I recently read that factory-farm chickens raised as fryers are ready to send to the slaughterhouse 49 days after they hatch. Fryers are the chickens you buy whole or in pieces at the grocery store. If you bought a package of drumsticks for a BBQ this weekend, those legs came from fryers. Those chickens were roughly seven weeks old when they died.
Today, my baby chicks turned 49 days old. They don't look anywhere near big enough to eat. They've barely passed the kabob stage.
Of course, fryers from the concentration coops are fed a special diet of shit that makes 'em grow real big real fast, unlike my little 49ers who eat real food.
I can't help but think of all those people who shun veal because omg it's baby cows but scarf down dozens of baby chickens. Sure, they're big chickens, but they're still just babies.
Angela asked me to video the retrieval of plastic Easter eggs from the chicken snake I killed yesterday. So I did. Ask and ye shall receive:
Turns out there was only one plastic egg inside the snake - the rest were all real chicken eggs. The snake must have eaten the eggs right before I killed it because the shells weren't crushed when I took those earlier pictures. I wrongly assumed it had eaten four of the brightly colored fake eggs.
The disturbing part is, several plastic Easter eggs are still missing. Where is the snake that ate those?
Found another chicken snake helping itself to eggs this afternoon. This time, it swallowed four plastic Easter eggs I'd put in some nests to encourage the chickens to lay there. It also ate at least two real eggs. I'll get a more accurate count when I chop it up for tomorrow's kitty breakfast feast (and retrieve my decoy eggs).
I was more than a little impressed with my aim this time. The first shot hit it just below the head, causing it to duck back into the nest on top of an old dresser. I patiently waited for it to raise its head again and, when it did, I shot it right in the face. It raised its head up about a foot high, waving back and forth like a snake charmer was playing a tune. I squeezed the trigger again and managed yet another head shot. This time, the snake collapsed back into the nest.
I fished it out with a broom handle and carried it outside. But, even with a bullet in the brain, it still wasn't dead. I don't like to see anything suffer - even an egg-thieving snake - so when it kept writhing around, I squashed its head to jelly with the heel of my boot. Even then, it refused to give up the ghost.
I thought for sure it was over when it shit. Everything shits and/or pisses itself when it dies. Over the last three and a half years I've seen enough things die up close and personal to know that's the cue to drop the final curtain. So when this snake let out a great spurt of shit two feet into the air - more of an ejaculation really - I was surprised to see it still squirm and twitch for another ten minutes.
Before it finally shuffled off this mortal coil (get it? snake? coil?), it vomited up egg yolk. I found some scars that make me think this wasn't even the first time it had been shot. All in all, this snake wins the award for the longest, most melodramatic death scene. I bet it tastes like ham.
Mirabel gets to keep her eye after all. When the swelling went down, her eyelid opened. But it was all droopy and made her look like a stroke victim - or a stoner. It's almost back to normal but she's now blind in that eye. Her biggest trouble seems to be maneuvering stairs. As she descends, she drifts further and further to her right until she usually drops off the side of one of last steps.
The unnamed chicken with the bad leg is doing better. She can stand on it and walk a little bit but she's nowhere near full recovery. Still no definite word on whether or not she'll be able to join the general population again or be slathered in herbs and spices. She currently lives on the porch a.k.a. the poop deck.
Sometimes I put her in the grass behind the house, next to the pen where I've been keeping the latest refugees and Pasha the rooster. She's safe from roosters back there because Pasha's penned up and Bart won't go behind the house because Pasha's back there. Pasha is content in the pen with the refugee hens but, if he saw Bart, he would move heaven and earth to get out and kick his ass. So Bart has no problem staying on his side of the house.
Took six of the latest refugees down to Frankencoop. One refugee died the other night. Don't know why she died. Factory farm refugees just have a lot of health issues.
That leaves seven birds in the triage coop behind the house - Pasha, five refugees and Mirabel (she likes bossing the newbies around). Bart and six other hens live under the poop deck with full access to the yard. One recovering bird confined to the poop deck. Frankencoop is holding twenty one birds - the six new refugees, three roosters, nine hens and three babies. Thirty six birds in all.
That's a lot of eggs. Even with thieving chicken snakes about.
I still have the 12 new refugees living in a pen on the west side of the house with my rooster, Pasha. Six other hens live on the east side underneath the porch with the newest rooster, Bart. During the day, the porch chickens have free range of the yard. Anywhere between 4 and 5 am, the two roosters start crowing on either side of me while I'm still trying to sleep. Earplugs have made it possible to sleep as late as 6am.
Bart is showing signs of becoming hostile to me. He hasn't fully attacked me yet but has taken a few swipes at me when he thinks I'm not looking. If he keeps this up, he and Pasha will have to trade places again. Too bad because they are otherwise content with the current living arrangements.
But these living arrangements are only temporary anyway because I plan on moving the newest refugees down to Frankencoop soon. Just waiting for the three baby chicks to get a little bit bigger. Plus, I have clean-up work to do at Frankencoop before I move more birds in. Lots of chicken shit to shovel out and spread on the gardens.
I also have to rearrange some stuff in a corner that made it all too easy for this freeloading visitor to hide. I suspect it's the reason why so many eggs were disappearing for almost a week.
Not poisonous but six feet of any kind of snake is the exact opposite of what you want to find in a nest when collecting eggs.
No one is more amazed than I am that I managed to get a head shot. But don't be too impressed. I put a lot more holes in the wall than in the snake.
At least the cats ate good. I chopped the snake up into six-inch sections which, to my surprise, looked very much like unsliced sushi rolls.
So, while all this craziness is going on, the last thing I need is injured chickens. But, sure enough, the universe can always be counted on to send me the last thing I need.
First, one of the older refugee chickens at Frankencoop lost use of her right leg. Have no idea what's wrong. Found her outside the coop, scooting around on the ground with her one good leg. For the last week she's been living on the porch while I wait and see if she gets better or I'm getting chicken curry. She seems to be able to put a little weight on it now so I'm still hopeful she'll pull through.
Then, this afternoon while bringing fresh water to Frankencoop, I found Mirabel hiding in the tall grass. Mirabel is one of the few big white refugee hens that has a name. I have trouble telling most of the white hens apart. Mirabel has a crooked toe (and a tendency to peck at my legs when she wants attention) that makes her easy to identify.
I initially thought she was laying an egg but closer inspection showed she had a little blood on her face. Even closer inspection showed she had a small puncture wound above her left eye. Really close inspection revealed her left eye is completely destroyed. The lid is intact but the eye is deflated. I don't know what happened. Maybe a run-in with one of the cats. So now she is on the porch too. Mixed a little crushed aspirin in with her water. Now I just wait and see.
But how long to wait? That's the murky question. When is it time to throw in the towel and take the hatchet down off the wall? I'd prefer the chickens to be alive and producing eggs - I'm sure they'd prefer it too - so if there's a chance they'll get better, I'll give them that chance. But I certainly don't want to unnecessarily prolong their pain. There comes a time when not only is the chicken unhappy but I'm spending too much effort on the care of a single chicken that would be better spent on other projects.
I'm far too soft to ever be a successful chicken farmer.
But lest you think it's all been bad news, I did make a new friend. A real live normal person who has recently moved to this neck of the backwoods. His name is Tom and he's a retired political science professor fresh off a two-year stint in Iraq with the State Department.
He grew up around here but moved away a long time ago. He's come back to an old piece of family property where he's living in an Airstream trailer until he builds his cabin. You can read all about his new rural Alabama life at his blog: Welch Super Service.
You have no idea how nice it was to hear someone start a sentence with "I was reading this article in The New Yorker..." Hell, it's just nice to know someone who reads.
The owner of the nearby factory farm dropped off five more hens today. One had eluded capture and fled the warehouse, spending the last couple nights outside where it managed to not get eaten by predators.
The other four had been living beneath the floor slats in the warehouse where they long ago tried to escape their doomed existence as sex slaves - breeders for The Man. This allowed them to keep all their feathers but left them in a position to get shit on alot. To them, I guess it was the lesser of two evils.
Welcome home, sisters.
There are now seven chickens under the front porch and thirteen in the triage coop behind the house. That's twenty total living up at the house - more than are living in Frankencoop right now, which is currently housing fourteen adults and three baby chicks. Thirty seven chickens in all.
I now have a rooster on each side of the house - both under open windows. This is the most effective alarm clock I have ever owned. Sadly, you can't choose the time it goes off nor does it have a snooze button. There is no oversleeping when you sleep with the chickens.
