Growing up we lived in a rural community where many of our neighbors had quite a few animals.
The neighbors, in particular, had some very unusual pets.
Their parents always seem to be fostering one type of creature or another and it was really cool to go see what new animal they had at their house. When I was about 10 years old they decided to get a flock of chickens and it was really interesting to watch them grow. The chicks actually arrived in the mail which I thought was rather funny but once they got to the house there was a lot to be done to keep them safe. They had all sorts of heat lamps and feeding stations set up in a small area where the chicks could grow before they were released into the hen house. It was already in the middle of fall and I was worried that the little tiny creatures would freeze to death if left outside or in the small coop that they had set up. I told my neighbor that it might be a good idea to have a heater installed in the barn to keep them warm, and he just laughed. He said that there was no way he would invest the money in an HVAC system to keep chickens warm and that he thought they would be fine. When I mentioned it to my parents they suggested that I keep to myself but I was very concerned so I went to talk to my neighbor’s wife. She said that she had researched the ways that she could keep the chicks warm as well as keep their buckets of water from freezing, and that she had ordered a few warming devices for the barn already. This made me feel much better and I told her, jokingly, but now I wouldn’t have to come rescue the chickens and have them running around my bedroom in the middle of the night to keep them warm.