facing your food
Of the many reasons that we decided to raise livestock for meat is that we are meat eaters. We have not made the decision to stop eating meat. Though, today, the thought crossed my mind about 50 times. So in making the decision to eat meat, we wanted to know where it was coming from, that the animals were not tortured, not pumped up with hormones, not supplemented with MSG on their way to the grocery store and that they weren’t produced without thought like Twinkies or Hostess Fruit Pies on an assembly line. That simple.
So on Friday 1000 day old chicks arrived. Meat chickens. Not the egg laying variety. We seemed well prepared. We had brooders and bedding and plenty of pasture available for when they arrived to pasture size. A special mix of non GMO feed formulated and ground to our specifications. We invested a lot of time and money in these babes.
You may be aware that the weather has been uncommonly cold. On the day our chicks arrived, it was 19 degrees. They need to be kept at 95 degrees. This usually isn’t a problem, because the brooders will keep them warm. And we waited until April, when we expected temps in the 40s or 50s.
So anyway, they arrive and we unpack them. One DOA. Very good DOA rate. Hats off to the hatchery. Then about an hour passes and we have a few more babies die. This isn’t uncommon. It seems a little chilly, even under the heat lamps……so we add just a couple more lamps…just in case…..a few hours pass. All is well.
About 1:00 in the afternoon Rich hollers down the hill, “ The power is out and it isn’t coming back.” what? "The power to the brooders is OUT AND ISN’T COMING BACK?” They will die – there is no doubt. And fast.
So thinking as quickly as we can, we decide to remove the new hens, about 2.5 months old, from their warm, insulated barn and move them to their new home in the hoophouse. Which, coincidentally, was prepared that day with bedding, shade cloth, roosts, etc. – just an hour before. We had decided not to move then hens that day because of the cold. But now, they had to move. Also coincidentally, the same day, we had our new staff member here. (That’s right – staff member! ) He and I moved the hens to their new home while Rich re-boxed the baby chickens. About 80 hens. We started catching them one at a time and worked our way up to four. They got to their new home safely. We moved the boxed babies to their new home and breathed a sigh of relief.
A sigh of relief only because we had not personally lost 1000 chickens, maybe just 200. Which is still terrible. It was a very bad day.
Raising animals always presents a surprise or two every single morning. A new baby, an animal that didn’t make it through the night, you just never know. So the next day we checked everyone out and found just a couple of chicks that didn’t make it. Very good. All the hens were fine. Very good. The sheep were fine, no new babies….Also very good. Phew, we’ve made it over the complete disaster hump.
Day two following the disaster was not quite as good. We discovered that the baby chickens had trampled a few of their own. The hens, which should be smarter than this, had also slept overnight on eight of their own. Eight dead hens! And enough space for an army of hens. Why do they behave this way?
So I don’t know – bad days here on animal farm. But we aren’t giving up. I wonder, when tragedy happens on a factory farm. Do they care? Do they even notice?
People often ask me how I (we) can raise animals and then take them off to be eaten. It is hard. Not from the perspective of eating meat. But from the perspective of the responsibility one assumes when deciding to raise meat. Ok – so that’s enough reality – enough facing my food today.
So on Friday 1000 day old chicks arrived. Meat chickens. Not the egg laying variety. We seemed well prepared. We had brooders and bedding and plenty of pasture available for when they arrived to pasture size. A special mix of non GMO feed formulated and ground to our specifications. We invested a lot of time and money in these babes.
You may be aware that the weather has been uncommonly cold. On the day our chicks arrived, it was 19 degrees. They need to be kept at 95 degrees. This usually isn’t a problem, because the brooders will keep them warm. And we waited until April, when we expected temps in the 40s or 50s.
So anyway, they arrive and we unpack them. One DOA. Very good DOA rate. Hats off to the hatchery. Then about an hour passes and we have a few more babies die. This isn’t uncommon. It seems a little chilly, even under the heat lamps……so we add just a couple more lamps…just in case…..a few hours pass. All is well.
About 1:00 in the afternoon Rich hollers down the hill, “ The power is out and it isn’t coming back.” what? "The power to the brooders is OUT AND ISN’T COMING BACK?” They will die – there is no doubt. And fast.
So thinking as quickly as we can, we decide to remove the new hens, about 2.5 months old, from their warm, insulated barn and move them to their new home in the hoophouse. Which, coincidentally, was prepared that day with bedding, shade cloth, roosts, etc. – just an hour before. We had decided not to move then hens that day because of the cold. But now, they had to move. Also coincidentally, the same day, we had our new staff member here. (That’s right – staff member! ) He and I moved the hens to their new home while Rich re-boxed the baby chickens. About 80 hens. We started catching them one at a time and worked our way up to four. They got to their new home safely. We moved the boxed babies to their new home and breathed a sigh of relief.
A sigh of relief only because we had not personally lost 1000 chickens, maybe just 200. Which is still terrible. It was a very bad day.
Raising animals always presents a surprise or two every single morning. A new baby, an animal that didn’t make it through the night, you just never know. So the next day we checked everyone out and found just a couple of chicks that didn’t make it. Very good. All the hens were fine. Very good. The sheep were fine, no new babies….Also very good. Phew, we’ve made it over the complete disaster hump.
Day two following the disaster was not quite as good. We discovered that the baby chickens had trampled a few of their own. The hens, which should be smarter than this, had also slept overnight on eight of their own. Eight dead hens! And enough space for an army of hens. Why do they behave this way?
So I don’t know – bad days here on animal farm. But we aren’t giving up. I wonder, when tragedy happens on a factory farm. Do they care? Do they even notice?
People often ask me how I (we) can raise animals and then take them off to be eaten. It is hard. Not from the perspective of eating meat. But from the perspective of the responsibility one assumes when deciding to raise meat. Ok – so that’s enough reality – enough facing my food today.
