chickens

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 I got home last night she was clearly doing very poorly.  I came in to the house on the verge of tears and told my (ex)husband she was dying.  There was no question that it was better to end her suffering at that point and my (ex)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 (ex)husband and I talked about the responsibilities 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 I 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.

So I’ve figured out which one of the chicks is our “free rare chick”.  …one has feathered feet!  I didn’t order any breeds that could have feathered feet so it looks like this one is my little odd one.  I’ve nicknamed it “Boots” for now.  I don’t know the sex of it and farm sense tells you that a “free” chicken is going to be a rooster, but I’ll have to wait and see.

With the feathered feet and a normal number of toes I am left suspecting that the breed is either a Cochin or a Brahma.  You can see some great photos of Brahma and Cochins here.  It appears to have a different “build” than the other chicks.  It’s a bit stockier and fluffier.  It looks like it’s waddling most of the time.  It’s terribly cute and I can’t wait to see how it grows up!

I also have discovered that there was a small error in our order.  I did get 27 chicks as requested but it looks like I got one extra Cornish-X and ones less Araucana.  Oh well.  One of the “Araucana” also appears to be very light golden which I didn’t think was typical for Araucanas so we’ll see how that one grows up.  It’s clearly not another Cornish-X though.

Happy Baby Chick Day!

I got the call from the post office at 5am this morning letting me know that my hatchery order had arrived.  I had prepped the brooder box over the past two weekends and it was all ready to go so I jumped out of bed and headed to the post office to pick them up.  I came home and got them settled before dashing off to work, but had time to set up the webcam again.  So for the next couple months I have Baby Chick Cam!

I have 27 total: 14 Cornish-X (meat birds), 6 Arucanas, 3 Barred Plymouth Rocks, 3 Black Sex-links, and 1 “Free Rare Bird”.  Since the Arucanas can vary quite a bit in coloring I am not sure which one is the “free rare bird” just yet, but it will be fun guessing!

So the rooster definitely has to go now.  I’m a bit relieved because it’s now  not my decision, but one of preservation.

I kept the chickens in the coop on Saturday, due in part to Bucket’s bad attitude.  I didn’t want him attacking guests or worse small children.  With them sequestered he really had his way with the girls.  The optimal hen to rooster ratio is no less than 8 hens to 1 rooster; in the 10-12 range is even better.  When chickens mate the rooster jumps on the hen’s back.  The hen is generally not thrilled about this situation so he uses his claws to hang on (and also his weight, pressing her to the ground).  The effect of this on a hen getting too much “affection” is that it starts to pull out her feathers and can actually start to do damage.  I’ve seen patterns for “chicken saddles” made out of old blue jeans for breeding scenarios.  The girls are showing signs of the wear though, since I am down to five hens at this point.  It definitely was escalated by keeping them in a small space for a full day.  Two of them have bald patches on their back, thankfully no broken skin, but unfortunately it’s also chicken nature to peck at wounds on “weaker” chickens until it kills them.  Darwinism at work folks. Since I had already debated Bucket’s fate and was leaning toward his dismissal it was an easy decision.  It looks like we’ll be having chicken stew this weekend.

For now I’ve moved Bucket to the brooder box in the garage since it’s more than large enough for him.  I’ve also turned out the coop light to discourage the hens from picking at each other while they recover.  Hopefully their laying doesn’t drop off too much.  Even with new chicks coming in April they won’t be of a good size to tolerate Bucket’s attention for quite awhile and I fear I’d end up with some serious injuries well before then.

I will certainly document our first slaughter experience.  It really will be a defining moment in our lifestyle decision for me and I’m not willing to take bets on which way I’ll go just yet.