No, it's not there to exact better behavior from our sons, nor is it a Halloween prop collecting dust as it patiently waits for me to pack it away, like the Christmas things still piled in the living room. It's actually there for our chicks.
And no, not as a glimpse of what's to come if they don't lay plentiful eggs for us in the near future. Nope, the gallows is there to hold the heat lamp.
Seriously.
The other night, I was turning down the covers, preparing to snuggle under our comforter with a good book -- Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds -- when J called me back into the sitting room. I found him standing beside a tall wooden frame constructed from pine 2X2s, with what remained of my new 2X4 serving as its base. The contraption seemed to have sprung from some not-quite-life-sized Western.
"What do you think?" J asked, stepping aside to give me a full view.
"It's a gallows," I said.
"No, it's not," he stated. "It's to hang the heat lamp. See here?" He pointed to a hook centered just beneath the top beam. "We hang the chain from here so that the lamp dangles down over the chicks. If it's too hot, we have plenty of room to raise the lamp out of the way. Or we can lower the lamp if the chicks get too cold."
"And if a chick becomes a desperado, we can string it up!" I added.
J glared at me. "Come on," he griped. "I worked hard to come up with this design. We needed a way not to broil the chicks, and this is it. Now help me finish setting it up."
Together, we positioned the not-a-gallows over the center of our brooder, each base squarely resting on the carpet J had cut to protect our hardwood floor. J quickly strung the heat lamp up, plugged it in, and waited for the thermometers to register the brooder's ambient temperature.
"139," I read after a few minutes.
"That's okay," J noted reassuringly. "I figured it would be too hot. See, we just raise the chain like this..." -- he unhooked, then rehooked the lamp five links higher -- "... and now the brooder will be cooler, without all the juggling and bungee cords that we used last time."
"138," I called out.
"You need to give it a minute or two to cool down," J told me.
"133," I called out a minute or two later. J frowned and repositioned the heat lamp another four inches higher.
"127," I read after a few more minutes. The minute adjustments continued until the heat lamp had reached the top beam and the brooder temperature had dropped to a chick-roasting 124.
J disconnected the heat lamp and, with fingers seemingly made of asbestos, unscrewed the piping-hot bulb. "Tell me again why we switched back to the 250-watt bulb from the 125?" he demanded.
"Because we didn't think the 125 was hot enough," I reminded him. When we'd tested the 125-watt bulb, the three thermometers we'd placed inside the brooder reported the temperature to be approximately 90 degrees. When I had contorted myself beneath the heat lamp to feel the heat for myself, however, the temperature had felt more like a brisk Michigan spring than a sultry Florida summer. "Remember? We didn't want the chicks to freeze to death."
J shook his head. "And now we're back to broiling them alive," he muttered, screwing the lower-watt bulb back into the lamp.
"Frozen to death. Broiled alive. Are you sure you weren't thinking of any of that while you were building the gallows?" I asked, handing him the chain to clip back onto the lamp.
"It's not a gallows!" J carefully reconnected the light, hung it back onto the wooden contraption that did not at all resemble a manner of execution, and plugged the cord back in. For the following half hour, we slowly lowered the lamp closer and closer to the brooder floor, watching as the temperatures eventually levelled out at 106.
Or 91. Or 96. Depending on which thermometer we were reading.
"How can it be hotter at the far side of the brooder than it is directly under the lamp?!" J cried out, exasperated.
I shrugged. "We're just going to have to stay really close to the chicks their first couple of hours and adjust the lamp to meet their needs."
"I know, I know," J sighed. "If they're gathered under the lamp, it's too cold, and if they're scattered away from it, it's too hot." Jae looked at the brooder and drooped in defeat. "I really thought that this would solve the lamp-positioning problem for us."
Even without chickens, I knew how to smooth ruffled feathers. "You did nice work, honey," I said, giving him a hug. "And this will help us position the chicks' lamp much better than the 2X4 I bought."
"I suppose," he conceded. "After all, there isn't much else we can do with it."
"WHOA!!!" we suddenly heard from behind us. Our 17 year old, M, was peering wide-eyed into the sitting room, an animated expression on his face. "Now THAT would make for one wicked game of Hangman!"
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