We lost a chicken the other day – Titch-Black (one of
our blue-egg laying Araucana crosses) died of natural causes, as
opposed to a local predator for a change. I went into the chicken
shed and there she was, apparently sleeping in the indoor dust-bath.
She had looked a bit 'off' for a few days, but lively enough when
food was about, so I didn't pay too much attention. Losing them to a
predator is definitely more upsetting... but seriously, how attached
can you get to a chicken? Just because we have known them since they
were an egg, seen them grow up, develop character and irritating
habits...
It prompted me to consider how we treat our animals in
general, and the mind-boggling contradiction of looking after the
oven-ready. Before going any further, I ought to warn those of a
sensitive disposition – we have been known to eat our
livestock.
On the topic of eating animals (eating-animals?), we
have an injured cockerel living in the greenhouse. He was attacked
by something (probably rat or weasel) that injured one leg and one
wing – if we were a commercial operation, we would have snapped his
neck there and then. But we're not, so we checked him over, made
sure he wasn't in any major distress, and treated the open wounds.
We have a simple rule of thumb with chickens – if they are sick
they do one of two things: get better or die. You can influence that
by keeping them warm, keeping them drinking water, keeping a bit of
food going in to them (unless you want to get technical with things
like sour-crop). So, we have a cockerel in the greenhouse –
recovered, able to fly up on to a perch, but not agile enough to cope
outside, and some day soon he will be a chicken dinner. He was a
youngster when he was hurt, too young for us to determine whether he
was a hen or cockerel (there are usually ways to tell, but our
chickens are random mongrels, which really confuses the issue) – so
would we have taken such care if we had known that there was no
career of egg-laying ahead? Based on our record, yes.
I know it sounds crazy, but that's just the start of the
really nuts...
There is a second chicken in the greenhouse and she is
called Leopard Neck, on account of her markings. Year before last,
she was droopy and not eating, but had no other symptoms, so we
brought her in, trickled glucose and water carefully into her beak,
then kept her warm in the house in a big dog cage (absolute
pain in the lounge), and when she started eating for herself and
generally perked up we'd give her a couple more days of convalescence
and then put her back outside on a nice day. Within hours she would
need to come back in - on and off we had her indoors for almost two
months (I did say this was nuts) so then we moved her out into
the greenhouse where it was warm, dry and safe from predators
(including other chickens!).
Chickens in the lounge really is only a short-term
business, although Leopard Neck was one of the better housemates.
Our first cockerel, Hairbrush, had a run-in with another young
cockerel recently taken on by our neighbours – younger, fitter and
faster. We had Hairbrush in the lounge (big cage again) for several
weeks whilst he recovered from his injuries, and once he was feeling
better (only a matter of several days) he started crowing. The only
thing I can think of as comparable was a Burn's night celebration in
a one-bed flat complete with piper. Bag-pipes and crowing cockerels
simply do not belong in confined spaces.
Leopard Neck has now recovered, but her eye-sight has
gradually deteriorated and now she is almost blind. If we were
focused on profit... but we aren't, so Leopard Neck gets to live out
her days in comfort in the greenhouse, eating grain and laying the
occasional egg.
So, chickens in the greenhouse, even in the lounge...
it can't get any crazier than that, can it? Except for the sheep in
the bath.
In the run-up to lambing last year, one of our smaller
ewes took sick, in the cold weather. We carried her to the
greenhouse (warm, dry and already had Leopard Neck in residence) and
went through all the standard treatments for things like twin-lamb
disease and calcium deficiency, which matched the symptoms and
benefit from prompt treatment. When this clearly wasn't the answer,
we moved on to antibiotics from the vet. After that, the essentials
were to keep her hydrated and taking the sheep-equivalent of
high-energy sports drinks. The weather was turning worse, the light
was going, and our ewe really needed caring for through the night.
The best answer we could think of was to take her into the house and
put her in the bath, which kept her relatively confined since she
couldn't stand at that point. It was the perfect place to be able to
keep her warm, whilst feeding water and high-energy drenches through
the night. Sadly, she died, but the next time we have a poorly sheep
who needs nursing through the night, it will be in the bath again.
It makes the final hours of Bitsy the cat seem perfectly
normal. He was 18 years old and ill, booked in to see the vet first
thing in the morning for what we were certain would be the final
visit. By breakfast time he was so far gone, in no evident distress,
and apparently comfortable so that the stress of being put in the
cage and a car journey would have been unkind. I sat on the sofa for
the morning, with him curled up on my lap, until he died just before
lunch. We have had numerous cats over the years take that final trip
to the vet and I don't think this way was any less stressful for me,
but Bitsy went peacefully.
Household pets or lunches-in-waiting, we look after our
animals. Whether you know each individual by name, or just one out
of a herd, it's always unpleasant when another one bites the dust, a
horrible business when you have to call the vet in to put an animal
down.
