Today was a sad day.
Unlike the rooster we slaughtered last year, this was not something we had desired. Indeed, due to the fact that she laid spectacular olive green eggs very regularly, and added a color to the flock that was quite unique, she was one of two we have never had any intention whatsoever of slaughtering, and had the specific intention of retaining.
The ugly one got this titled since as a chick, she looked like a drunken version of Martin Van Buren in chicken form. Her shaggy bearded coloring was in stark contrast to "the pretty one", also an Ameraucana, whose coloring was neat, well patterned, and very attractive. As the both of them reached adulthood, they both became pretty in their own way but the title stuck.
Unfortunately, while the ugly one was relatively smart (for a chicken) and pretty flighty and strong, somehow she ended up dead last in the hen pecking order, and was second only to our juvenile rooster prior to him experiencing his first crowing. Once that happened, she became dead last, and very quickly, very first in terms of preferred mating partner of the rooster.
For the record, mating is not very pleasant for the hen. The rooster climbs on her back, often bites at her neck to hold her down, and forces her butt up, and her vagina to poke out of her cloaca. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KBGEjVF-bM
As she was bottom rung, the ugly one was the go-to girl when all other hens were successfully avoiding him. The books suggest having 7 hens for one rooster, so that the hens get a break every now and again. However, of our 7 hens, 2.5 of them (the two plymouth bard rocks and for a time, the black austrolorp) actually are or were of a higher pecking order than the rooster. This means effectively, at first he had only 4 hens, with that changing to 5 hens in only the last month or so. He mated with her incessantly. It got so bad she was losing feathers from behind. Kyle picked up a chicken apron for her, which we thought was an end to the problem. It did save her back from further de-feathering, but I suspect, only delayed future problems.
A couple of weeks ago, I suddenly noticed a bulbous red glob on the back end of the ugly one. I took no pictures of our particular chicken, but a good website to explain the situation is here: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/04/prolapse-vent-causes-treatment-graphic.html
To explain what exactly this means, I will write the following paragraph in white. Read if you have a strong stomach or can't comprehend any female anatomy anyway.
Chickens have only one exit hole, a cloaca, also known as a vent. Essentially, this exit hole is used by both an internal anus and vagina (or testes if a rooster). When each one is used, it pops out through the cloaca slightly. Thus you are not getting poop smears on eggs or calcium deposits on poop.
The prolapsed vent meant that the vagina would not collapse after use, back into the body cavity. It was sticking out and had to be manually pushed back in. When this first happened, I managed to keep her in the garage, in a box to encourage her body to stop producing eggs, and give her time to heal. This actually seemed to work, and after some lovely intimate sessions with the poor hen, we got it to the point where it wasn't protruding any longer. Believing this problem to have occurred by excessive mating, we then separated the rooster from the rest of the flock. All seemed well.
Unfortunately, a few days later it was sticking back out again. I suspect this was because she had not actually fully healed at this point. Before Kyle or I had noticed it, other hens of the flock began to pick at her exposed inverted vagina until it bled. By the time we had separated her from the flock, it was in bad shape. Still we tried, getting her some preparation H, and anti-biotics. It was for naught as it did become infected. The bleeding in addition to the poop coming out the same hole, naturally will not help the healing process.
To visualize, ladies, imagine that in giving birth, you exerted yourself so hard that your vagina inverted and stuck out from the orifice. Now, your fellow lady friends notice this, but as you guys are unsympathetic chicken-personalities, they take out sharp pointy sticks and jab them at your wound. You look weak. They don't want to deal with anyone who is weak. Finally, for some unexplainable reason, this causes you to be unable to defecate without doing so in your vagina. This was our poor chicken, the ugly one.
Last night, it got so bad Kyle and I spent about an hour trying to help her finish laying an egg that couldn't pass as a result of dried puss and scab on the edges of the wound. The poor girl was really in pain as we soaked her in a hot bath and tried to ease up the scabbing. At that point, we realized she had crossed a line. We weren't going to save her. She was looking healthy besides the wound, but soon the infection would set in, and she was going to die.
So Kyle and I made the decision to cull her, which is a nice way of saying slaughter, but for reasons of health or flock cohesion, rather than for the purpose of meat generation. You can still get meat out of the process, but it isn't the goal.
She really was quite alert and in a good mood, even considering the pain of egg laying she had the prior night, and the fact that we had confined her and was withholding food to make the killing easier. That perhaps made it even harder. On the one hand, if we had waited until she reality of her condition finally took hold of her outward behavior, the meat would have been contaminated, and there would be no silver lining of use in the slaughter. On the other side, laying troubles aside, she was as cognizant and energetic as ever. Chickens start getting droopy and lethargic when they feel sick - the ugly one was none of that.
So that was sad.
Again, Kyle did the slaughter, I the evisceration. I have a good excuse for this - Kyle lacks the fine motor skills needed to evisceration without popping poop everywhere, but I am not sure I'd be able to do it anyway. I was tearing up, quite significantly, when I saw the limp carcass of the ugly one from the distance. As Kyle noted, it is much more difficult to slaughter her, rather than the rooster we had a month, or the two cockerels we will be slaughtering in two months, because we had her over a year. She was a familiar sight on the yard and as distinct a personality as chickens can be (they aren't terribly distinct, but their vocal sounds are). And as she was on the bottom of the pecking order, you can't help but feel a little sad for her. She didn't pick on others too much; she was the one picked on the most. Her olive green eggs will definitely be missed. They were delicious as well as pretty.
So now we have 5 laying hens, plus another hen currently brooding chicks, meaning she isn't laying. A huge point of flock diversity is gone.
However, two of her eggs were a part of the batch of most recently hatched chicks. We don't know their sex at this point. We won't know for another few weeks. However I believe we will replace her with one of them if at least one of them is a pullet (juvenile hen). If they are both cockerels, Kyle is thinking it is time that sexually ambitious rooster find himself next on the list on who is to become delicious.
Can either of these guys fill their biological mother's shoes?
So what's the lesson to be learned from this? Certainly neither of us want to have to slaughter those chickens who have been a part of our yard for an extended period of time. Luckily, older chickens don't make for great meat anyway. Slaughtering an animal that we expected to keep around with us also once again begs the question, should we be doing this? Kyle believes that if we can't slaughter our chickens, that is, older chickens, maybe we shouldn't have chickens at all. I disagree. I believe the lesson isn't, "we shouldn't have chickens" but rather, "we shouldn't eat chickens". One requires the death of a chicken. The other does not.
I do not think my chickens are somehow more deserving of life than those chickens of factory farms, even those that are cage free and get to see a bug once in awhile in their live times. I stick to the idea that it is still better for even the ugly one, that she was able to enjoy a chickeny life in our backyard and met a relatively painless end after all other options had been exhausted. If that is not enough, than nothing is enough. There is no justification in taking the life of any chicken.
Kyle and I have also agreed that barring a similar mortal wound, there is no way either of us could kill the most curious and intelligent of all the chickens: Penguin.
Kyle and I have also agreed that barring a similar mortal wound, there is no way either of us could kill the most curious and intelligent of all the chickens: Penguin.
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