Life and Death A Week Out From Christmas

On a day when one chick hatched under a mother hen around the nectarine tree that was split in half years ago by a falling pine, I also discovered a dead chick in a bucket with a small amount of water in it.

So life and death came together.

I know that the bitterness we endure is often assuaged by the sweetness that also comes to every life. But it’s still damn depressing to nurture these offspring and then see what befalls some unlucky few. Another baby that I noticed because it has a white belly has what I thought was a sore on its shoulder. It started out looking like some mean old rooster had bitten it but it soon starting turning into what appeared to be some sort of rounded growth that was bright red. Yesterday John told me that he saw that there’s no wing on that side of its little body. So this sweet wee baby that’s so cute will never fly. Although chickens can fly occasionally, they mostly do that when they’re going to sleep to roost in the large pines behind the chook house. So it’s a worry for the future survival of this innocent animal. I know from experience that even humans can be missing a part of their anatomy from birth for many reasons and that frequently other parts overcompensate to make up for the loss. But it still makes me feel sad for this bird’s chances. Birds have a pecking order and this one will be different from the rest. If it’s a female and she herself has babies in time, she will only have one wing to extend to protect the chicks underneath. If this baby is a male it won’t be the luckiest rooster around the place when it comes to mating. Only the fittest get the rewards.

Within a day of finding the drowned baby our new mother had three chicks, and the next day there were four. John’s cleaned out where some old eggs were on the nest that she tried to throw out and now they’ve vacated that first home and are living near the large frog pond in the tall grasses. All of these babies have been raised outside now for the last month or two. They are constantly getting lost from their mums and constantly finding trouble. When I hear the mass approaching with their piercing and plaintive chirping, I know I must go investigate what the problem is and do my best to sort it out. Twice a day we must get them away from the other main flock so they can eat in relative peace. But what ends up happening is that we wait until a group has arrived near the house without any other chickens around. Often that takes a while but the mothers have started to figure out that while the big group is eating in the back yard they’re distracted from following the chicks to the front. But they do appear often before the babies have finished and I’m just trying to work out a system where the chicks are in a separate area. But that is much easier said than done. And sometimes they all just scarf down the mash in one big mass of chicks climbing over each other and jumping onto the plate. So feeding time isn’t the calm event we’re aiming for with so many different groups vying for the food. All of these broods seem to congregate together within reasonable distance. They seem to know that I’m a sucker for their cries and squeals and squawks. Twenty something babies of different sizes at present is a lot to watch over. The original two and a half, the hen with one of her own and two of different ages that were left for her to raise in the hen house until the smallest one was big enough to wander around in the wilds of our different gardens, they usually eat with the big guys and then we supplement their diet again with a small extra plate twice a day. Life just before Christmas is very busy and the main gifts that we care about have downy feathers on them.

Surprising Post Script

My dear husband has just informed me that we have another group of eight near the tomatoes with a black and white mother hen. But that would make almost thirty chicks.  A few hours later though when I asked him to clarify if there were eight more, he answered, “When I went to feed them their dinner meal, there were two black and white mothers with seven babies each.”

Even I was stunned. This means that the first one with four probably had a few extra visitors since they couldn’t actually recognize their mother from the lookalike nearby. So three extra joined the first crew born a few days earlier. But that means that the mother of the new brood has ten babies, which makes our grand total of chicks thirty-nine now. (0f course if you ask how many tomorrow that number may rise).

Time for a lie down I think. We didn’t intend to double our flock with babies that will turn into roosters, at least half will anyway. But we’re not selling eggs or baby chicks either or trios, with a rooster and two hens. In fact we’re not selling anything. We’re only buying chicken feed like it’s going out of style along with dog-roll, that has gourmet ingredients such as garlic and peas, and flavor. It actually smells like meatloaf. We also supplement the food with bread and vegetables and fruits that are left over along with meat bones, mussel shells, whatever we know they like and can eat. These scavengers are eating us out of house and home. Maybe I can place an ad in the local paper. But all I can come up with at present is the first word. H E L P.

We must be crazy. That’s the only conclusion I can reach at this time.

Please stay tuned. More breaking news tomorrow.