flock its
methinks i placed two of my three chicken coops in a very foolish location. by the pre-covid plan those two coops are placed in a space easily observed from the education/business center. as the covidic yaddah blahs evolved, the rustic old farmhouse is substandard living quarters for our farm assistant (fa) and her family. three years later, with little hope of getting that dream past the covidic yaddah blahs, those two coops are now in her yard and she doesnae much like chickens. she strongly favors pursuing commercial production where the industry is kept as far as possible from her potted plants, etc. NIMBY a la hispanic caribean.
those two coops have been under heavy predator attack lately. again. i've already lost two flocks to this scenario. the third coop is near enough to the new house that it is easily guarded from the porch. ditto for the other two coops from the old farmhouse, but fa wants no part of that scheme. she has treated predator attacks as opportunities to campaign for the more established chicken factory methods of her country. chicken factories are pretty much the same world wide. i suspect the chicken factories of her country arenae far different than those of my country. i donae care to own one of those inhumane, environmentally damaging atrocities, thank you, kindly. no aquellas de su pais ni de mia.
today i used masking tape to hide the "eggs" hubby and fa painted on their sign down by the road. tonight i left the doors open on the two coops in fa's yard in hopes of losing those two flocks sooner. they are doomed and i see no sense in dragging out the agony any longer than necessary.
back to the drawing board.
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spring is busting out all over on the southern great plains. i expect to see hens brooding soon. last year was the most successful brooding season i have had yet, albeit at the price of my current rooster dilemma. i strongly suspect that the grandmas and countrymen who made it look easy would have considered those roosters a tasty bonus, culling them from the flock in much the same spirit that i choose my cellophane wrapped poultry from the grocery store, but? ? ? i'm still squirming like a dog mama at the thought of slitting the throats of pets with names. having them for dinner? ? ? that means i'll be setting them a place at the table, right? will they be more comfy in the baby's high chair? welcome to our home, my feathered friend.
yo. . . redneck. . . get over here and show me the fine points of making it look easy. . .
"the brood house" was my secret to last season's success. there wasnary a plan to creating the brood house. it just happened by an unrecorded series of mishaps and impulses. it was successful enough that this year i want to do it by design. alas, the brood house has since been repurposed into the rooster house and i donae believe the two uses are compatible. to the best of my limited experience, roosters arenae good daddies.
sigh. . .
this morning i put a double entendre on processing. . .
there are chicken processing services to do the bloody work for me.
still squirming like a dog mama. . . killing the roosters does look like the best option for getting rid of them. this morning i had my first victim in the pet carrier, awaiting execution. my plan was to use the "benign kill" which joanne showed me 8 or 10 years ago. was it joanne's calming presence or bert's gentle nature which made the kill so easy? this morning's victim has no name, but he was a good bit feistier on getting him out of the carrier and settled with his wings trapped between my legs. the peck mark on each of my hands serves as a purple heart to my courage in getting him that far. i sat with him thusly a goodly while, just breathing, until i gained the confidence to move around a bit. he never did calm far enough that i could reach for his head. without his snapping at me. did he succeed in one last effort to escape or did i give up and release him? maybe both.
dunno. . .
it occurs to me now that bert spent an entire day in the pet carrier before i carried him to joanne's farm in the evening. could that be why he was so much calmer? worth a try, i reckon. for sure, if i want to brood another summer flock increase. this hurdle needs to be jumped. the roosters are currently housed in the brood house. roosters and chicks are a cocktail i amnae willing to stir.
a brooding hen in the front coop has brought a renewed sense of urgency to resolving the rooster dilemma. rooster murder still feels quite beyond me. soccer season is my current excuse for not having the time to jump the bloody harvest hurdle. the psychotic undercurrents of the dilemma have begun to serve up nausea when i pass a fried chicken outlet while running errands. i don't feel much kinder keeping them trapped inside the brood house i should be prepping for brooding season, but denial can be such a time saver when one is busy being busy.
my brain fart of the week is to carry them to the furthest stock tank and release them. it seems likely they will find their ways back, but chickens donae range very far. it also seems possible they will live out their days where i release them.
have those 10 roosters really been crowing in the brood house for 3 months now? am i really starting to detect tones of defeat and misery in their on-going chorus? well. . . there are only 7 roosters crowing in the brood house this morning. today's intended victim is listening to the back flock rooster crowing about his good fortune while the hens wander about with a bit less curiosity than they showed toward the two victims of the past two days.
am i going all dog-mama that i have allowed hubby to do the killing of the first two birds? let's not count the rooster who got away. over the course of listening to my psychotic ramblings over the need to kill my feather babies versus my ever more clear reasons chicken keeping requires the infanticide, he claims his maternal grandmother has begun speaking to him. does it matter whether he is reviewing childhood memory with a more informed eye or her spiritual entity is hovering at his elbow? psychotic adventurer that i am, i can believe he knows more about how his grandma made it look easy than his robocop training cares to nurture. andgoes so i gave my blessing. "listen to ura. there is a whole heap of programming which behind that one-finger magic which makes it look easy."
the first murder verily rocked the farm. all able bodied critters were there to see the show. donkey odie and gary nearly tore the fence down to get a look at what was in the cage parked in the center of the barn. the back flock was in watchful attendance. i'm not quite sure if the front flock took note of what was happening of the agreed upon boundaries of the respective flocks. not my circus, not my monkey, folks. . . the first victim was thrown into the field for the vultures. donkey odie and gary made up the funeral procession as far as they were able. they startled and ran even faster than hubby when that rooster came back to life and ran off. they watched from a safe social distance as hubby re-murdered the victim and resumed the funeral procession.
hubby attempted to skin and butcher the second victim, but the results look less than tannable or edible two down, 8 to go. . . victim 3 awaits. can he do it? ? ? breathing with him. . .
intended victims (iv) 7 & 8 await in the big barn. they were so quiet on this humid, overcast morning that i had to shake their cages to assure myself they were alive and ready to be murdered. the smaller of the two iv's set to cackling like a lawyer in protest of this injustice. the bigger rooster waved his head in ? ? ?resignation? ? ? as i walked big bro and big sis to the bus stop, i felt a bit of relief that the two roosters left in the brood house seemed so much quieter than the 10 rooster choir we have been listening to.
the roostercide has evolved that i pull the iv's from the roost at night and my big, strong man murders them the following day. we dispensed with the steps of learning how to turn the carcasses into feather pelts i can experiment with and an appealing family dinner. here in the first person present we are beginning to suspect those two steps arenae as easy as they look 3rd person past tense in the hands of practiced masters. the safe social distances mask a great many pesky details, even with the multimedia aids
my guit-chi is painting moustaches on yet another mona lisa. the grateful dead classic, "friend of the devil" is acquiring new lyrics.
i've got 10 roosters crowing in the brood house
hens have gone broody with no safe place they can brood
i've got to choose between those pretty boys and new babies
nobody wants a pet rooster by their side
so i set out running but i take my time
a friend of the devil is a friend of mine
if i get home before daylight
i just might get some sleep tonight
roostercide in progress. . .
6 down, 2 marked, 2 crowing nervously