April 2009

I unintentionally “recovered” a chick. Originally we had thought I had one less layer and my husband had one more broiler. As his broilers have been growing like weeds we’d noticed there was a small one in the bunch. I made my husband come take a look because I thought we should move it in with the smaller layers. I was worried it wasn’t going to do well competing with the rest of the broilers since they are pretty aggressive around feeding time. As we were watching it, I realized that it was exactly the same size as my layers next door. So we moved it over with the smaller layers. Once it was under the white heat lamp we realized it had green feet which means it was my missing Aruacana/Americana and not a broiler at all. Woops! It was a bit upset at being separated from the flock it had come to know and spent the better part of the evening making alarm like high pitched chirps and the broilers would respond back. Fortunately she seemed to settle in after awhile and she is now acclimated to her new flock. She’s the whitest Aruanca I’ve ever seen, but I’m glad we realized the situation. So now we have 14 broilers, 11 layers, and our “free rare chick”. I really need to get some updated pictures.

Last night was a rough evening.

I was home sick on Monday and when checking on the baby chicks I noticed one of my layers was pasted up and not behaving well.  I brought her inside, cleaned her up and returned her to the brooder box.  Her posture was a little odd still, but she was active so I didn’t worry.

Yesterday morning she was standing but kind of stunned as the other chicks whizzed around her (they are very active at this stage).  When we got home last night she was clearly doing very poorly.  I came in to the house on the verge of tears and told my husband she was dying.  There was no question that it was better to end her suffering at that point and my husband handled the unfortunate task.  He had already poured me a glass of wine and I took it out to the back patio where the sun was setting and sat on the ground while the full grown hens milled around trying to decide if I had a snack and what to make of me being at their level.

Afterwards my husband and I talked about the responsiblities for the lives of our animals, the decisions we have to make, and as usual I was pretty emotional about the baby chick.  We talked about how it’s supposed to get easier over time, but that while we hope it does get easier we also hope we never lose the connection.  I reflected on how each time we lose an animal or choose to end a life the emotional reaction causes me to do a full evaluation if we are doing the “right thing”.  The right thing for us?  for the animals?  for our family?  for the earth?  Despite the heartbreak and emotional toll it takes on me, I haven’t yet come to a different decision than the ones we have made leading up to this point.  We also discussed about how at the point at which I don’t cry over a lost life anymore, that maybe we would need to reconsider our decisions as well.

This will only be the first of many lives lost either by design or unfortunate circumstance for the season, but I still find it challenging regardless.  I struggle to describe to someone else how I can make the decisions we do despite my strong affinity for the animals in our care, but I still think offering them a grieved, humane life is better than faceless killing.