My parents made a surprise visit this week, up from Oregon. They brought a goat stanchion my Dad had made for us as a holiday present. My Mother always insists on being put to work so I took a day off of work and we made quick work of some outstanding chores:
- Trim goat hooves: This has to be done regularly and has historically been a two man job because we didn’t have a goat stand. It’s MUCH easier to do with the stand and some grain to distract the girls.
- Clean chicken coop: We do a full litter change of the cedar shed chicken coop by the house about twice a year. We also scrubbed and sanitized their feed and water, scraped down the roosts, and refilled everything including their oyster shells and the bedding in the nesting boxes.
- Fence and reseed backyard: This isn’t really farm related but needed to be done. Last year’s leaves suffocated the grass and the chickens have been keeping it well turned and any hint of reemerging grass eaten. The moss was starting to take over as well. So we fenced it off from the chickens so we could add some garden lime and reseed. Once everything is established the chickens won’t be able to keep on top of it.
- Planted more seeds: It was time to start my tomatoes and peppers inside. So far the only real failure I’ve had for seed starting was some chives and onions, but I already have chives so that’s not a big deal. I may try starting onions from sets since starting from seed is so problematic.
- Scrubbed the back patio: Chickens traverse the back patio alot and even like to hang out right outside the back door. This leads to lots of “presents” on the patio. I still need to scrub off the front patio.
It wasn’t really on the chore list, but Mom tends to bring out the gardener in me. We broadcast a bunch of “wildflower” mix and seeds I’d saved in to the front flower garden now that it’s been fenced off from the chickens. Maybe I’ll have a cut flower garden after all!
About the only spring chores that are left right now are to do the spring cleaning of the goat shed (waiting on the tractor for that), finish the hoop coop, and to prep the garden. We are off work next week so I’m sure there will be lots of activity.
One of our farm projects over the last couple weekends has been to build a “hoop coop” for the meat birds. Our intent is to use it as a chicken tractor for them.
After doing some research, Bengt settled on roughly using this design. I think in part because we already had the necessary stock panels. We use them for creating temporary pastures for the goats occasionally and have plans to use them more permanently in the future.
Our parts list:
- 5 1×4’s ($3.82 each)
- 4 2×4’s ($2.76 each)
- 1 box of medium fence nails ($3.24)
- 1 box of large fence nails ($3.34)
Grand total of $40.10 with tax. I don’t remember how much the stock panels actually cost us, and the poultry netting, zip ties, hinges, and latch are things we always seem to have around. I think we also came out with an extra 1×4.
We still need to put up the tarps, roosts, complete the front wall with poultry netting, and add a “handle” for the tractor to pull it. Unfortunately we also realized that we did the bottom wrong and will need to add skids. The plan is for the meat birds to move in to the hoop coop this next weekend. I’m a little nervous because it’s been getting relatively cold at night still and this design provides less protection from the colder temperatures than the range house.
Baby chicks have arrived (again)! Our 36 Cornish Roasters arrived early this morning along with F3’s order. We got the call at 5:11am and drug ourselves to the post office. We ordered enough to score a “double-wide” box this time! As usual they tumbled out of their shipping box and went right to work eating and drinking like little fiends.
I also realized I had forgotten to mention that this past weekend we went to a bakery that was selling off food grade barrels (from storing artificial sweetener) for rain water catchement. It was a steal compared to the $80 or so most folks charge for olive barrels that have been turned in to rain water catchement so we stocked up and got a couple for F3 as well.
We are excited to work on this project since it will (hopefully) alleviate the need for hauling quite as much water up and down the hill, especially now that the pink flock is up there by the goats. The goal is to catch the water in large enough quantities and then truck it up the hill to keep us going for as long as possible. We are only starting with a few while we work out the system. I’m hoping to be able to build a gutter system on the goat barn so we can collect water up there as well.
Our “new flock” which maybe I should just start referring to as “flock #2” is now 11 weeks old. It’s crazy to realize they are about 3 months. They are due to start laying at about 6 months old. We came through everything with 21 hens and 1 rooster. Yes, another rooster.
A few weeks ago we moved them out of the brooder box and in to the fenced garden as a holding spot until we could go pull some temporary fencing for them up behind the goat barn (today’s chore). One of the last chickens I picked up to carry from the brooder to the backyard screamed something awful when I had a hold of her. It was a bit strange, but not entirely unusual. Just as I released her over the fence with the other’s I saw a gaping wound at the base of her tail feathers. I was mortified as I realized I had blood on my hands and jacket sleeve. No wonder she was screaming, I had been holding her such that I was probably touching the wound. I started yelling for Bengt in a panic (don’t all these stories involve me yelling to Bengt in a panic?) and he came around with the last two chickens. I pointed out the one with the wound and we watched as another hen walked right up and starting pecking at the bloody area. The one with the wound just went in to a submissive pose and allowed it. Chickens are so mean! Bengt went in to the garden to retrieve her and we immediately went in to chicken hospital mode. Once he had her I took a look at the wound and it was about the size of a half dollar and there was no skin. You could clearly see the muscle structure entirely exposed. It was terrifying. We put her back in to the brooder box and raced off to the feed store to look for antibiotics and get her clean shavings. The best I could come up with to do was to give her a clean environment, boost her natural healing process, and hope. So we did exactly that. We couldn’t find an appropriate antibiotic so we gave her a dose of tetracycline before realizing that it wasn’t going to really help (it’s for respiratory infections) and quit. We tried to find iodine tincture to rinse the wound, but it’s nearly impossible to purchase these days since it can be used for nefarious purposes and eventually I gave up in utter frustration. As the days went by she appeared to be healing so we just kept her isolated and let her body do its own thing.
A week or so later some friends and I were outside and heard a strangled crowing sound. I thought it was Boots, our current rooster, on the other side of the house but it seemed like it was coming from the garage. I was certain that the chicken in the brooder box was a hen (I don’t know why) so I dismissed it. The next weekend we were stacking wood and filling the wood bin and it started up again. This time it was clearly coming from the garage. Sure enough I caught “her” in the act. Darn it! I’ve never known a rooster to crow so early, but granted my experience is somewhat limited. He was only about 2 months old at the most. I don’t need another rooster! Add to that, that it appears to be an Americana rooster. We have a somewhat love/hate relationship with the Americana/Araucana chickens. They lay beautiful eggs and the variety of plumage makes them interesting to look at but they are a light breed so even the rooster is hardly worth slaughtering and we haven’t found them to be particularly hardier or, uhm, strong on predator evasion? We often joke about the saying ‘you only have to run faster than the slowest’… they are clearly often the slowest.
So the new rooster is still in the garage and likes to crow at us in the evenings when we come and go doing chores. We are trying to decide on a name for the rooster. So far we’ve toyed with “Pat” on account of the ambiguous identity. We closely examined his wound a few nights ago and it is all covered with skin and emerging feathers except a small spot about the size of pencil eraser that still has a scab on it. It’s going on 4 weeks now I believe. We plan on keeping keep isolated until the next flock of baby chicks arrives (the meat birds) and are hoping we can reintegrate him with his flock after that. We certainly don’t “need” another rooster but hopefully he’ll help protect them… that is if they don’t try to kill him again.
We celebrated the return of the sun this year with a dinner among friends and family and a resolution for the coming year. Our resolution is to not purchase any meat of unknown origin/treatment (and by that I really mean origin/treatment that we agree with). The big thing we are currently challenged by is pork. We don’t have any friends raising pigs that we are aware of and haven’t ventured in to that yet ourselves. It wouldn’t be quite so bad but our daughters managed to eat through the last three packages of bacon while they were here so we are out. It’s nearly impossible to find sustainably raised bacon because the demand far outstrips the supply and is completely out of balance with the idea of utilizing the whole pig. People just consume far more bacon than they do other pork products. We know of at least one farm locally that sells pork belly during the market season and year-round from the farm. Since it’s not cured or smoked people don’t seem to know what to do with it so it’s generally available. So we will probably embark on trying to make our own bacon in the near future to fill the gap and/or look to purchase a half pig this year.
We decided to set a “January resolution” as well. Partly out of necessity. We had decided we would wait until after the holidays and try to do some overhauls on our spending so we could try to save some money to reinvest in to the property. Couple that with the travel expenses, septic repairs, and truck repairs in the last 6 weeks or so and we could really do with a good dose of belt-tightening. So for January we have resolved not to buy any food or go out to eat. Realistically it’s not zero, but as little as possible (for example, we need flour so we will buy that or buy wheat berries to mill our own). Through the winter we often “slack” and get a weekly delivery of organic produce to fill in some of the gaps (it’s not all local, sadly). We are keeping the weekly produce delivery, but it’s a relatively low cost and good value. It also has the effect of keeping us out of veggie ruts and forcing us to try new things. We figure that the challenge should have positive effects on both our wallet and our waistlines. We also could use a little eating down on the freezer/pantry. I tend to buy stuff on deals and stockpile like the end of the world is coming. We want to make room in the freezer for a nice local spring lamb or two and that pig I mentioned. It’s also hard to justify growing/canning more food when we still have plenty from the previous year (or two).
I’ve been plotting and planning for this year’s back yard garden already. I’m using growveg.com which looks very promising. We are also discussing building raised beds for the front yard garden instead of using all of the containers. They work relatively well but look like a cluttered mess. I’ve resolved to only buy seeds that are really needed this year. The last two years I’ve gone browsing through the seed catalogs in the dead of winter and ended up with all kinds of things I don’t need (they are sneaky that way, sending the catalogs when you are yearning for just about anything green and growing). So far eggplants and celery are the only thing on my list that I need to buy. To help avoid the over purchasing I’m also going to pick them up at the local garden store instead of mail order so I can’t justify making the shipping costs worth it as a reason to buy more seed.
The new flock of baby chicks is just about a month old now and doing great. They are whizzing around the brooder box still and we had to upgrade their feeder and water fount to larger sizes to keep them from emptying them while we were at work. We were just discussing this morning where they are going to range and the housing situation. We may free range them even though I had originally decided not to, just because we really need to do more clearing before we have space to fence and the tractor has been out of commission for several months (seems like a trend around here).
So far this winter has been really good for our current laying flock. Of the original 13 purchased we have all but 1, but we still have 1 from last year’s flock. It seems like we’ve typically lost more than that. We started with 12 or 13 last year and by the time they were laying we only had 8 hens and 1 rooster. We currently have 11 hens and 1 rooster. Egg sales have been going very well and we have far more demand than supply most of the time. It always disappoints me to tell someone I can’t sell them eggs because I think they are just the most wonderful things and everyone that wants them should get an opportunity. So I look forward to the new flock starting to lay and giving me more inventory to work with.
We are still planning on getting another flock this spring and I’m hoping to include a few laying and/or meat ducks in the order as well as some chickens for meat again. We won’t be doing the cornish-x again so I haven’t quite decided on how I want to approach things. I can either get a straight run of the hens we want and hope the roo to hen ratio isn’t too far off, or we can order sexed roos and hens individually. I think it costs about the same either way. I’m also eliciting assistance from our oldest daughter (10 later this January) in helping to select some of the laying hens. I’m excited to see what she chooses. At some point we need to invest in an incubator and just hatch our own chicks. We’ll get there eventually.
I’m practically counting the days until mid-February when I can start my seeds!
[What follows is a relatively unfiltered description of our experiences slaughtering 14 Jumbo Cornish Cross hens that we'd raised with the intent of humanely raising and slaughtering chickens for meat. My descriptions of "the act" itself do not provide any detail beyond what is required to convey the actions we took. The accompanying images are really no more graphic than you'd see at a neighborhood butcher's shop with a few exceptions: Americans aren't accustomed to seeing their food with the head and feet still attached.
As with the images from the First Slaughter post, consider that this is a very humane version of what occurs with the prep of the meat you eat. I encourage you to read on and contemplate the choices you make with your food.]
A dull ache in every vertebrae of my back, my calves are burning, and I can’t move my neck. We’re standing over the cutting board, on opposite sides of the kitchen counter pulling off crispy bits of skin, white and dark meat, and shoveling it into our mouths. Just a bit of butter, salt and pepper at 350 in the convection oven and it tastes like this? This is amazing. Ouch, my neck.
"Fresh" chicken roasted for 30 minutes at 350F with butter, salt, and pepper.
An hour before, we were in the front yard off the edge of the driveway gutting this same bird. There’s no way I thought I’d bring myself to eat it today. Following the visceral, bloody, and somewhat disturbing experience, I was left with passable knowledge of chicken anatomy and a freezer full of vacuum sealed whole birds, halves, quarters, parts, and offal. Over the course of two days we slaughtered 14 Jumbo Cornish Cross chickens. Some parts of the process are pretty nasty and I was pretty sure I’d spoiled my appetite for poultry for the foreseeable future. But here I was… eating the chicken I’d just killed… and it was easily one of the tastiest things I’d eaten in a long time.
Having slaughtered a rooster, last year, we changed our approach. We learned a lot in the slaughter of Bucket. I quite simply hacked off his head with a big sharp chefs’ knife coming down on a stump. The results were pretty messy, as the involuntary flapping made it tough to hang onto him. The scalding water was too hot and had actually started to cook the meat. We devised a plan, learning from experiences and a fair amount of reading. We were ready.
Slaughter day. We woke up early and started the prep. Big Rubbermaid tubs, a folding table (our kitchen from Burning Man), a large propane burner and 30 quart stock pot, ice, some really sharp knives, cutting boards, Latex gloves, 5 gallon buckets, 1 gallon Ziploc bags, and some trash bags. After working through some kinks (cone too big, angle of cutting boards wrong, broken thermometer, water too hot, water too cold, need some chairs, better knife needed for this or the other, ran out of propane on this tank, need another bucket, etc.), the next two days followed the same pattern, one or two birds at a time.
Killing Cone
I built a small cone out of some galvanized roof flashing and a couple small bolts. The cone was affixed to the tree, with a 5-gallon bucket hanging below it. At first catching one bird at a time was easy, there were 14 of them and they were, I think I mentioned this once or twice, lazy and fat. I entered their little pasture, walked up and grabbed one. Walking back, I’d put it upside down through the cone, holding the feet, wait for the bird to calm down (the cone seemed to have this effect on them), and with the sharpest knife we own, cut through the jugular vein on the side of the neck. The blood would run down into the bucket suspended below, and half a minute later, the bird would pass out. This method is similar to the slaughter outlined in the Koran in preparation of “halal” meats.
While there is very little literature on humane slaughter of fowl, I endeavor to end the lives of any animals I kill in the most humane way possible. I’ve had a few muted debates with friends about the concept of “humane slaughter” and, while I agree the phrase is material enough for several comedy routines, it captures what I’m trying to do. Why raise an animal in a humane way, only to end its life in fear? Dr. Temple Grandin is an expert on humane slaughter of livestock and, while most of her work is geared toward large mammals, I found much of her writing useful. She’s published some simple guidelines, many of which seem like common sense (keep herd animals together as long as possible, don’t let them witness the slaughter of another, etc.), but are useful when considering what we’re doing and why. The method we chose for slaughter is condoned, by her, for most animals. She’s a really interesting person and I highly recommend looking her up, even if you’re only marginally interested in slaughter; she’s written books on autism and has a very unique first-person perspective on the topic.
After the bird fell unconscious, I’d tighten my grip on its feet. “Death throws” are involuntary muscle spasms that cause the bird to flail about (the source of the phrase “like a chicken with its head cut off”) for 15-20 seconds. The cone contained the wings and held them against the body, which made this easier. The bird was dead, now.
Battle Stations for scalding, plucking,
We’d laid out our workspace in such a way as to let us progress with each of the bird through “stations,” each with a separate purpose. While I have the strong urge to define the process with a flow chart, swim lane diagrams, input and output charts, and SLAs, it’s pretty simple:
- Dead chicken goes into 140° Fahrenheit water and sits for 30 seconds. This loosens the feathers for plucking.
- Hot wet smelly chicken (smells like a wet feather pillow covered in chicken poop) goes into Rubbermaid tub filled with ice water. This keeps the chicken from cooking and helps to loosen the feathers. We occasionally had 3 or 4 floating around in the ice bath, gruesome looking.
- Kat pulls wet cold chicken out of cold water tub and starts plucking into a second Rubbermaid tub. This is much harder than it seems like it should be and Kat is much better at it than I.
- When the majority of the feathers were off, the chicken would be moved to the first of two cutting boards. Pinfeathers and as much stubble as can be pulled off is; wingtips are a particular bitch.
- On the same cutting board, I’d cut off the head (sharp knife, lots of pressure) and the feet. I got good at taking off the feet, at the knees, using a sharp knife I’d pop the tendons and separate the cartilage.
- Feet get the ‘skin’ and ‘toenails’ pulled off. The feet are a great reminder of the animals’ prehistoric roots… more reptilian than bird.
- Feet go into a bag for stock.
- Bird moves to second cutting board. At this point, it looks almost like the chicken you would buy in a store.
- Gutting the bird takes a little bit of time, though I got much faster by the end of the second day. In short, I start at the top, free the “top organs” and then do the other end.
- The trachea and esophagus can be pretty easily freed from the spinal column with hands. On day one, we didn’t feed the birds, and the crop was small and easily freed. The “crop” is a small sack that contains all the food the chicken has recently eaten. Think of it as a squirrel’s cheek pouch, it allows the chicken to take in more than the digestive system can handle. Day two, we fed them and the crop was huge and messy. Did I mention that these chickens really ate a lot?
- I would hang the legs of the bird off the table, over a 5 gallon bucket, cut a circle (or modified square, usually) around the “vent” (aka. butt), grab around the vent and pull. Put bluntly, this is nasty. I was basically pulling the entire digestive system of a chicken out, through its butt. It smells pretty strongly. I can’t describe the smell, other than to say it smells like chicken guts.
- There’s a lot of cleanup on the bird that occurs at this point, too. I pack the livers, gizzards, and hearts into an “offal” bag. I hope to make some pate or a Misc. Farm terrine; I tried each of these fried, that weekend, and couldn’t stomach it. The smell was… too familiar. Discarding the rest, including lots of little bits that took time to get out (lungs, for instance).
- What’s left is exactly what you’d get if you bought a whole chicken at the store. The only notable difference is that the neck has a little extra skin left on it. We either froze them like this or broke it down further to breasts, thighs, wings, etc.
All the pictures from the slaughter day are posted to flickr with annotation for each step.
After a heart wrenching first few days we have lost no more baby chicks, and everyone appears to be thriving just fine. This set of birds was a “brown egg layer” mix so we don’t know the breeds of most of them. If you’ve got some guesses, let me know! I can identify the Barred Plymouth Rocks and Black Sex-Links, and I think there are two Silver Laced Wynadottes, but that’s about it. None of them have feathered feet so I’m certain we have no Brahmas. This brings our current chick count to 23, and here’s to hoping it stays that way!
We are a blue house in a relative sea of red. We are urban professionals that commute to the country. We love animals, so we slaughter them.
We were recently at a large concert and among the “water pipes” and the cheap t-shirts due to externalized costs, were the pro-vege booths. They had a listing of local vegan/vegetarian restaurants that I was interested in because we strive to eat less meat*. On the front side of the sheet of paper was a brief argument for “Why Vegan?”. As I read their statements I was puzzled. The list was the same list of arguments for why we seek out humane, local, organic sources for meat… or raise our own.
* I think it’s inarguable that it’s very likely you/me/we should all be diversifying our protein sources and eating less meat for our health, the environment, and the animals.
I will segue here for a moment and acknowledge that I am well aware that these are not the only reasons some people chose a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle (and yes, I know the difference between the two). I found it fascinating though that these appear to be the most compelling. If you are vegan/vege because you feel eating animals is “wrong” or your preferred religion or deity decrees it so, then there is clearly no arguing your choice.
The sheet detailed the inhumane treatment of laying chickens, complete with details of battery cages, debeaking, force moulting, short-life spans, rampant antibiotic/medication use, and stress. It detailed unsuccessful slaughters of all kinds and the environmental impact of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feed Operations).
Yet to every point there is a meat-eating alternative. I was left with the impression that their underlying message was ‘it’s too hard to stop/change these things so let’s opt out’. Rather than opting out of the conversation, we chose to take control of it. Sure it requires more work and it’s not nearly as convenient, but it’s encouraging those farms/producers to continue doing what they are. Even better, you could consider raising your own. Slaughtering, plucking, eviscerating, and butchering 14 chickens by hand will seriously make you look at that chicken nugget differently. There is a lot of externalized work and guilt embodied in what’s on your plate, and having to do it yourself, at least once, will remind you why it shouldn’t be taken lightly, but that doesn’t mean chicken is off the menu.
You can argue that the vegan/vege is ‘voting with their dollars’ by boycotting meat or animal products, but I see it as negative versus positive reinforcement of desired behavior. You can just as easily ‘vote’ by giving your money to a farm that’s doing things “right”.
I think we need to unite the vegan and the farmer. In the argument on where our food comes from and how it is treated there is one answer, but many paths to get there.
It “…isn’t about being perfect or pure—it’s about reducing suffering.”
From: http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/
We have a chicken named Sassy, Sassy Red specifically. She’s a Rhode Island Red from last year’s flock.
We have a rooster named Boots. He’s a Brahma and therefore has feathered feet. He’s actually a very good rooster as far as rooster’s go. He’s relatively quiet and docile.
Sassy appears to be Boots’ favorite hen. This has it’s up sides and down sides. When Boots gets a tasty treat he shares with Sassy first. Sassy suffers from too much “love” from Boots though, so Sassy gets a saddle.
When roosters mate with a hen they step up on the hen’s back, dig in their talons, and often grab the hen’s comb or head feathers in their beak to hang on. The unfortunate effect of this, if the rooster-to-hen ratio is off or (as in Sassy’s case) he has a particular preference, is that the hen can suffer from missing feathers which can eventually lead to actual wounds. In order to prevent this, many chicken farmers leverage a “saddle”. They are reportedly easy to sew, but I suffer from occasional bouts of laziness. I ordered Sassy’s saddle from Hen Saver. (You know you talk chickens too much when the Gmail targeted advertising shows you things like this regularly.)
The saddle was simple enough to put on. When we closed the hens up that night we simply picked up Sassy and slipped her wings through the straps and set her back in the coop. She immediately became confused and proceeded to thrash around the coop trying to walk backwards to get the thing off. I became increasingly distressed during this behavior as I was trying to help her, not hurt or scare her. She settled down for the night and we turned off the coop light to ensure she got no undue attention from the other hens. The next morning she was much better adjusted and only had a couple moments of trying to walk backwards. Once she had a chance to stretch her wings a bit more the saddle seemed to settle and she seemed entirely unphased by it.
So far it appears to be having the desired effect and Sassy’s back is protected from the aggressive affection of Boots.
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
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