Pondering Death

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

“Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he;
“Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again.”

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.

I realized that when deciding to raise animals as food, death was inevitable. I had assumed that those deaths would be primarily the premeditated, planned, humane efforts of our own hands. Death can never be taken lightly, but the death that we do not understand or can not name is by far the most challenging to come to terms with.

When we lose an animal to a predator I’m able to reconcile my grief with thoughts of the greater circle of life. If it wasn’t my chicken it would be one of the pheasant escapees from the near by game preserve, or perhaps worse, someone’s companion pet. Either way those wild animals have just as much right to exist as we do, and my loss may be just what another needs to continue life.

As Bengt is in the process of detailing, when we choose to take a life it’s with every effort of compassion, sympathy, and consideration… and perhaps above all else, gratefulness and thanks.

But when we lose a life and feel we have no choice or control over the matter it is the hardest. It’s harder still when that life has barely just begun.

The first flock of chickens we purchased from the feed store, rather than direct from the hatchery. I watched over them fastidiously to ensure that I made no errors in my ignorance. We lost no chicks.

The second flock we purchased was directly from the hatchery. Of the 27 that arrived, one died in the first days. I had assumed I’d failed at my diligence to ensure they weren’t “pasting up”, even though once I cleaned her up she continued to decline. Not knowing what else to do, when we came to the determination that she was beyond recovery, we broke her neck to hasten the end in case she was suffering.

The third flock arrived this past weekend, direct from the hatchery. Of the 26 that arrived, three have died with in the first few days, the third dying Saturday night. One by one they’d become lethargic and less active. They could be roused occasionally but they would immediately sit down and drift back to what appeared sleep, as if they had no energy left. They would move less, and less and therefore stop drinking and eating. It all happens quite quickly, in less than 12 hours.

With the second chick we debated how to intervene, but when she started to droop it was nearly midnight and we have no medications on hand. We left her where she seemed to be happiest, snuggled in to the fluff of the other chicks, sleeping. By early morning she had passed sleeping among the flock.

The third we tried to coax in to drinking water by putting droplets on her beak or dipping her beak. She’d drink occasionally, but continuously tried to drift off. We decided to try separating her because the other chicks were active, awake, and kept climbing right over her. We put her in to a small box with water, under the warming light with openings she could see through. She laid down with her face towards one of the openings, occasionally crying to the rest of the flock. They would come over and peck like mad at the box, occasionally pecking at her, forcing her to move a little further away from the opening. Chickens can be cruel.

I checked on her every hour, trying to entice her to drink water until she couldn’t be roused at all. At this point we had a conversation about suffering and death. Was it better to let her drift off to sleep while her body slowly gave way and her breathing became more or more shallow while nestled among her flock sharing their warmth, or was it better to end her journey quickly and judiciously?

I questioned my role… Was I doing something wrong? Was I failing my little charges in some way? As I pondered the three flocks we’ve raised, I realized that when purchasing the chicks from the feed store I was essentially externalizing the mortality rate. I have no doubt, now, that it existed with those chicks as well, but it wasn’t under my watch.

We opted to leave her isolated for fear of being trampled, but where she could see and hear her flock and remain under the warming light. I continued to check on her regularly and her breath became fainter and harder to discern with each hour. She passed on in the night.

There is relatively clear guidance on humane slaughter, but not so much on humane death in general with livestock. It’s considered humane to slit the bird’s cardiac artery to render them unconscious while their heart pumps the remaining blood from their body in slaughter. It’s hard to understand how much they suffer during this procedure. A sharp knife and a skilled hand brings on a dark sleep quickly, but what about these little birds? The chick mortality rate is estimated at anywhere from 10-50% depending on the situation. Real world mortality rates for similar animals (ducks, geese) are more harsh, with disease, predators, or defects claiming a larger portion. A mother duck doesn’t spend much time on a sickly duckling. She can’t count to ensure that all of her babies are with her. If you don’t follow and fall behind, you don’t survive. It’s mother nature at work culling her creatures for the strongest and smartest.

Ultimately the crux remains… I feel helpless, and my guilt hinges on that. There is little I can do. There is little to even attempt to do. I’m left feeling like I failed this little life, being rendered helpless. There are all sorts of practical reasons for not nursing a weak chick, but “Failure to thrive” seems like such a cruel, yet indeterminate answer.

For now I think I’ve come to terms that they appear happier when allowed to come to their end naturally, with mother nature gathering them in her sweet embrace as she sees fit. We wouldn’t hesitate to end a creature’s suffering if appropriate, but it’s not clear to me that they are suffering.

“My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,”
The Reaper said, and smiled;
“Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where he was once a child.”

“They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear.”

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
‘T was an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow