Could we kill the chickens? It’s a question we’ve been pondering for the last week or so, kicked off in a pub conversation after David Dirty Boots posted an entry on his blog about the eventual and inevitable wearing out of your laying stock:
All chickens are born with a preset number of eggs. Once these are laid there won’t be any more. It will take years for them to lay them all but it becomes more and more sporadic. Part of a more Self Sufficient Life means being practical about things. The return is not there after a few years. Feed costs will outweigh the value of the eggs.
That’s a bit of a dilemma. At the moment our three girls are still at the peak of their laying powers, putting out an egg each every day. We both know, though, that after a couple of years this regular supply will slowly dry up, and one day stop. That will leave us with three barren hens for perhaps as many as nine or ten more years, costing us money and taking up room but giving nothing back.
That’s hardly the way to self-sufficiency, and it’s no good at all if we want to sell our eggs. Which we do.
Logically we know that they have to go sooner or later, but emotionally I don’t think either of us could do the deed ourselves when that time came around. The trouble is, over the six or so months we’ve had them now they’ve stopped being hens and turned into pets. And you know why? Because we gave them names.
A stupid thing to do, I know, but they were already Barbara, Margot and Gerry before they arrived, and we had already chosen Mrs Slocombe and Miss Brahms as names for the next two, who even aren’t here yet.
Except there never will be a Mrs Slocombe or Miss Brahms. Not now anyway. After a lot of chat, both between the two of us and with friends and family, we’ve come to the conclusion that rather than buy two new hens with names we need to buy perhaps seven at once to take our flock up to 10, to make sure they all look the same so we can’t tell them apart and not to give them names so we don’t start treating them as pets.
Mum’s suggestion: circle a date on the calendar two and a bit years hence as the date of their departure and do the deed, happy in the knowledge that you’ve given them a good life and they’ve fulfilled their side of the deal by providing us with a steady supply of fresh eggs.
Gerry, Margot and Barbara, meanwhile, will keep their names, will live happily in the run for as long as their natural lives continue regardless of their continued ability to lay eggs. That way they can be treated as pets with no feelings of guilt on our parts.
As for the guilt we’ll feel about the other hens… I guess we’ll have to see what happens when the time comes. One thing’s for sure, though. We won’t make the mistake of giving any more chickens names of their own again.
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Aah, once you name them it’s game over!
It is a real dilemma though, isn’t it? I look at it exactly as you have described. They have had a fantastic life for a few years, which is a lot more than most Chickens ever have.
I love the names you gave them by the way. Ours our strictly “The Chickens”. I try not too even look too much at them so I can’t tell them apart. It will make the inevitable in a few years a lot easier I think.
Thank you for your post. The complex emotional and ethical landscape of raising an animal for food is one that deserves this kind of honest dialoge.
I have chickens and they are part of our household food system, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy to cull the hens when they become freeloaders.
I had thought about sending them to a butcher to do the deed, but since I only have a couple to cull, I will be learning how to do it myself. A task I don’t relish but believe that it is part of my duty.
I take great pride in knowing that they are living a healthy chicken life. We are thankful for their eggs and when the time comes their meat.
Yep, that’s how we’re going about it as well. Frau, Nutmeg, Cinnamon and “Red” will be our pets ’til they decide to kick off, and the rest will be soup when the time comes.
How do you plan on doing the deed? I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to do it with my own bare hands.
If you are raising them for eggs only, why not keep them for just 1 year (their most productive) then sell/give them on to someone else. They will still be able to get the benefit of eggs and have a lovely pet. I have six at present, some 3rd hand,(friend from a friend) and estimate them to be between 4-10 years old. I still get up to 3/4 eggs daily. It will save you the awful deed of dispatching. Also you could have 2 separate enclosures, 1 for Barbara, Gerry etc. who you could keep, and 1 for culling. By having some as pets you might be able to cope with losing the others. By the way, the old saying for egg laying is the season starts February 14th and ends November 5th. Love must blossom at the start and fireworks must end it!
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