Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

“Winner, winner chicken dinner” is what chicken harvest is affectionately named on my calendar. It just sounds so much better and reminds me why I’m about to embark on a LONG day of hard work. I don’t mind chicken harvesting/butchering. I know thats what these particular birds are for and I am grateful. I usually don’t get too attached and commonly refer to them as “Beasties.” They really are! They are pretty ugly, eating machines! Beasties! This past round of meat chickens aka broilers, were different though. We ordered our chicks from a different hatchery than we had used before and they were listed as having a week shorter time frame to harvest. As the Texas summer heated up we were anxiously awaiting “winner winner day,” the heat had made it so C and I were going out to refill waterers numerous times per day and working so hard to keep them cool. C and I had left one day for a fun friend day. I thought I had left enough water out, but when we got home 3-4 hours later, I found heat stricken birds. Most were fine once moved to a shadier spot and water refilled. I had to physically and gently, put some of the worse off ones beaks in the water to get them to drink. After a couple hours of close attention most were completely back to normal. The last two that weren’t quite 100% still looked to be about 90%; so I closed them up for the night only to find two dead in the morning. I took this loss extremely personally and knew that the Texas heat was going to require so much more of me until these chickens were full grown.

 

So we had the incident with Hank killing a chicken and now the Texas heat took two, these were the hardest batch of broilers we had had to date. Jason was out of town and calling to tell him was so hard! I felt like a teenager telling their parents they had wrecked the car. Plus he was still gone for a few more days! Two nights later I heard a weird sound in the middle of the night and just assumed it was just another weird sound here (seriously between the frogs and bugs nights are NOT quiet!) I got up the next morning and headed out for morning chores, took care of the “ladies” aka the egg layers and rounded to the other side of the barn to take care of the “beasties.” I opened the barn door to their pen to find a bloody carcass on top of their coop. Half eaten, blood splattered against the walls,one of my chickens! Those predators my anxiety fears (the most) when Jason’s out of town had gotten one. I cleaned up the mess, finished the normal chores and got to reinforcing the barn, closing up tightly any and all ways to get in. I heard every last old wives tale about red Christmas lights around the coop to keep coons out and all the stories from neighbors who to had lost chickens to those mask creatures.

It was fact, these were the hardest meat chickens we had EVER done! I worried about them. A LOT! I hoped they would be safe and that I had finally done enough and corrected any risks. And it seemed I did. No more losses. At all. Honestly, Im not about to go into another story 🙂 These chickens were the first that we let completely free range during the day instead of moving a tractor. They fit into the pecking order with the “ladies,” wondered around the yard and became part of this place. They even became less “beasty.” These chickens were also the slowest growing meat chickens we had ever had. No idea if it was the different hatchery or the free ranging, probably a little of both….although they still went through about the same amount of feed as other batches, they definitely moved a lot more…hence less “beasty” and more chicken like. We post poned “winner, winner chicken dinner” three times to let them grow larger. I swore they were never going to get as large as our chickens in the past. Due to the heat we finally just chose a Saturday and called it. As the week went on and got closer to the weekend, I was a lot less excited for my freezer full of chicken. I truly came to enjoy these “beasties.” They had developed the habits of the “ladies” so much that I was much more attached to them.  It was going to be a harder harvest day than most.

But harvest day came anyway. And as we set up I thought a lot about the last few months. The losses that were hard and new, predators we hadn’t dealt with before, and these chickens that we loved having run around the place. With every group of chickens we do we still learn. Homesteading is always changing. I know that even when I again feel like I’ve got this down, nature will be there again with a new challenge (or 3) because that’s just how this all works. It works till doesn’t. It teaches you and you respond, you try to be proactive and learn from others mistakes and avoid some perils. But then sometimes there just is. Just is a loss, just is a mistake, just is. Never easier, you just deal and accept, learn and move forward. Not on, forward. That’s one thing this life will always reiterate is that whether you choose to do something or nothing, everything will keep moving forward. Choose to move with it, to enjoy it, yes even the bad parts. Perhaps the losses are part of why these chickens, of all that we have done, meant so much more to me. Life is hard for all of us, feathered or not, we just have to help one another along.

To not change the sentiment I’m feeling here, I will post on the actual “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, ” tomorrow.