And You Thought High School Was Bad

Remember the Old English Duckwing? He was our "free rare chick," except that he was a rooster and we can't really keep two of the little dears. I had been sort of dragging my feet about getting rid of him, mostly because there was no hurry. He wasn't crowing yet, so he wasn't bothering anyone.

Or so I thought.

Here's a thing: we have what amounts to two flocks. The older chickens keep to themselves. Cargill has his favorite hens that he watches over like, well, like a jealous lover. The rest he sort of just leaves alone. The adult hens keep together - when one moves from one yard to another, most of them are likely to follow. They are all well socialized and like to come into whatever yard we're in to see what we're up to. The younger chickens keep to themselves and, because they stay separate from the adult chickens, they tend to miss out on more of the treats like fresh lettuces, blackberries and raisins.

And the older ones do have a bit of a tendency to pick on the littler ones. When the australorp rooster boys are fighting, Cargill tends to swagger in like the sheriff and break it up with a few well-placed pecks. The younger roosters are always jockeying for position - position at the waterer, position in line out the door, position at the feeder.

Short story even shorter, as the smallest of the small, the poor little English Duckwing didn't have a chance. He was at the bottom of the pecking order, and in the end was kept away from food and water long enough that he died. I don't think that would have been very long, either, because he was so small. It's sad, but it made sense in a Darwinian kind of way.

Last weekend, we culled two of the five australorp roosters. I wanted australorps for their beautiful feathers, so we were careful to put the feathers in a separate bag from the offal, and I kept the giblets for my friend M, just in case he wants them. The feathers are in a bag in my washing machine right now.

We only did two because after killing them (a much neater, cleaner process than last time), we found that they were too skinny. Of course, we're comparing them to the Cornish crosses (a completely unfair comparison), but still, the breasts are too thin. We're letting the other three go for a few more weeks, meanwhile fattening them up on plenty of fresh vegetables (at least, what the older chickens let them have).

The upshot is that our flock is now down to seventeen, and soon, will be down to fourteen. I think it'll stay at that number for a while.