Chicken Culling & R.I.P. Puddles

Its been a while since I’ve done a homesteading post. Yet life goes on and for the moment I am still living on a partial homestead.

We’ve had chickens for eggs, but had not yet raised male chicks to maturity and then ‘harvested’ them for meat. Yesterday it was done for the first time. Gerick and the others hired a guy to come out and kill and process all the young cockerels in the pen. Turned out there were 8 of them on the brink of sexual maturity, which would mean fights and problems for not only the established rooster, but the hens who get young cocks jumping on them and harassing them!

Though I did not participate, from what I witnessed, it was an all day job almost. It required a boiling pot of water and hoses and implements of death and so forth. Not exactly a picnic, but probably a good idea to learn for sure.

By evening, it seemed like it was over. Unfortunately, one half-silkie, a charming little hen named Puddles (for her gray and tan feathers) was accidentally forgotten outside for too long. She was a pet, kept separate from the others most of the time, and wandering the yard freely quite often, hanging out by the pole barn on the far back of the property. An owl, perhaps drawn by the scent of the day’s earlier activities, attacked her and managed to carry her as far as the next yard, where she was apparently too heavy to keep aloft and was dropped.

The guys heard her screams and ran to her rescue, but too late! Her injuries were such (as it was reported to me later) that they had to put her out of her misery. Poor thing! She was such a sweetie! Very tame and, like many silkies, calm and comfortable with humans. She used to ride the shoulders of Gerick or the boys and often happily hung out with them. I must confess that when I was looking after her she charmed me utterly. I was shocked and dismayed when Gerick conveyed the entire story to me last night.

So now we’ve lost a cat to coyotes (most likely) and a hen to an owl. This is why I am so paranoid with my pets! It makes me a little neurotic, but when you live next to a forest with coyotes, owls, hawks –and even cougars are being heard regularly now!– you have to be vigilant.

I feel so guilty about our darling cat Sadie. I didn’t go get her when she didn’t come home the last night I heard her and that mistake will haunt me for a very long time. I should have gone after her… I should have. But I thought surely she would come later. But she didn’t. When she didn’t have dinner and then didn’t show up for breakfast the next day–? I knew she was gone. It ripped me up.

Homesteading means dealing with the reality of death. For those of us used to suburban or even small town living, it can be something of a shock at how easy death comes when you live next to forest or among sprawling fields of farms. One may understand it intellectually, but its difficult to prepare your heart sometimes.