A difficult task

Jennifer, Clarissa, Sara, and Nigella enjoying their last sunny afternoon on Friday

Ina, Bridget, and Ingrid, ditto. They've had happy lives.

Many years ago, I heard a motivational speaker illustrate dedication and commitment with the following analogy: in a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the hen is dedicated and the pig is committed. With the dedication of our hens flagging, today we sent them off to make a commitment.

The day started off even worse than I anticipated. One of the Welsummer chicks developed wry neck (a.k.a. crook neck). Last weekend, we noticed that one chick went spastic with the excitement of changing the bedding. It lay on its side and spun in circles. When everyone calmed down, we couldn’t find Spaz again. We hoped for the best.

I researched “spinning chick” and didn’t come up with much. Perhaps a vitamin deficiency or an inherent neurological problem.

Yesterday, Hilda noticed that one of the chicks (we assumed Spaz), had a twisted neck. She put it in a box by itself. I did more research, finding the correct name(s) and some pretty dismal information about the disorder. It is often genetic, although it can be a vitamin deficiency or brain damage from pecking. I learned that Polish chickens are susceptible because their skull doesn’t close properly. Who knew? We’ve just been lucky there so far. It can also be Marek’s disease, but we had the chicks vaccinated for that. The vitamin deficiency also seemed unlikely because we’ve been putting vitamins in the water. If it is a vitamin deficiency, the treatment is to give vitamins three times a day for two weeks. Maybe it helps; maybe it doesn’t.

Welsummer chick with wry neck

Hilda and I agreed to just let the chick die. We hoped it would happen overnight. It didn’t. It looked horrible this morning, laying on its side in the box with its head twisted underneath it. I asked Terry if he would mind dispatching the chick. He said that would not be a problem. He would take care of it while we took the hens to the butcher.

We left the girls in the coop until 8:00. The butcher said we could deliver the hens any time today. We figured if we started at 8:00 we could be there by 9:00, giving them ample time for breakfast and coffee. Hilda hoped that we could have a quiet moment to hold each one, pet her, and say thank you and goodbye. The worked for the first couple. Then the rest sensed that Something was Up. Hilda had to grab them by the wings to get them to the truck. The only injury sustained was a scratch on my ring finger from Sara’s foot.

And yet, as soon as they were in the cage, they were quite calm. When Hilda and I got to the farm where the butchering operation is, the chickens were all sitting peacefully together like they rode around in the back of a pickup truck every day of their lives.

An extended family was in an open shed dispatching poultry with practiced efficiency. The rubber-fingered automatic plucker spewed feathers out the back. A young woman in her late teens or early twenties came out to help lift the cage off the truck. The last time we did this, they took the chickens out of our cage and put them in their own cages. Today, however, they didn’t have space. Everywhere I looked there were chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits.

“Let’s put this over in the shade,” the girl said. I helped her carry the girls to the side of the driveway.

She recorded our order in a spiral-bound notebook. Did we want the giblets with each bird or in one big bag? With each bird. She told us we could have our chickens back frozen tomorrow. Hilda asked about that because the woman we’d talked to said the processing would be Sunday, and we would pick up on Monday. Freezing takes an extra day.

“Mom!” the girl called, “When can they have the chickens back frozen?”

An older version of the girl came away from the activity in the shed. “Since you are already here,” she told us, “we’ll do them today. You can pick them up tomorrow afternoon.”

We explained that they were two-year-old hens that had stopped laying and that one had died two weeks ago. The woman said that she could tell us what she found when they cut them open. “One time, we opened one up and it was full of something that looked like rotten scrambled eggs.”

Yolk sac peritonitis, I thought. At least they won’t care if one of our hens has it. They’ve seen it before.

Our hens sat placidly in their cage, gazing around with curiosity as if saying, “Well, this is different.” I patted Bridget on the head, and we went home.

Humans were not humans long before they imbued the nutrient cycle with spiritual significance. I can well imagine that if your only weapons are rocks and sticks, actually killing something would seem like a miracle. Either a god has sent the animal for you or the animal itself has chosen to die so that you may live. Some believed that eating the animal would give them characteristics of that animal. Fast as a gazelle. Strong as a bison. From there, it was not much of a step to believe, as the ancient Greeks did, that animals could possess the spirits of gods. A goat embodying a god would be sacrificed and eaten; those who partook would become one with the god. It is only in this context that the ritualized cannibalism of Christianity’s Holy Communion makes any sense. Communion = becoming one.

I expected that I would need to detach myself from the girls to make peace with what we had to do today. I am finding, however, that I feel better embracing my emotional attachment. We are going to achieve the ultimate oneness. Their proteins will become our proteins. If they were able to transmit some characteristic of theirs to me, it would be their ability to be present in the moment, to view everything that comes their way as the best experience they have ever had or ever will have, to wait tranquilly to see what each moment reveals.

I will dine with due reverence. Take; eat. This is my body which is given unto you.