The past week or so has been very trying on this small farm. First, the barn cat that I have had since moving here about two years ago, Sassy, died. The decision was solely mine to have her put humanely to sleep so that she would not have to survive another brutal winter as she did last year. She also was around 16 years old and constantly missing the litter box - putting loose feces not only on the floor, but on tables, tools, and lumber in the barn and also messing in her sleeping spot.
She was not well and was putting up a brave front, but I knew that the kindest thing to do was ease her out of this world while she was still able to mostly get around, still eat and had not gotten to the state where euthanasia would need to be an emergency.
Then, just a few short days later, I arrived home after work on a Friday evening to the pole barn where my small breed chickens, a cross between silkie and cochin breeds, were housed to find not a trace of the little birds left. I continued to call them, cluck to them to get them to come out of their hiding places, but was met with silence.
As the brutal realization set in that there were no birds to be found, I walked out of the barn in a daze to find small piles of feathers in random spots in the yard where the birds were killed and then carried off. My head was absolutely whirling, I thought I was in a dream. I started to repeat the word "no" and with each word, it became louder as the horror of what had happened set in.
I had let these birds free range during the day all summer and had not had a problem with predators as the birds had always managed to get back to cover if they were threatened while out of their coop.
This day, there was a problem.
Nine birds total were killed that day as they roamed around the grassy area that they were allowed to move about in. The entire flock. Two hens, named Blue and Top Hat, who had hatched three clutches of eggs this year and one beautiful rooster, who was extremely protective of his flock, named Jaxby and the 6 chicks that had hatched from the last clutch were all gone.
As I walked around the barn that evening, hoping, praying, yet knowing the answer, I strained to hear a peep, any peep from the flock but was met with only the whisper of the pine trees that stand on the west side of the farm. My flock of small birds, my whole flock of small birds, were gone in one 8 hour period at work.
I grew angry quickly and smacked my hand against one of the support posts in the pole barn, bruising my hand pretty good, and kicked a sawed in half 55 gallon barrel that was also in the barn. The tears began to flow quickly as I realized that there would be no survivors from this attack, no second chance. My hope for these birds to be a money maker for the farm was gone.
I immediately took to Facebook and penned a post that was filled with anger, disbelief, grief and hopelessness. I had heard of friends who had flocks that had been attacked but at least a couple birds survived. Not in this case.
The hens and the rooster were so protective of their babies that I'm sure their end was a brutal one as they tried to keep whatever was attacking the chicks away. I could tell from the feathers remaining where each of the adult birds had met their end and picked up a small pile from the ground as I sobbed at the loss of my flock. This grief was mine, not shared with anyone, not understood by anyone.
In the days that have followed this loss, I've found it hard to go back to the small coop where the hens raised their families and Jaxby would announce morning with a trill in his crow. I listened so hard the first two days after the attack for any sound of survivors but again, only met with silence. Even the sound of the barn swallows and sparrows caused me to stop as I tried to listen for any sign of the small chickens.
Well meaning folks have said, after finding out that I still had birds remaining, that at least not all of the chickens were attacked and yes, I am truly thankful for that. That being said, the grief that I've felt was not only from an emotional investment that I'd had with these birds (remember that I had been there for each of their hatchings, and watching them grow), but it also equaled a financial investment. The chicks that had hatched from this last clutch could have brought around $60-$70 and the adult birds around $50 or so. It was a huge loss that day.
I will need to begin again with this endeavor and try to get where I was before, but I know that there will be no more Blue, no more Top Hat, and no more Jaxby (who had a great little rooster attitude). I can only hope that the next time I try with small breed birds I get hens as attentive and broody as these gals were. I cannot express the joy that I felt when they would hatch chicks and I got to see brand new lives begin right in front of my eyes.
I pray that I will get to feel that joy again some day.
In the meantime, I prepare the farm for winter. Working out strategies to protect my average size birds from an attack from a revisiting predator and working out how I'll get water down to them when the temperature turns to freezing. This is the way of farming,
I write about these things not to depress my readers (thank you for reading my ramblings by the way), but to maybe tell those who are in the farming world and might be brand new that this is the raw truth. Yes, you will lose animals and it will hurt. I have to think that those farmers who maintain a stoic stance, sneak away when everyone is gone to the dark corners of the barn to mourn, to cry and to wonder "what next".
A wise classmate told me that as farmers we are constantly figuring out how to rise from tragedy and rebuild when things happen and she could not be more right. As the winter chill sets in, I'm already planning on a better run, and a more protected run so that maybe I won't have to go through this again. Farming is ranked high for depression and I can absolutely see why.
The trick is, though, how we respond to that depression and rise from the ashes.
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