Sometimes, we need to take a reality check.
Sometimes, that check has to do with a chick.
Sometimes that chick is very, very sick.
My black Australorp, moments after she arrived.
No, I’m not starting a Dr. Seuss book. When my seven chicks arrived from My Pet Chicken on Wednesday morning, one was DOA — my Blue Copper Marans — sort of flattened and sideways. It’s not unusual to lose a chick in shipping, and one must harden one’s heart a bit to these kind of casualties.
My black Australorp — a wonderful, chubby breed that will climb into your lap — was weaving around drunkenly. She did not look healthy, and when she drank some water, long gelatinous threads of drool hung from her beak.
I didn’t even know chickens had spit.
I called My Pet Chicken and reported the loss of the Blue Copper Marans. You have 48 hours to report losses, for either a replacement or a credit, and I didn’t know what to say about the Aussie. I told them I would let them know.
By evening, she could no longer stand up. I tried bringing food and water to her, but she would’t have any of it. I picked her up and cuddled her, and even put her in my bra and walked around with her, because someone had said that sometimes works, but she just kept weakening.
I put it out on the internet. I have a vast network of Crazy Chicken Ladies, and I instantly got all sorts of advice. I tried many of the suggestions. Nothing worked.
By Wednesday night, she was lying on her side, breathing shallowly. I stroked her gently, and did my best to make a little nest for her. I went to bed knowing that when I woke up, she would be gone.
But she wasn’t.
On Thursday, she was the same. She couldn’t sit up, and when I picked her up, I felt a large growth on her neck. I mean huge. I took pictures but I won’t post them. Just think of that picture we all had to look at in science class of that woman with an enormous goiter on her neck.
This was most likely an impacted crop. I did what you are supposed to do — held her gently upside down and massaged the crop until I felt it break up. She weakly vomited three or four giant globules of foamy saliva. The crop was no longer impacted. I gave her a drop of olive oil and a little Vitamin Water and she took a few tiny sips. I put her back and decided to give her an hour to get better. Then I went back to check.
She was worse.
She was breathing shallowly and still unable to do anything but lie on her side. She wouldn’t even open her eyes.
I found myself getting perturbed. At the chicken herself. Here I was, giving all my attention to a sick chick, doing all the right things, when I should be playing with the cute, little, healthy chicks not two feet away. The feeling of entitlement passed, and I went back to nursing the invalid as best as I could until the final moment came.
But it didn’t come.
She was suffering. And she was not going to get better. I called my new friend Jeannine over at The Barr Farm down the road. She came and sat on the floor with me in the laundry room.
“You’ll probably need to cull her,” she said.
I nodded. It’s what I expected. “Do you know how to do that?”
She made an uncomfortable face. “The easiest way is just to cut off their head with a pair of scissors,” she said.
“But I can’t do it,” Jeannine said, holding the baby chick in her hands gently. Speaking to Jesus, she said, “Come on, J, make up your mind — a speedy recovery or a quick death.”
I can do a lot of unsavory stuff — in fact my son was throwing up last night and I was fine with that. I even thought of massaging his neck to see if I could help, like I did with the chick. But taking a life, even one that is suffering, is something I can’t do.
I don’t want to say that I married my husband for any reason except for the fact that I am in love with him, but there are some tasks that fall into the Eric bailiwick, and some that fall into the Bridget bailiwick. Bridget does things like spends hours on hold, consolidates loans, argues over insurance claims, grocery shops, makes sure the kids have brushed their teeth, and generally keeps track of things. Eric moves the heavy stuff, fixes tires, and takes care of these sorts of situations.
The other chicks were starting to peck the sick one and jump on her. I kept trying to shoo them away and kept watch over her.
I waited for Eric to come home, hoping that the baby would make a miraculous recovery. She didn’t.
When Eric walked into the house, I met him at the door. ”There’s something I really need you to do,” I said.
There was a pause. “The chick,” he said.
I nodded.”But please, nowhere where we can see or hear anything,” I said, gesturing at the kids.
With a great deal of gentleness, he carried the baby outside. It seemed like hours before he came in again.
“What did you do with the body?” I asked. I didn’t want to know his method of dispatching her.
“I buried her under the pear tree,” he said, with so much love for me in his voice, I almost started crying.
But I didn’t. Loss is part of the contract you sign when you start raising farm animals. It’s not all eggs and cute pictures. There’s predators and death, and sometimes worse than death — an incurable and mystifying illness that must simply be accepted as a gateway to another world.
I said a prayer for the two that were lost, and now will concentrate on the five healthy, bouncy, happy chicks I am lucky enough to have.
