So there's a post I've been delaying for weeks now... As you know I've got all the chickens - I ordered 20 little Rhode Island chicks, I ended up with some Rhode Island, Plymouth Rock and Australorps. Of the 20 chicks, 10 turned out to be hens (who are laying like champions I might add - please let me know if you'd like some fresh eggs, they're really yummy and with 8-10 new ones each morning I am totally unable to keep up with the consuming part!) and 10 cocks. I'm sure I have alluded to the terrible behaviour of cocks already but once they're mature it becomes impossible to keep too many together... The noise is a problem (I love hearing them but the neighbors aren't as keen on my organic journey!) but worse is the fighting. After a particularly violent day I realise that the time had come to reduce numbers...
I selected the three cocks we were to keep and separated the others out. The intention was always to slaughter some of the chickens (which is why I got 20 to start with rather than just getting 4-6 hens for laying). I researched the best way to do this and I will certainly not go into the details as I still feel completely traumatised. We set a day and fortunately I managed to arrange for someone to come and help (read: paid someone to do it for me...) as I could not manage to have anything to do with the process. My mom deserves all the credit as she was a real trooper. All in all we slaughtered and cleaned 7 rather large chickens and a few weeks down the line they're still in the freezer and we haven't had chicken in a meal since!
As for my part in the day? I cleaned and organised the kitchen, cooked dinner for the family, cleaned the kitchen again, set the table (who does that on a weekend night when it's just our family?!), sorted some old clothes out of my cupboard and felt generally miserable! I can admit that I watched the process (I felt I had to watch at least one) and the slaughtering process is quick and the chickens didn't suffer or get traumatised.
Life in the chicken run has returned to complete normality although the 3 cocks are still making a little too much noise :-( Our vet has put me in touch with a bird specialist who is able to stop the roosters from crowing (without going to the extreme I had to with the other 7) and I will be taking them through to him next monday. This process doesn't solve the fighting problem so it doesn't mean I can keep more roosters but it'll placate the neighbour who has insomnia at night and only manages to sleep during the day...
I am glad the process is over and hopefully some day I will manage to eat chicken again.
PS: I am sorry if this post has offended you. That was definitely not my intention and I have been struggling with writing it for a month already...
Wow, this must have been really hard! I'm sorry that it was so traumatic.
ReplyDeleteIt's situations like this that were one of the things that caused me to become a vegetarian. I started to wonder why we label some animals as "pets" and others as "food", granted with some overlap. I initially told myself that it is because of the emotional bonds that we form with our pets. However, when I looked at my cat and I thought "He can feel pain, he has emotions and he wants to live out his life", I realised that the same could be said for any pig, cow or chicken. I decided that, in order to be consistent and non-arbitrary, I would either have to be okay with eating all species of animals, or none at all.
Anyway, I'm not trying to convert you or anything!
Out of interest, where did you slaughter the chickens? As far as I know, slaughtering an animal at the residential home is illegal, but I may be wrong.
I always love reading your blogs, but this was the first one that I found quite difficult to read (obviously because of the sensitive content!). Keep up the good work :)