A hard, hard lesson.
Yesterday was one of those quintessentially New England spring days. We woke up to a raw, cold, cloudy day, but by lunchtime the sun was shining and the day was warm and lovely. Mike woke up early and returned the trailer while the kids and I took care of the animals and tried to tidy the house a bit.
Thankfully, all three cows were in their stall and seemed to have had a good night. The two girls are VERY friendly and curious, although the bigger one, Petunia is a bit bossy. I have been letting her know that their is only one boss on this farm, and she is respecting my authority.
We went off to Home Depot once Mike got home and bought the supplies to make our new shed into a real chicken coop. The trailer that we bought is worth its weight in gold, it was so nice to be able to load it up with all the wood we bought and not have to stick things through the hatch or tie them to the roof like we did in Manchester. Mike and Jackson (and our neighbor from next door) worked on framing out the shed while Charlotte napped and I made some lunch. 
We had a nice visit with friends, and by the afternoon, the part of the shed that was made for the chicks was ready for them. Mike went to help our neighbor for a bit while I cleaned up the chicks and ducklings and got them ready for their move.
The chicks and ducks have been living in our basement for the last two weeks. Let me tell you, I will NEVER, EVER do that again. I may keep them in the house for a few days after they get here, but the ducks are really gross. The guy who runs our feed store and a local organic farm said two words about ducks, “Water, Fowl” which really sums them up. They are always wet and making their area wet and they do not smell very good. Once they are big enough and can free range I think they will be fine, but until then, yuck. So, I packed up the ducks into one box, the meat chicks into another, and the future laying hens into a third. I used the same three boxes I used last week when cleaning out their area. I noticed that especially for the meat chicks it was a tight fit, but I was trying to get things done quickly to move them to their new space ASAP, I didn’t really think about it. If anything, I thought at least they will be warm as we had had to remove their heat lamps to move to their new space to warm it for their arrival.
After about an hour, their new space was complete and we moved them in, first the ducks, then the laying hen chicks, then the meat chicks. Mike and Jackson were both there, Charlotte was inside the house. So, here is the really bad and sad part.
When I dumped out the meat chicks, Jackson said, “Why are there so many dead ones?”
I said, “WHAT??”
He said, “Look, a bunch of them are dead.”
I looked down and sure enough, out of the 27 chicks we had, nine were dead. They had obviously smothered to death from the weight of the other chicks. At this moment, I felt like I would pass out. These chicks were destined for the freezer, we had every intention of butchering them. HOWEVER, one of the reasons we are raising animals for meat is to insure that they receive the best possible life, the best food, clean water, and lots of space. Unintentionally killing a third of our chicks was horrible, awful, brutal. I was so mad at myself and so sorry for the mistake I had made.
I quickly scooped out the dead chicks. Thankfully, Jackson did not seem upset by the situation, he is a pretty hardy farm kid. Also, we had lost a few chicks over the past two weeks, so he has seen dead ones and understands that is part of this process. One of the hardest aspects of farm life is the fact that you don’t have time to sit and stew about things. We still had a million things to do before the sun went down, I couldn’t just sit and cry about my stupidity for the rest of the day. I did take a minute, had a few tears, a compassionate hug from Mike, then one from Jackson, and kept moving.
The question was now what to do with the chicks. We believe in using every bit of what we have, so it seemed like a complete waste to just throw them away. The chicks each weighed at least 1lb and still had their fluffy little chick feathers. The only sensible thing to do with them was to give them to the pigs and let them recycle them for us. I carried over the dead chicks and put them in the pigs slop bucket. The pigs immediately knew what to do, and I walked back to the shed as they enjoyed their feast. Half an hour later and there was no trace of the dead chicks. It was a huge mistake, but at least the chicks did not go to waste, and in turn we will end up eating them, just as bacon and ham instead of roast chicken.
The remaining chicks and ducks seemed very happy with their new space and had a good night in their shed. Lesson learned, and so goes another day on the farm.
