Monday was the day our new chickiechickiepeeperpants clan members arrived in the US Mail. We were excited, as we are every spring when it's time to set up the brooder and cradle little baby chicks in our hands. We found that McMurray simply forgot to send four of them. We also found one of the four Mille Fleur chicks to be in really bad shape. She was droopy and lethargic upon arrival, and within an hour was sprawled out and writhing, struggling to breathe. I had to end her suffering. She was barely awake, and having never broken a neck before (and afraid I wouldn't do it correctly), I chose to drown her. She passed without a struggle. It was still horrible. It wasn't until a couple hours later that I was alone in a quiet place and felt the weight of what I'd done, and then I sobbed.
The rest seemed fine, and spent the night eating and drinking and hopping around the brooder, peeping their hearts out. However, yesterday's "pasty butt" inspections revealed that one of the Araucana rooster chicks had some sort of anomaly in his GI tract. Below his normal looking vent was a wad of dried poop... when I removed it, it revealed another opening below his vent, with little tiny intestines bulging out of it, leaking blood and fecal matter. I know enough about anatomy to know this wasn't good. There was not anything we could do to fix it... with feces and blood in the abdominal cavity and a non-functional vent, it was only a matter of time before the infection set in for a long, slow death... or before the other chicks pecked him to death.
The little boy was otherwise acting normal, and being so alert it would not have been humane to drown him... he'd have struggled awfully. Since the day before, I'd looked up how to wring a chicken's neck so I'd be better prepared. But when it came to it, Honeybunch ended up doing it. We walked down to the stream, and thankfully it was an instantaneous. There, and then not there. Little yellow feathers.We both cried. It was harder for me to watch Honeybunch do it, to see the pain he felt in performing the act, than I think it would have been for me to do it myself.
Today, I found one Golden Polish dead in the brooder. I found the other lethargic, but arousable and still able to stand. I doubt she'll make it, but I dipped her beak in the water, placed her right under the heat lamp, and had to leave for work. I'm hoping for the best, but feeling discouraged and depressed and defeated. We've been raising chicks for three years and have never lost a little one. The temperature in the brooder is right, there's plenty of food and water and clean bedding, we cuddled them and started naming them and they're still dying. I have to assume that something happened in transport to the Golden Polish and the Mille Fleur. I also have to hold out hope that this is the end of our losses, because I don't know how much more of this I can take.
The act of taking an animal's life, even in mercy, is horrible to me. I don't think I'll ever be able to do it to yield food. I've been vegetarian for more than five years, and at times I think about a rare steak with A1 sauce and my mouth waters... but when it comes down to it, I don't think I can kill simply for the pleasure of that meal. I dread this part of the lifestyle I am choosing. I know that it's worth it, that to raise healthy and happy animals who live good, full lives... and who help to feed you by laying eggs or producing milk... is enough of a positive to justify these painful moments... but it is very, very hard.
3 comments:
I've heard that Apple Cider Vinegar does AMAZING things for failing chicks and animals. Might be worth a shot in the future. If it works...it;s gotta feel better than having to do the dirty deed!!!
Aww... so sad...So sorry that you had to go through that. I can sympathize with how hard that must have been. Doing the right thing to end their suffering, but still it's sad to have to be the one to end a life, even one that is fated to be short. Sadness.
ACV does help with boosting immune systems of chickens. Sometimes when my girls are looking droopy I'll add some ACV to the waterer and a clove of crushed garlic.
Your babies had issues that would likely not have been helped by that though.
As an aside, My friend who has kept chickens for many many years, said that McMurrays is going downhill in terms of the quality and health of the chickens they are putting out. She used to order from them but said they were messing up the orders and they have such a high demand that they are hatching out more chicks than they can handle and are not able to keep up, so the chicks suffer. She noticed several orders of hers the last few seasons were coming in ordered wrong, missing, or chicks were dead or sickly.
Yeah Sarah, the fact that they forgot four of the chicks we ordered, and then to have four of the ones they actually sent die... I'm disappointed with them. I'm hoping the ducks we ordered come healthy. Next year we'll be letting our girls hatch out their own, so we won't have to worry about it!!
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