Welcoming Party

We went out the other day and invariably whenever we get home in the late afternoon, around the chicken’s dinner time, there they are comfortably ensconced on my pricey wire table and chairs and other weathered seating. Of course, this is not all of the many hens and roosters that live here at the House of Cluck-Cluck. There are just as many as these waiting for us around the back. In actual fact we’ve been approaching 50 of these critters ever since a few of our mommy hens had a half a dozen chicks or more to raise that mostly survived. Now those adolescents wait for me in another spot, away from the larger birds who can easily attack them and overwhelm them at feeding time. So, they usually just wait on the periphery of our house, which is their safest place to be. That’s a lot of chicken dinners and breakfasts over 20 years.
At feeding time however John has to distribute the food over a very large area to force these feathered creatures to spread themselves out, thus eliminating many shrill arguments. But being birds, they still manage to squawk and cluck and dive into the morsels with intense determination while doing so. To avoid further chaotic scenes, I feed an extra amount of food in the front for stragglers that missed the main meal or weaker ones that couldn’t keep up with their bigger rivals. But I know that it’s just a matter of time before I must make a decision I keep putting off. And that is when I will get aggravated enough by the roosters’ antics with the vulnerable hens and cull most of the extra ones we have. Somehow after raising all these chicks that lived, we’ve ended up with way too many roosters. And as they grow, they become rather aggressive and often obnoxious, especially to the weakest hens and smaller cockerels.
Although we have reached this stage before and John has managed with my help, which was quite minimal, to end the lives of a couple dozen birds over the years, I feel really torn up about it. When these chickens hatch here and I care for them so they can grow up to adulthood, I find it most difficult to pick the ones that are going to die. And somehow on such a large plot covered with trees and paddocks and grassy areas, the birds have separated into tribes and pecking orders on their own. When I see that they are mostly peaceful and exist near each other adequately well enough, then I question the need for reducing the flock. And they’re all quite gorgeous and many are quite sweet and some have mates that follow them around. So, one day I’ll be just fine with keeping them all here, but the next time there’s a questionable outburst at feeding time, when all are running for cover, I really wonder why I can’t harden my heart to do what needs to be done. But to paraphrase Scarlett O’ Hara, I’ll think about tomorrow.