Time To Die, Clucker

Four weeks ago my husband and I purchased 29 baby chicks from a mail order hatchery. The peeps arrived one cold Monday morning at 6 am, much to my dismay. Contrary to common country lore, I don't like to get up with the chickens. I took my 7-year-old son with me on this journey and was quite happy to find that all the chicks made the journey safely.

About a week ago one of my Leghorns, a white egg layer, began doing some pretty funny looking dance moves, cocking it's head to one side and running around in circles. Ever the worrier, I knew that something funky was going on with this chicken. A few days later found the poor bird was unable to stand properly and a quick Google search returned the diagnosis or Mereks Disease, a type of herpes that causes tumors to grow all over the bird. It was then that I knew I had two very hard choices to make. Choice one would be to allow this bird to die on its own, which was sure to happen eventually, and choice two was to end the life of the bird myself.

Now I know that some PETA nuts out there will be screeching about taking the bird to a vet,but lets be real here people, the darn thing cost $2.50 and most vets don't even handle chickens unless it's for dinner. Never to be dissuaded from my task I waited another two days, doing research on the subject of chicken euthanasia. Google will truly provide all answers.

There were several methods given on various "chicken" forums, some seemed harsh others almost ridiculous. One site suggested that I give the bird a mixture of vinegar and baking soda. The idea is to choke the bird to death, the reality is that the bird spends several minutes choking before it finally bites it. Plus, this method seemed more like a science project than a method of death. "Hey, look Kids! This is called a "chemical reaction!" Yeah...no thanks.

Another method required an ax and a chopping block, which I am sure works well if the chicken is big enough to have enough space to keep you from chopping off your own fingers.

Finally I settled on a method that I though I could both physically manage and would be fast for the chicken. The idea is to hold the body of the bird in one hand and the head in the other. Using a perfectly balanced amount of force, one pulls from each end in a quick manner, snapping the neck and ending the life of the chick almost instantly. The key word here is "balanced". Put too little pressure and you just hurt the chicken, too much and you end up with what , I can only imagine, looks like opening a bottle of champagne. So you see my hesitation and reasoning for not wanting to rush into this task. Something like this takes girl balls and girl balls are not easily grown.

Finally, after watching the chick have a rough morning, with the other little chicks pecking the shit out of it (something that chickens apparently enjoy greatly), I grew some girl balls. Well, just one, actually. I knew I could do the act, I just didn't know if I could do it alone.

Enter the next door neighbor. I have lived next to this girl my entire life. We are great friends, the best really, the kind of friend you can REALLY call if you need something. The type of friend that will help you kill a chicken.

Although she was not pleased with the idea, my friend agreed and brought with her, her son who was willing to actually perform the act. She showed up in record time and when I pulled the little bird from the basket we all let out a collective "Awww" for it's pitiful condition. The time had come...

We took the little guy outside and looked about for the proper place to do the deed. A block of wood was not found so a board became our gallows. We began our attempt by trying to figure out a way to pull the poor birds twisted neck from its body. After attempting this is occurred to us that we would each be holding an end with less than 2 inches between our fingers and were expecting a 12-year-old boy to be able to hit somewhere in this 2 inch space with enough force to remove the head and still manage to not cut our fingers off. Yes, friends this was stupid and dangerous and not what we were going to attempt.

So it was back to square one, and the original plan. As I held out the chicken to my neighbor she took hold of its tiny little head and took a deep breath. "I can't do it" she said, letting go of the head only to regain control and grab it's head once again. " OK, I can do this!"

She began pulling from its head and I, fearing that she would not use enough pressure, pulled it's body in the opposite direction. We felt a snap. The chicken went limp...only to come alive moments later with the tenacity of a fully grown rooster.

"Oh shit!" I cried and placed the chick on the ground. My neighbor and I did the icky dance, which looks like a mixture of a Native American rain dance and a crazy person trying rid their body of a thousand imaginary spiders. My son, who had been hiding in the closet, heard the noise and came running outside asking us with a trembling lip if the chicken was dead yet.

" Of course it is honey." I replied " When things like this die it takes a while for their body to stop twitching"

It was at this point that the chick stopped moving and lay silent and still on the ground at our feet. We stood in a circle around it waiting...

Then as if enacting a horror movie, the chicks eye shot open. I could almost hear the music from the movie "Psycho" blasting with an "Eek Eek Eeeeeeek". My neighbor and I immediately started performing the icky dance again and I began screaming at her son to "Hit it, Trey! Hit it in the head!! Oh. My. GOD!"

My Neighbor, in an act I will never be able to thank her enough for, squatted down and popped the chickens neck again, finishing the job we started and ending our birds suffering. The chicken was given a lovely resting place and my family returned to almost normal.

It occurred to me that day, that things like this happen often to me in my quest for self sustaining living, and perhaps I should find a proper place to tell these stories. Enter, Tales From The Country. I will try to update and re-create my families struggles with country life. We shall laugh, we shall cry and in the end, hopefully we shall succeed!