While the yard, in this current photo, may appear to resemble a bucolic, peaceful setting, this morning, our yard was struck with tragedy. A tragedy of the poultry kind....
Anyway, we were gonna go to Costco. I was sick and tired of the chickens sleeping on my sauna roof. I raised them from chicks last spring, and had built some nice little roosts, and even made a chicken tractor out of an old truck topper, learned from (Joel Salatin, writer of Pastured Poultry Profits, a favorite read of mine). Seriously, I just wanted to put the chickens in their pen, so I added some food to the chicken tractor, and my nephew and I tried to herd them into the homemade chicken tractor. All three chickens followed, and began to eat in their yard bird tractor. Now, I just needed to put down the pen, so I kicked the bucket holding it up, it dropped, and my nephew said, "Oh oh!" in a voice I'd never heard from him, and I looked down to see I had pinned one of the hen's heads when dropping the metal based chicken tractor, and despite my desperate attempts to revive her, she kicked the proverbial "bucket", but I was only trying to get rid of the rooster, which had become aggressive to the hens as of late, and so I went to get him, and let's just say, it wasn't the Sunday I had imagined in my dreams last night.
Looks like we are having free range, cage free, organic, sustainably harvested (accidently) fresh chickens on the grill tonight, and I am cancelling my poultry science major plans...chicken farming is a profession I have a hell of a lot of respect for, and I am thankful for the farmers who provide my food. I have one hen left, and she is my favorite one, but I will need to get her a companion, and maybe put the chicken tractor back on my truck, and replace it with a PVC hoop house, or something lighter. Either way, the chickens didn't suffer, but I sprained my ankle, and never made it to Costco(praise the Lord!). Gotta love Sundays!
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