All hail and farewell to Big Red

I just euthanized my favourite chicken, Big Red. She was 7 years old and had been doing well until about a month ago when she started showing signs of slowing down — her comb became smaller and very pale, she routinely had diarrhea which coated her butt feathers and made the most disgusting turd dreadlocks which I trimmed off several times, her appetite decreased, she spent more and more time just standing in one spot sleeping. I had been wrestling with the idea of when to pull the plug on her, and Jenn had helped me decide that either once she stopped leaving the coop in the morning or once she stopped returning to the coop at night, that would be it. But today, it became obvious that she was in too dire of straits to let the situation continue. She was just standing in the midst of a tangle of blackberries, eyes half closed, shit-smeared ass feathers, pale, but now there were flies all over her. She kept shaking her head when they got near her face but she couldn’t be bothered with the ones elsewhere on her. It was so sad. I cried. I thought it over and decided that it was time so I went and dug a grave in amongst our trees. Jenn and Alex came home from the beach then and I had to hold it together in front of them until Alex left. Then I picked up Big Red (she didn’t even try to get away) and felt how light she was now after barely eating for the last month. She smelled absolutely terrible. I pet her a bunch, cried some more, and then broke her neck. She made the tiniest alarmed sound when I leaned her forward in preparation of the grim task. Her body flopped around for about as long as usual when I slaughter chickens but lazily, unlike the healthy birds I have killed that flop about violently. As soon as she was dead the flies started swarming onto her — it was amazing how quickly they knew the feast was finally ready to begin. I pulled back her butt feathers to examine her hind end (that’s usually where all the problems are with chickens) and found her skin was swarming with all manners of insects. I had been checking her butt occasionally over the last few months and there had been no bugs those times but it was really raw-looking due to the diarrhea constantly caking on there. I had cleaned her up several times and sprayed a disinfectant wound cleaner then but she never seemed to improve. Regardless, I can’t help but beat myself up a bit now and wonder if I should have done more for her in this regard before pulling the plug. I don’t think that’s reasonable — a human shouldn’t have to bathe and disinfect their chicken’s butt on a regular basis because the bird doesn’t know how to dust bathe themselves (Big Red, who knows why, rarely ever dust bathed throughout her entire life and always had problems with lice and other bugs) but you know, when you love an animal and are sad at losing them, you ask yourself these things.

I’m sure I will remember Big Red until I die or lose my mind. She was so special. She was so chill and friendly with other chickens, with people. Whenever I was splitting firewood she always made her way over, all by herself, and talked in her inimitable voice to me while I worked. I would grab spiders and grubs I came across and feed them to her. She didn’t care when a piece of firewood would fall right next to her, she was too chill and stupid for her own good but it was adorable. Two of our dogs mauled her on two separate occasions and she amazingly survived both attacks. Despite not being broody, she adopted a chick I brought home once. I think she adopted some other chicks I foisted on her another time, I can’t remember for sure now but I think that was the case. She was just a really lovely bird all round, and I’m really going to miss her.

Ack, choking back tears now. Great.

^{Big Red
2014 – 2021}

…and another near-cry today.

I had an emotionally fraught time yesterday, and today was about the same.

Yesterday, I put the new month-old chick named Gaahl in a pen with my most agreeable hen, Big Red, and hoped for the best. He tried to treat her like a mom but she wasn’t interested, and they spent most of the day just standing several inches apart.

Come nightfall, I went to lock them up in their makeshift coop. I had used a small crate for this because I wanted them to be forced to really bunk together and bond a bit, and my idea had worked well — Big Red was in there, all puffed out, and Gaahl was out of sight, somewhere underneath her, purring and tittering away happily. Finally, one month into his life, he had some quality time with a parent figure. I thought that even if he just gets this at night, it will still be better than the heat lamp he’s had for a parent so far.

I hadn’t expected things to change much from yesterday but after their cozy night together, something must have clicked for Big Red, because today she was doing all the classic mother hen stuff: squatting down and puffing herself out for Gaahl to nestle under her, making excited sounds when she found food she wanted him to eat and then breaking that food into small pieces for him, getting her hackles up when anything alarmed her. It was incredible. I honestly didn’t believe it at first and thought each thing was just a coincidence but nope. She happily mothered him all day long, and he could no longer care less about me — just like it should be. Here they are. It’s a shitty flip phone pic but you can see him peaking out from the safety of her feathers. Yes, Big Red looks quite stern here but it’s just the angle. She’s actually supremely easygoing.

I spent a lot of today just watching Big Red and Gaahl interact, marveling at how life works sometimes. For those that don’t know chickens, it’s important to realize that most chickens put in a pen with a baby that is not their own will attack it and possibly kill it. This happened to poor Gaahl when I tested out just putting him in with the flock straight away. So for Big Red to be so chill about being put in jail with this annoying, needy baby who appeared out of nowhere is pretty remarkable to begin with — for her to adopt him and essentially become broody (that’s a chicken term for “I’m in the mood to have babies now,” and many chickens go their whole lives without ever becoming broody) is something I’ve never even heard of, or imagined would actually happen. It is surreal and heartwarming.

Cue the near-cry. That’s four in two days now.

I really have to hand it to Big Red. We’ve had her since she was just three months old herself, and she’s basically a chicken grandma now at five years old. She’s always been a pleasant and friendly bird. She still lays eggs (many hens stop laying by age two or three). She’s been mauled by dogs twice. Both times, her back was torn half off — imagine when a person gets scalped. That was what happened to her back. Now imagine if your back got scalped, twice, and you miraculously healed up with nothing but polysporin and several days of rest, and then you went back to laying eggs. It’s incredible.

And now, she has happily adopted the needy baby I foisted upon her.

Big Red, you’re a hell of a bird. You have my love, gratitude, and respect. Do chickens read blogs?

*Following day additional note – Big Red spent this morning in her crate and so when she came out of it, I checked and she had laid an egg. So she is both raising a baby and still laying — yet another thing I’ve never heard of. Normally, hens stop laying, sit on fertilized eggs for three weeks, raise the chicks for 2-4 months, and then finally forget about their kids and go back to laying. Big Red continues to amaze me.*

It’s just a three-near-cries kind of day

Last night I picked up a rooster chick that someone was giving away. It’s one of the all-black breeds, like this one…

…which I’m a big fan of, even though I’m not usually wild about roosters. I brought the little gaffer home and found he was very friendly with people, which I’ve never experienced before. He was most happy sitting on the shoulder, arm, or lap of Jenn or I, being gently stroked and spoken to. Pretty cute. Once it got dark out, we tucked him under one of hens in the nesting box. She’s not broody but we hoped they might hit it off and she’d be his step mom or something.

But this morning I went out first thing and let the hens out. His would-be step mom came out of the coop but without the little gaffer. I checked in the nesting box and there he was, alone and slightly cool. “Fuck,” I thought.

I brought him inside again and Jenn and I took turns swaddling and cooing at him for an hour or so. Then it came time to get on with the day and I realized I still had no idea what to do with the little fella. After a few ideas that fizzled, I ended up putting him in a separate pen with his step mom so that he would have company and a good role model, even though she’s not nurturing him like a broody mama hen would. He cries and cries when I walk away and continues to cry for a few minutes, and it breaks my heart. I wish I could be a broody mother hen for him but this is better for him (and us) in the long run.

Even worse is when I go out to check on him he starts peeping excitedly…only till he sees me leave and his peeps turn to wailing cries again.

That’s near-cry #1.

Near-cry #2: I was working in the yard today when I heard a chicken sound from somewhere weird. It sounded like it was right by my feet but I couldn’t see a chicken anywhere. I looked again, and there was my favourite hen, Little Shirley, looking like she had wedged herself in between some pallets and the outer wall of the horse barn. She was chirping away at me like she usually does (she’s very talkative and friendly). She frequently explores stupid places like this and she didn’t seem alarmed so I figured this was nothing unusual and left her to continue with whatever silly game she was playing. But I passed by 10 minutes later and she was still there, craning her stupid head out at me. I went and looked from the other side and saw that she had laid an egg and taken a huge shit back there — this was not a good place to lay an egg, and they don’t usually take a big ol’ shit on their eggs so this was not usual. I pulled the pallets away from the wall and Little Shirley eagerly hopped out but her right leg wasn’t working so she fell on her side when she landed. She hobbled up and tried to walk away but her leg wasn’t working at all and she basically rolled onto her right side with every step. My first thought was, “I’m going to have to kill Little Shirley,” and my heart sunk right into my stomach.

That’s the second near-cry. Luckily, within 15 minutes, Shirley was trucking around almost like normal, and still very hungry and acting herself, so it seems like she may avoid the chopping block yet. Fingers crossed.

Next one: while I was outside, it suddenly started raining really hard. Chickens don’t like rain much so they started running for cover. I went back to check on Big Red and the little guy to see if they were smart enough get under the tables I put in their pen for them. Big Red was under one but the little dummy was still out in the rain — dang, the idiot. But right then, almost as if he knew his daddy was watching, he made the connection and toddled under the other table. I haven’t had this chick for 24 hours but it was such a ‘proud poppa’ moment that, well, I almost cried.

That’s three, count ’em, three times I almost wept like a baby today. I swear, backyard chickens aren’t usually this exciting. Normally you just let them out in the morning, curse when you step in their shit, and lock them up again at night.

But really, who can blame me for loving the little fuckers so much?