The Great Chicken Massacre
There was a time when I believed that I was going to be an urban farmer. The idea sounded phenomenal to me. A real trailblazer. We had owned a small property just under an acre and I had purchased two chicks (one for each child). My husband built a very sweet coop and the girls Gigi and Momma were quite happy. The thrill of that first egg laid was beyond special. I had done it. I had raised two hens and they produced food! Well, of course, I can not leave well enough alone. A year or so later, we sold the house and bought a much larger property nearby. It was not long before a few more hens were added to the family. A Silky named Chewbacca, two Polish hens named Phyllis and Frieda (that later became Fred). And six others of various breeds, from fancy to stock. I was very happy with my chickens and so I moved onto planting a 700 sq. foot vegetable garden as well. Both garden and chickens were doing really well, I was totally going to do this Urban Farming thing. To feed my young family from the ground we lived on. With the different ages of chickens, different cycles from molting or too young or too old, the egg supply was not a lot in the beginning so what I needed were more chickens! With that, a new shipment of twenty-five day-old chicks arrived. I kept them in a heated coop until they feathered, and I was so excited to introduce them to the flock. At first, all seemed well. The first morning after introducing them, we went to the coop to discover a hand full of them dead! We thought, oh poor babies, they were just not strong enough or old enough. Maybe they got too cold? The next morning, more dead chicks. So, I swooped them up and returned them to the heated coop in the shed. A week later, the same dreaded scene. We decided that it must be Fred! Fred the rouge rooster is killing the chicks! So, we pulled Fred and tried to figure out what to do with him. He is a murderer. I called the local animal shelter and they said they would not take him. I called friends who also had chickens and they said no way. We had to do something! So, with Fred in the cat crate, we drove around our little rural area of the canyon trying to figure out what to do with him. We came across this lot that was heavy with trees and shrubs. There where tons of chickens on this empty, but tree laden lot just milling around. We thought, can we do this? Obviously, this family liked chickens I thought, and they all seem to be getting along. Heck, there are even a few roosters in the bunch I convinced myself. We got out of the car and looked around like criminals staking a site. We pulled out the cat crate and with nervous hands tossed the killer over the fence and into the yard of my fellow chicken farmer. We pulled out of there as if we stole a car - Not my proudest moment. The next morning, more dead chicks. Turns out, there is a pecking order. Out of 25 chickens, fifteen survived.
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