Minnesota Prairie Roots

I’M NO CHICKEN farmer. I’m not even particularly fond of roaming chickens (ducks or geese). But this time of year on “Chick Days,” I feel nostalgic, remembering the delivery of newly-hatched chicks. They arrived on my southwestern Minnesota childhood farm via the U.S. Postal Service, cheeping raucously and, I’m certain, desiring to escape their cardboard boxes.

Today, chicks still ship via mail, but need to be picked up at the post office or at a local supplier on “Chick Days.” That may be at a farm store, a grain elevator, a feed store…

Gone are the days when chick hatcheries were found in many farming communities. But this is not Mayberry anymore. Rural America has changed significantly since I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s with businesses now shuttered, buildings vacated.

But, if you look closely enough, dig deep enough, ghosts of those businesses remain, including chick hatcheries. Among the vintage greeting cards my mom saved (she saved everything), I found a holiday card from Dr. Kerr’s Hatchery. That was in Minneota; that’s Minnesota minus the “s.”

Minneota sits on the prairie northwest of Marshall in Lyon County. This small town is perhaps best-known as the home of the late Bill Holm, noted writer and English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University. Among his work, Boxelder Bug Variations, a collection of poetry and essays about, yes, boxelder bugs. Minneota celebrates Boxelder Bug Days annually.

But it doesn’t celebrate chicks, as far as I know, or the hatchery with the unusual name of “Dr. Kerr’s Hatchery.” There’s a story behind that moniker. I just don’t know what that may be.

I do know, though, that Morgan, 60 miles to the east of Minneota, also had a hatchery, aptly named Morgan Hatchery. I photographed the exterior of the former hatchery and feed store in 2013 while en route to my hometown of Vesta.

Thoughts of home take me back to those chicks delivered by the mailman, as we called letter carriers back in the day. After retrieving the box (es) of chicks from aside the roadside mailbox, Mom released them into the chicken coop. There they clustered around shallow water dishes under the warmth of heat lamps. I don’t recall many details other than the fluffy fowl feathering all too soon. For me, the chicks’ transition toward adulthood quickly ended my adoration.

There’s a reason I dislike being in close proximity to chickens: pecking hens and a vicious rooster. Gathering eggs from angry hens as a young girl proved an unpleasant chore. And avoiding a mean rooster proved impossible. One day Dad had enough of the rooster attacking his children. He grabbed an ax and that quickly ended the hostile encounters. I still hold trauma from that rooster. But I’ve gotten better about being around chickens. However, if I even pick up on a hint of meanness, I flee.

Given my history, I’ll never own chickens. But I eat chicken. And I eat eggs. I especially like farm fresh eggs from free-range chickens. The dark orangish-yellow yolk hue, the taste, are superior to mass-produced eggs.

And I still think chicks are cute, even if they quickly morph into feathered birds I’d rather not be around.

© Copyright 2024 Audrey Kletscher Helbling