also now proud owners of a cage that will hold about 6 hens, for a total of $5.75, no complaints but this guy needs to give up the bidding card before I kill him.

We had our eyes on two sets of hens, one had already laid an egg while in the cage, as the hens came to auction, the bidding went fast and the first pair, bid on by Eric cost us $13 dollars each, as Eric got the pair and took them out to the car the second set were auctioned. I won them for $11 dollars each, yes, I did get the better bid.

Either way, we would walk out of the auction spending $67.50

Total tally, 1 skill saw, 2 dozen eggs (Turkey and Duck), one cage, and 4 laying hens! Not too bad for being new to this local auction thing!

Today has resulted in a turkey and duck egg breakfast, with homemade Amish white bread toast and eggs being laid in our chicken nests. The kids are so excited about the fact that we can now "collect" the eggs!!!