Every spring, souk is full of baby chicks for sale. And everyone thinks the same thing: "this 6 dirham chick will grow up to be a 50 dirham chicken, let's buy a bunch". I decided to do a chicken-rearing experiment, and bought 50 chicks. Within the first two days, 41 of them had died inexplicably. Within the next week, another two got eaten by one of the neighborhood cats. I admit I've become a little obsessed with making sure nothing happens to the seven that remain. Which means several hours a day of babysitting chicks, protecting them from cats. Not as boring as it sounds, actually. My seven hang out with the 12 chicks that my neighbors are raising (all that remain from an initial 37) and each of the 19 has its own personality (one really likes to hunt ants, one really likes to go exploring in my house, one likes to sit in the corner by itself and stare at the wall, some sleep standing up and some sleep like ducks with their heads under their wings, one likes to stretch its legs a lot, a couple like to run sprints back and forth across the courtyard, and they all have their own best friends that they hang out with.)
My favorite little quirk: A few of them think they're turkeys, since one of our turkeys accidentally sat on some chicken eggs until they hatched; neither the turkey nor the chicks have noticed yet that they're not actually related.
