New Life/New Loss

Joy seems to be quickly followed by despair in our lives. Maybe they are sisters.
We were elated again to see a second brood of chicks hatch in front of our small front patio. They were comfortably ensconced under a large grassy blob, safely tucked out of danger of excessive rain and protected from the cold somewhat. There were eight little ones for the first week of their lives. I caught one screaming its tiny head off that was caught behind a chicken wire enclosure and I returned it to its mommy. That was a few days ago but since then it’s been pretty uneventful for these offspring although the mother hen quickly decided to bring them out into public after a couple more babies hatched. She also chose a spot for their food to be delivered, which worked well initially, until the larger birds discovered it and chased the wee ones off their patch.
All seemed to be relatively fine though and we still had the original eight until yesterday. We’d come home late the day before and unfortunately the chickens all missed their late afternoon feed. The following morning, yesterday, the mama had brought her chicks to the larger flock. That was a big mistake. For starters we only saw six chicks. What happened to the other two is still a mystery. Perhaps they were lost the day before or on the route around the house to the back garden with its cacophony of birds screeching and fighting for every morsel of food. Although John feeds them in a long trail of grain with all kinds of parings and vegetable and meat morsels dumped out on the ground in another pile, we have so many roosters and they get very aggressive with each other and it’s not an ideal setting for babies to navigate if they even try. So, these six were separated from mum several times and crouching huddled together at times in groups of two or three. Daring ones tried to peck on the ground but they eat mash and that wasn’t there for them. Meanwhile frantic hens were trying to get away from the mobs of roosters,
intent on stealing their few bits of food. Sometimes it’s a bit calmer than I’m describing here but it would never be the right place to mix in young chicks, period. They need protection from being stepped on or pecked and calmness at feeding time, not competition from gargantuan creatures that tower over them.
When this debacle ended the mother hen took her six babies to sit under some native grasses. I saw her there and wondered if she was going to take them back to the front where the sun shines for most of the day. Eventually she did exactly that, but she only had four chicks with her. We have absolutely no idea where the other two ended up despite looking frantically for more than an hour under every bush and shrub in a very large area several times over and over. I did this while making chirping noises to the best of my ability because other babies have been saved using that technique, that eventually answer my call with a weak chirp. Then I can find them. It’s my GPS method. But yesterday the only noise I heard was of the wind rustling through all of our gardens, making it almost impossible to hear a frightened baby chick caught up in a plant that had strayed too far from its mother. And then there were the waxeyes and sparrows and finches frolicking where John has some animal fat on a bird feeder with some wild bird seeds. There were a lot of those and they made a similar high-pitched noise to that of the babies I was searching for, as did the fantails that were following me around.
Reluctantly, after several futile searches, I gave up. But I couldn’t help thinking that if we’d arrived home sooner two days ago that none of this would have happened. We’d put another hen with her babies in the chook house for her protection because they came into the world during a week of rain and her native grass was large but in the wrong spot. So, the mother was sopping wet and the chicks were trying to fend for themselves with the larger flock at feeding time. We had to save them. But the front family had a smarter mother who seemed much more adept for raising babies. And she was in the front garden in a very sheltered site. So, we figured she’d be just fine close to the house and within our sight.
Although these birds have separated into many tribes led by various alpha roosters, feeding time is frenzied with so many, which is why we feed them over a large area. But again, I’m reminded that it’s time to reduce this hysteria by culling the birds that nobody seems to want, the extra cockerels that are seeding all these new chicks. Everything was under control until last year when we had two very large broods of babies that all survived. Our flock went from thirty chickens or less from that point on to the fifty or sixty we have today, which doesn’t include the newly hatched little fluffballs.
I must give the go ahead to reduce this flock for the good of the rest of these animals. No matter how gorgeous they are, or funny with their different personalities and antics and no matter how I nurtured them so lovingly… they’ve gotta go, one way or another. Some will be given away one rooster with two hens to people who want chickens. That’s called a trio and is manageable for a starter kit to raising poultry. Eggs are hard to come by at present and pricey, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. But many people only want hens. Finally, I understand why.
After I wrote this, John shot and killed his first cockerel this season. To be continued…