There is no doubt that the season has changed from dark and fleeting winter days to brighter and longer spring days. La Bête has taken to calling out all morning long. She can keep it up well into the afternoon and I'm sure it has to do with looking for a mate. I'm crossing my fingers her cry falls on deaf guinea ears, she's about all the weird fowl we can handle at the moment. She did surprise us over the weekend with her first egg. I found it in the coop, half buried in rice hulls, standing straight up on end. There was no doubt whose egg it was.
I expected another the following day. Midday the urge hit her, there was no mistaking that desperate, anxious hunt for a good nesting place. She paced up and down our fence line, eventually hopping it and trudging through the neighbors yard as well. As far as I know she didn't put an egg down over there. The following day, I found her second egg in the coop on again, sitting in a dirt nest that she'd dug into the rice hulls.
She must have passed the fever onto Rose who is threatening to go broody on us. All she wants to do is sit in the box and keep all the eggs toasty warm. Eventually I take them from her, leaving her confounded. She's forced to start all over again the next day. This has been going on for nearly a week now.
I love having the fresh eggs and with 7 hens and now the guinea we have plently. I only ever wanted the hens for the eggs but once we had them and with the arrival of the Delawares (who were fairly ill-tempered in the beginning) I started thinking about using the birds for meat. I was looking at knives and reading about how to humanely off them. I wanted to get out from under the heavy feeling that passes through me each time I purchase chicken at the grocery store.
I talked about this with my neighbor over wine a few nights ago. Would it somehow be better, as a consumer, to use my own chickens rather than factory raised? Is it less of an offense because mine run around catching bugs at their leisure? I suppose it would be. The offense, in my mind, is in the treatment, the raising of the animal from beginning to end. My neighbors point of view was that it is unquestionably better in many ways. The meat would be better quality, the birds healthier and it would lessen one's karmic debt, even if just a little.
I have no qualms about eating meat. I remember a little clutch of girls years ago in highschool explaining why they wouldn't eat meat, I mean, other than the fact that so many were in the grips of eating disorders. They would openly gag their lunches out into trash bins in the lunch area. The thought was that if they couldn't/wouldn't kill an animal themselves then it was just wrong, wrong, wrong to eat one. Maybe so. Everyone has their own measure of right and wrong. I always thought to myself that Hell yes, I'd chase down just about any animal and eat it if I had to. As much as I think I'd like to raise all of my own food, I'm not hell bent on the endeavor just yet. Is it a mark against me? I hope not.
I am starting with vegetables and gaining confidence as well as taking pleasure and satisfaction from my efforts. That may be the extent of food production for me. I'm good with that. For the time being, the birds are safe with me. I imagine, when it comes down to it, they always will be.
I'm playing with the idea of making a list of short and long term goals. I'm not sure what they'll be or if I'll be brave enough to share them. But I did want to share that I'm thinking about it.
Drum roll please....total egg count for March 2012 is...124.
This did not include the egg that I dropped and broke, nor does it reflect the many shell-less eggs that poor Dorothy is dropping in the middle of the night. They are revving up their motors for Spring and have increased productivity. When asked if he was impressed with the hens output, Tiny replied, "Quite frankly, I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about." Off camera he was overheard referring to the girls efforts as the "old squat n pop". "They lay around in their cozy little boxes until a little something pops outta their behinds. Even I could do that." But could you, Tiny? Could you?
