Raising Meat Birds

How being a great Chickie-Mom made me a terrible homesteader.

My friend just posted a video of fluffy baby chicks scooting around a pen. One person responded, "That's a lot of eggs." My friend replied, "No, that's thirty meat birds."

I live in a lush, rural mountain valley in Oregon. Around here, we buy local grass-fed beef from neighbors, raise our own eggs, and rush to the farm store for Mama Terra's locally made goat chèvre when the goats are producing. Nearly everyone I know has a formidable vegetable and flower garden. Pantry's in this valley are filled with colorful quart jars stuffed with homegrown food, put up in the fall. It's some kind of nouveau Garden of Eden.

There is a reason Easter happens this time every year. The Easter Bunny, hiding eggs and eating candy Peeps celebrate (and cashes in on) the cuteness and newness of spring.  Whatever your religious leaning, you can’t argue with bunnies and chicks being the cutest creatures on earth.

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Exactly a year ago, I had a box full of twenty-five peeping chicks. Chicks are innocent newborns and need a mama to survive. My chicks looked up from under the red heat lamp and saw me, "Mama! Mama!" They didn't know I'm not a chicken. I was giving them food and water and talking in a high, sweet voice I call my "Chickie Voice." A voice, just for them. They returned a chorus of peeps and jumped around like popcorn in the box when I walked into the room, talking to them.

I spoiled my Chicks because it was fun, and out of a sense of guilt - they were stuck with me instead of having a warm feathered chicken mama to snuggle under. I decided to give them the best life I possibly could. Plus, they were so cute I couldn't stand it. I was at their beck and call. It was my first time being a Chickie-Mama, and those squirts were born knowing how to sucker in a human. 

The brooding box was in a spare room downstairs with a heater going 24/7. Then, I clamped a red heat lamp to the corner of the box to keep the bed 90 degrees all the time. Ninety degrees in Oregon in April takes some electrical juice and some checking in on them a dozen times a day. At night, they huddled under the red orb in a pile of fluff. I would lower the lamp a few inches before I went to bed.

This, of course, gave me nightmares about catching the place on fire, which I hear is a real thing with some folks. I got up every three hours through the night to make sure they were basking in 90-degree air and not torching in a flaming box. 

On the fifth day, I noticed a baby chick was lethargic and slow-moving. It was down in the corner of the box, unable to move. That chick always stayed away from the others because even at five days old, kids are terrible. They pecked at the poor weakling. That morning, it couldn't move and was in pain.

One thing you should know about me - I cannot stand animals suffering. I can't. It hurts my insides and causes me extreme stress when I see an animal in pain and distress. I picked up the weak little thing and held it close to me. It was hot to the touch and slightly limp, slightly rigid with pain. 

I called the local emergency vet. They didn't know what to do and suggested I call the Agricultural office. So I dialed the Oregon State Veterinarian at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. I have no idea how I found the man's cell phone number, except that I'm hella good at doing research. 

"Hello?" 

"Hi, is this the Vet?" My voice sounded strained to my ears.

"Uh yes, is this an emergency?" The man sounded genuinely concerned.

"Yes, it is. I have a sick chick."

Silence on the other end of the line. For an awkwardly long time.

"Hello? Are you still there?" I sent my voice down the magic phone line, desperately trying to stay connected to the man.

"Okay… well… how many chicks are we talking about in the brood?" The voice came back with a different tonal quality.

"Twenty-five."

Silence, then a little chuckle, "Right, okay, I see. Well, I normally deal with farms that are brooding thousands of chicks, but I'm happy to help if I can. What are your little chick's symptoms?"

I felt elated that someone was willing to help. I told the man what the chick looked like and that it was hot.

"Is the poop green?" This guy knows his stuff.

"Yes, it is. It's so gross." 

"Well, ma'am, I gotta tell ya there's not much you can do. Sometimes a chick goes down, and we never know why. It sounds like - and mind you, I can't know for sure without actually looking at it - but it sounds like it was born with something wrong."

My eyes teared up. I was already attached and felt like a Mother Bear with these 5-day old chicks, "So… what can I do? How do I help it?"

“There’s nothin’ you can do. The best course of action would be… uh, well, you might need to put it out of it's misery." 

"Oh." I was trying my best not to cry, "Thank you for your help, sir, and for answering my call. It's my first batch of chicks. I'm a new chick-mama."

"Well, yes… I gathered that. Good luck to you." Click.

After exhaustive research online, I ran back into the room, knelt by the brooding box, and picked up the sick little guy. The online consensus was to get it away from other chicks, and yes, if it was down that hard with green poop at that age, it wasn't going to make it. I held the little fluff ball in my palm and had the most intense feeling of wanting to save it. I've never had kids of my own, but if this is part of the mothering instinct I was born with as a woman, don't mess with Moms. That instinct is no joke.

The little guy worsened while I was trying to figure out how to save it. I started talking myself up to find the courage to take it out to the woodshed where I split kindling. These chicks are meat birds. The end result is the same, Michelle. Just do this. The little guy is in pain. 

I couldn't do it. I was fully aware of how crazy that was to raise chickens for meat, but not be able to put a chick out of its misery. So I did what any good daughter would do. I called Dad.

 My Dad is the most skilled, handy guy on the planet, and he is always fixing things for me or helping me move brush or rototill the garden, so of course, he was upbeat and cheerful.

"Will you kill a chick for me, Dad?”

"Oh god, I knew this was coming." Dad came over lickety-split, and I ceremoniously carried the chick out to the woodshed and handed it to him with tears in my eyes. He looked at me, "I was afraid of this. Remember when you were seven and tried to save those bunnies in Colorado? You were a mess when they didn't make it."

Great, I feel like a wimp and a complete homesteading failure right about now. 

I put the chick in his palm and quickly walked back to the brooding room, where loud chirping was all I could hear. Five minutes later, Dad came in and knelt down by the box. "Damn, it never gets easier." 

I realized it was hard for him too. I handed him a peppy little chirper, and he held it in his hand, "Cute little things, aren't they?"

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It was D-Day. Warmer than we hoped, but we couldn't wait. Two good friends agreed to help, along with Mom and Dad. Dad grew up harvesting chickens, his mother passed on the skill. 

By now, the chickens were full-grown, and no, I did not name any of them. But I knew them by voice. There were ten roosters. I knew which one woke up first, which one was the jerk to the girls, and which one I should have kept because he was huge, striped, and such a good guy. He was the guardian but gentle and so big the others would only faux-challenge him. Not a single other rooster would get up in his grill. 

The day before, I let them all out in the backyard and sat with them in the grass, cooing and talking to them in the Chickie Voice. The reddish-blond one, who used to sit on my shoulder when she was little, came and sat on my lap. I stroked her feathers and thanked her for being here. I fed them extra food and treats and sat for hours with them.

The next solemn morning, when I went to the pen, it was not with food. You're supposed to withhold food on the day of.

I couldn't do it. I started crying. It felt like my heart was going to break out of my rib cage and punch me in the face. I could NOT do it.

In the front yard, the crew of four was waiting by the processing set-up we made. I walked up to them as straight-backed as I could muster, "I can't do this. Sorry. I just can't. I'm their Mama, and it's messing with my head. I'll help on the back end, but I can't be out here."

They all smiled, and my friend said, "We know. We already knew this; we're surprised it took you this long to figure that out."

They hugged me, "Now get out of here."

I spent the day ugly crying in my house with loud Jazz blaring from the speakers. It was hot, hard work. Occasionally, I peeked out the window to see how they were holding up. By late afternoon, I could tell everyone was exhausted. When it was all done, I did the clean-up and had no problem with that at all. 

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Would I raise meat birds again? Yes. Yes, I would. It troubles me that our world has become numb to where our food comes from. I felt it down deep. I know the real cost of a chicken when I pull it out of the freezer. Now, when I buy meat from a grocery store, it gives me pause.

I'm sure at some point, a coping mechanism will kick in. Maybe I'll learn how to raise fluff balls without getting attached. (Was the Chickie-Voice where I went wrong on Day 1?) Or, is it okay to love those babies up, give them a great home, then hand the rest of the job over? Either way, next year I’ll try again.

I may be a terrible homesteader, but I’m a great Chickie-Mom.

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(Cover Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash)