Bad Decisions

Do you ever make decisions that seem like a good idea but in hindsight make you want to go back in time and slap yourself? That happened last night.

About one-thirty in the morning my husband suddenly asks while we are lying in bed if I made sure the chicks were put up for the night. Crap. After telling him I’ll go check, he gets up and does it himself. I should have known that something was wrong when he didn’t come back for over half an hour. Sure enough, two were dead and one was barely breathing. This morning the one he tried to save didn’t make it through the night.

A couple things ran through my mind last night as I tried to fall asleep but my brain was not having it. The first being that while I thought they would be big enough to be out in the run with the older girls, I didn’t think about how cold it is still getting at night, and the second is that I should have put the heat lamp in the henhouse if the chicks were going to be out in the coop until they were fully feathered.

So now what? Do we take this as a learning experience for next time or as an omen that we shouldn’t get any more chicks for a while?

Papa

Losing a grandparent is difficult. Losing them long before they actually pass away is harder.

I remember the first time we went to Lewiston, Idaho to have Thanksgiving with Papa and Grandma K.. It was a long drive, it was cold when we got there, and we had to rake leaves. Yes, rake leaves… in the cold. My brother and I would have froze to death, but we had just gotten hand knitted gloves and hats from them. How convenient. What I wasn’t expecting was getting paid to do it. It was the first time I had gotten money for doing chores and the first time I realized that hard work pays off… literally. I used that money for Christmas presents, or candy, I’m not really sure.

What I remember most is thinking it was absolutely awesome knowing somebody in the entertainment industry. Okay, so Papa worked for a local radio station, but we got to tour the station before he took my brother and I to the toy store to pick out stuff for us and our sisters and had goulash for dinner. And he knew Santa. Mall Santa. A mall Santa who arrived at the mall in a helicopter. It was amazing to my nine year old self. Papa also loved to tell war stories from when he was in Korea. Lots and lots of stories. And he could watch television in his sleep as was apparent when I changed the channel while he was obviously sleeping and he said, “I was watching that.” I still have no idea how he’d know I even changed the channel, but he did. He always did.

So a few years ago when we were told that Papa’s mind wasn’t as sharp as it once was and he had to constantly be reminded of who people were, I was saddened. I wondered if he would still be the same person I knew. And for the most part, he was. But over time it was quite apparent that he was remembering less and less and becoming more paranoid that something was going to happen to his dog who practically never left his side. On one hand this slow degradation somewhat prepares you for the inevitable, but on the other it just seems cruel.

When I got the call that he had passed away, or more accurately text message (don’t mock, between texting and Facebook is how my family communicates) I wasn’t surprised by anything except actually breaking down and crying over the loss. Even though I knew it was coming and have been preparing for it over the last couple days, I still couldn’t stop falling to the ground as the tears began flowing. And then I started laughing as a story he told me about my stepdad popped into my head. Losing someone is difficult and painful, but as long as we remember them, their spirit will live on.

Dawn

Three months ago we had a chicken develop egg peritonitis. This morning she passed away.

Dawn was, to say the least, the leader of the pack. While Buffy was indeed the head hen, Dawn was our head “rooster” once we gave back our actual roosters. Even when she got sick a few months ago the other girls left her alone. Gotta love the chicken hierarchy known as the pecking order.

However, this last week she’s been looking dreadful, and the last few days I’ve been having to take her into the henhouse at night. Last night we thought it would be best to leave her out in the run and hope that nature would take its course, but we couldn’t do it. I put her back into the henhouse anyway, even though I thought she was indeed dead before picking her up. Indeed, death wasn’t far behind.

This morning my husband went out to check on her and came back inside to get a bag. It had finally happened. Letting go is difficult, but really? A chicken? I suppose if we only kept them for eggs and/or meat I would feel different, but we treat them like pets and so they’ve become such. At least I was able to hold her one last time before she died, but part of me wishes we’d have put her out of her misery long ago. However, she’d be sick then seem to recover and yo-yo back and forth until right before we moved when she could no longer lift her back end because she was retaining so much fluid in her vent. The last couple days on the other hand had me seriously considering culling her myself in case she didn’t die on her own, but I don’t think I could go through with it. My husband’s mom, who just got into town last night and is staying for the weekend, offered to do it for us this morning while I was at work, but, her services will not be needed.

Alas, it is time to say goodbye to another hen. I suppose it is really just all a part of life with chickens. I guess this death was just a little more difficult because we’ve had her for three years versus a few months to a year on our other girls who’ve died. That and secretly she was my favorite… even though when she’d get all excited and start cackling I’d yell, “Shut up, Dawn!”

Related Post: http://modernmalehomemaker.blogspot.com/2010/01/dawn.html

Joyce

Okay, so sad news here at Sunnysideupdale Farms… we lost another chicken. This time, however, it was one of the babies.

It was obvious from the get-go that Joyce was going to be the runt. Her incredibly small frame was exacerbated when we brought home the three new chicks back in June as day-olds and she was half the size of the other two. Nothing changed much over the last three months in that regard, as the other two were nearly twice her size at all times. I contributed part of it to the fact that the other two, a Cuckoo Maran and a Rhode Island Red, are big birds, where a Speckled Sussex is a medium bird.

But yesterday as I was changing out their water and letting the girls free-range for a while, I noticed one absent. When I opened the door to the henhouse there she was, looking as though she had died in her sleep and fallen off the roost. There didn’t appear to be any obvious signs of trauma, but the poor girl did have huge breasts and because of such had a little trouble walking every now and then. Perhaps this was all just a defect and was bound to happen, but I sincerely hope it wasn’t caused by something we did (or didn’t) do.

With Joyce gone, that brings our flock of ten down to nine. I can’t say this is a bad thing, but I am saddened that of the three new birds, she had the most curiosity towards us and reminded me a lot of her adoptive mother, Kendra. I think Kendra thought so too, because while Harmony and White Witch Willow (the other two chicks she raised) were weaned early on, Joyce was by her side most of the time while they were in the coop. Even after they all went to roost in the henhouse last night, Kendra came back out as if she was looking for something for about ten minutes before finally heading back inside. Part of me wants to believe that she was looking for Joyce.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad...

The good news is that the chicks and their mama seem to be fully integrated into the flock. The bad news is that we unexpectedly lost a hen.

After four days together in the coop, it seems Kendra and her chicks, Harmony, Joyce and White Witch Willow, are getting along fairly well with the rest of the flock. Occasionally I will catch Anya desperately trying to hold on to her place in the pecking order but she seems to be relenting to the fact that her status as Number 4 is now back to Number 5. The chicks have also taken a real liking to Dawn, our head “rooster” and Number 2 in the pecking order (Buffy is Number 1, of course, and nobody messes with Buffy) and like to hang out with her, much to her dismay. She seems annoyed when the chicks want to hang out next to her, kind of like I am with kids, but goes along with it until she finds a way to focus their attention elsewhere or just walk away when they aren’t looking, which is also a lot like me. Hmmm… I think my chicken and I have a lot in common. Is that weird?

Anyway, so yesterday as I was checking the temperature I watched the little ones fly out of the henhouse for a drink of water, and all the hens were busy having a dust bath or walking back and forth between the food and water. About ten minutes later I decided to go collect the eggs for the day. Now normally when I open the back door all the hens will line up at the front of the coop to see if I am going to let them out and I saw all but one… a cause for concern normally, but only ten minutes before I had seen them all so I wasn’t too worried even though Cordelia wasn’t there. As I walked up to the coop I saw why. Now this isn’t the first dead chicken I’ve come across, but it is the first time I’d seen one appear fine and then just die a few minutes later. I took her out of the coop and examined her for signs of trauma but she had no wounds of any sort on her. The only thing I noticed on my second examination of her after collecting the eggs was that she appeared to have a prolapsed vent, but I didn’t see that a minute earlier so I don’t know if that was the cause or if it happened postmortem. Either way, our green egg layer is gone.

And so it is that the three new additions to our flock seem to be doing well, while one member hasn’t fared well at all. I’m not sure what killed her because she’d been eating and drinking normally and even layed an egg that morning. It may have been the heat or maybe she was just good at hiding her illness if she had one. The only thing abnormal about her was that her eggs appeared to have extra bumps on the shells rather than being smooth like the rest of our layers. I just wonder if I had gone out there fifteen minutes before if things would be any different. But…

… you take them both, and there you have, the facts of life.

Fish

We have fish. We have fish in an aquarium inside, and we have pond fish outside. Well, currently we have pond fish in the as-yet-to-be-finished half bathroom in a bucket. I now, it’s attractive, let me tell you.

Anyway, it got me thinking, aren’t fish usually a “first pet” for children? I mean, families may have a family pet, but a pet that is actually a child’s responsibility is usually small and easy to care for, like fish. And the thing about fish is their uncanny ability to just unexpectedly float up and die. Which leaves you with a dilemma: Do you get another fish to replace the dead one before the child notices, or do you take this opportunity to teach your child about death? The easier thing to do would be to just go to the pet store and hope Suzy doesn’t notice that her goldfish changed colors slightly, but I think the more responsible thing to do would be to take the chance to tell your kid about loss.

As difficult as it may be to watch a child cry over the passing of their fish, it is a valuable teaching tool that will inevitably help them grieve the passing of a loved one. It will prepare them in letting them know that death is simply a part of life. That we love, lose, and love again. That death is not something to be feared, but something to help realize life won’t last forever. That every day is precious, and they should make the most of it, not worrying, but living. That it is okay to cry when feeling sad, but not let that sadness linger when it is time to celebrate and laugh.

Yes, we have fish. And yes, we have lost more than a few, and more than I can remember or count, and three just this morning. But if it weren’t for my first pet dying, and the moment my parents took to teach me about birth, life and death, I don’t know how I could have grieved the passing of my grandfather when I was sixteen, as it too was sudden and unexpected. I remember the day he died quite clearly, but I also remember all the time we spent together cleaning out the barn or gathering eggs with a broom handle to beat off the roosters when they tried to attack or eating Cream of Wheat with burnt toast.