This life we’ve chosen isn’t an easy one, but as you know if you’ve followed my posts for any length of time, that it is a good life! Not only is it a good life for the humans here on “de Good Life Farm”, but we do our very best to make sure it is a good life for the animals we care for here on the farm, regardless of how long they are here.
Last night we loaded up the meat chickens we have been raising for a little more than seven weeks. Now, I am not really a fan of these chickens, other than for dinner, but I have taken very seriously the care I give them. Each morning after milking and other chores are done, it’s time to move them to a new spot of pasture. We have done this from their very first day in the pasture, so by now they are used to the routine.
Now, I say that I’m not a fan, but I absolutely love chicks! They come to us in the mail, in a box, only one day old! Their cute fluffiness is irresistible to me! We carefully count each one and introduce them to feed and water and settle them in the brooder box with a heat lamp since they cannot regulate their own temperature and they don’t have a mama to sit under to keep warm. They are so adorable as they begin to examine their new surroundings.
They grow and change very quickly. Within a week or so, they begin to get their adult feathers and get very adept at running around the brooder box and over and on top of any other chick that might be in their way! They have voracious appetites and are so much fun to watch! As they begin to “feather out” (get their adult feathers), they become less cute, in my opinion, but it is a rather quick metamorphosis.
By the time they are three weeks of age, they are feathered out so that they no longer need the heat lamp and can be moved to the pasture and this begins their daily routine of fresh pasture grass and learning to walk with the chicken tractor each day.
Micah gets the tractor and fresh water and I get the feed and we meet at the chicken tractors. It didn’t take very many days before the chickens recognized that the sound of the tractor meant it was time to get fed. You see, we put the feed in the feeders, remove the waters and hook up the chicken tractor to the tractor and start moving. They are so interested in the feed that they compliantly walk along as the tractor moves the pen. When we have moved one section ahead so that they have new grass, we stop, unhook the tractor and put the fresh water into the pen. This has been our routine every day for four and a half weeks, until yesterday.
Since yesterday was the day they were to be delivered to the butcher, we did everything the same except that after we moved them to new grass, we removed their food, per instructions from the butcher. They had fresh water and fresh air and fresh grass. It was a pretty nice way to spend their last day. Then, last night, we loaded them into crates and took them to the butcher.
The chicken tractors seemed so silent where just hours before they were bustling with chickens looking for their next meal. I have to admit that it pangs my heart a little bit. I don’t think you can care for something, even for as short a time as seven and a half weeks, and not feel somewhat emotional when you know their lives are over, even when it’s been planned from their hatch date.
Now mind you, I am not crying. I am so thankful that they will provide healthy and delicious meals for our family and for other families who choose to buy from us, but I recognize that creatures that came to us just a day old and lived a good life here on the farm, had their one bad day and are now in our freezer. Just one bad day! That’s actually a pretty good life, don’t you think?
Maybe I just think too much, but I think all life is valuable. They were hatched to be raised, to be butchered for our food, but I do feel somewhat pensive and so very thankful for their sacrifice! But, in the meantime, I will completely enjoy the delicious nutrition they will provide for us!
