One morning late last summer I went out to the coop to find one of my hens brooding on a nest. I picked her up, tossed her off and took the eggs only to find her right back on it a few hours later. I thought “Ok if she’s this determined I will get her some fertile eggs to hatch out”. A few minutes on Craigslist got me a source and I was off.
Later that day the hen was brooding away on a colorful collection of twelve eggs from a backyard producer up in North King County. Twenty-one days later I went out to feed the hens and there they were; baby chicks! From twelve we were down to eleven as one egg didn’t hatch.
Later that week my daughter had a tea party and the girls all went out to see the new baby chicks; one got scared and ran under a giant pile of hay. Decked out in my party dress I quickly dug through the pile but with no luck; the chick was gone and we were down to ten. The mood of the tea party noticeably darkened.
A couple of days later I counted them up and there were only eight. “Maybe a big rat.” said my daughter. “Yeah, maybe.” I thought. We were definitely growing the rats big. Things were kind of quiet for the next few weeks and I was even thinking of naming the birds.
“Screeow, screeow!” sounded the hawk as she swept down on the flock. “Cheep!” said chick number eight and number seven as they soared heavenward. Glumly my daughter and I strung up bird netting over the top of the coop. “Why are some of the chicks so much bigger than the others and why do they seem to be fighting with each other? asked my daughter as she carefully watched the birds. She was confiming what I had carefully been denying for the last several weeks; four of the remaining chicks were roosters. I kept hoping I was wrong; that they were just really robust hens but with the first crow my hopes were dashed and they had to go. My first idea was a really nice Coq au Vin but one daughter is a vegetarian and no way were we eating these birds. I asked around and found a woman looking for roosters. I loaded the boys up in the much used animal carrier and off we went to their new home. (How long they’d actually be living there I didn’t ask. ) Now we were down to two rather small brown hens.
Last week I dashed out to the coop before heading off to teach a class and noticed one of the hens was sitting on her perch looking pretty bad. I picked her up, flipped her over and saw a sight I’d never seen before; her oviduct had prolapsed and the whole apparatus was on the outside with an egg stuck inside. I took her inside and with one hand tried to get her cleaned up and with the other get my ancient computer to come to life. I read the reports and carefully extracted the egg, slathered everything with antibiotic cream, stuffed it all back inside and wrapped her in a towel. But what do do with her now? After a few minutes I got my materials together and out we went to the car. On went the seat warmer and up to B’ham we drove. On the way up I stopped several times to feed her water with a syringe and try to tempt her with some juicy greens but she was not looking much better. That night I put her in the bathtub and the next day went off to work. Later in the day I got a text from my daughter saying she had died. My husband dug a hole, I bought some primroses and we buried her in the front yard.
So here we are seven months later with one scrawny hen left. I wonder, as I always do in this type of urban ag situation, what in the world would it be like if this truly was my family’s food supply?
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