Which came first – the chicken or the Gravol?

My first summer job was at a local chick hatchery.

I spent all day every day sexing baby chicks.

Sounds very glamorous, I know, but it was not really so much.

I am not a morning person – and never was – so starting at 6:30 am was NOT a good start to the day.

We all had to stand at our spot around a big round conveyer belt.

Not only did we have to deal with the ammonia-like smell of the hatchery but the movement of the conveyor belt.

I was sick every day and by my morning break every day, I had to sit outside in the fresh air and take a Gravol to combat the smell and the fact that after an hour or so my head involuntary moved in a circle like the conveyor belt itself.

Our job, SEXING CHICKS, was to determine if the chicks were female or male.

You do that my comparing the length of the little feathers in their wings. Did you know that?

If it was a boy, we had to put it in the top “cone” on the conveyor. If it was female, on the lower cone.

If, and this happened all too often, a chick was deformed – 3 eyes, a beak that wouldn’t close, no legs…. – we had to snap their neck and but them in a waste bin.

The entire summer I worked there, I was regularly grossed out by the deformities but I could NOT kill the fuzzy little chicks. I just set them back down on the belt and the cold hearted person next to me was left to do my dirty work!

Lesson learned? Early morning, manual labour is NOT for me. Thank goodness other people are able to do it.