Chickens?

People buy young chicks in the spring and raise them over the summer for eggs and for the meat. Our post office is full of crates of baby chicks in the early spring.

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The origin of the phrase actually comes from its literal meaning. In the early 1700s, Farmers found that chickens born in the spring brought better prices than 'old' ones that had gone through the winter. When farmers tried to sell the old birds as 'new spring born', buyers complained that they were 'no spring chicken'. The first recorded use of the phrase in its figurative meaning was in 1906.

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