Show Girl Chickens, Miniature Donkeys, and Suicidal Peaches. (You know you want to read it. Who can resist Suicidal Peaches?)

I culled today, a nasty, tedious job filled with death and carnage.

Let me explain.

   Not all chickens are what I call “show girl” chickens, with glossy feathers and sparkling, healthy eyes. Some are runty and pecked at. Some have crossed beaks and bedraggled feathers. Some are sick and fuzzed up, their eyes listless and dull. Some have “break down” which is they seem perfectly fine until about 4-5 weeks of age, then suddenly their hip or knee joints give out and they are unable to get to food and water. Some are blind and will slowly starve to death.

  These chickens have to be taken out. And sadly, I’m the Poultry Princess to do it. I can’t let them go into the food chain, these sick, diseased, runty, ugly chickens…some need to be removed for purely cosmetic reasons, I must admit. I would be aghast if someone held up one of my cross beaked, skinny, runny eyed chickens and said “is this YOURS???”. So, I kill them as humanely as possible. They are all going to die, I tell myself. No chicken gets out alive, they give their lives to feed us, so I try to make their 8 weeks on this earth as pleasant as possible.

  So, I got up early and headed out there this morning in the cool air. Much work to be done and might as well do it before it gets hot. Some of the calves were near the liquid feeder, their breath visible in the early morning air.

   I started in house 1. It seems to be my problem child this batch. I easily could carry out 100 culls a day, but I can only carry so many at once, so I do 50-75 a day. Often, my hands will be full of dead chickens and I’ll come upon a cull. But…a bird in the hand is worth two on the floor and I walk past, vowing to get it tomorrow.

  The horses came and stood near the well house when I got done with house 1. I walked over and petted Onkey, the miniature Donkey. He is by far the most vicious, fearsome animal on our farm. All fear the Great and Powerful Onk!! I thought as I rubbed his tiny muzzle. I’ve seen him herd the 3 full size mares and the 1 miniature mare into a tight clutch, walking around them in his tiny steps, braying at top volume, threatening them with his teeth. He also will occasionally look into the woods whilst mixing in with the cows and begin to bray and run into the woods with much crashing and thrashing and then run back and circle the herd and check everything out. I need not fear stray dog or bobcat or coyote with Onkey  nearby. He is a classic example of “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog” saying. He is brave and tough and smart. No one has told him he isn’t 1000 pounds of spring steel and raw hide. He is strong because he doesn’t know what he can’t do.

  Aren’t you like that, dear reader? Don’t you, after you’ve gone thru something, realize it should have broken you down? Scared you beyond reason? and yet YOU, instead of running away and hiding, YOU ran BRAYING into the woods, thrashing, crashing, splashing thru the trees and morning dew and when you chased AWAY the bad thing…YOU came back and circled your herd, checking things out, braying once again as a warning?

 Tiny you.

 Cute, cuddly you.

 Soft, sweet YOU.

  Oh, it wasn’t the big, black 1500 pound Brangus Bull named Doc that protected the herd.

 It was YOU.  

  I got thru the chickens and drove home, stopping by the creek to look for snakes. I killed another one yesterday with my bb gun and drug it up on the bank with a large stick to take pictures. It was a water moccasin about 3 feet long.

  There were 2 snakes. The smaller one was doing a kind of a dance, swaying back and forth and rolling in the water. The larger snake was watching this with interest, as was I.

  I aimed my bb gun and missed, hitting slightly above the smaller snake. It froze and looked at me standing up on the road, aiming my bb gun down at them. It began it’s dance again and after I missed a couple more times, I quit shooting and just watched.

  The snakes swayed and bobbed and danced for a little while until my dog Maggie ran toward the bank and they swam away. There isn’t anything in this world more graceful than a snake swimming, except maybe 2 snakes swimming and they went into the culvert to hide.

  They’ll be there tomorrow, though and after I am done with chickens and petting horses, I will aim my child’s toy toward them again, these beautiful, poisonous, deadly, dancing  snakes. 

  Sometimes I think of all the snakes I’ve killed in that little hole of water. 20? 30? I’ve lost count. I kill 3 -5 every summer and I’ve had chicken houses for 10 years. Then, I think of ALL the holes of water, all the drying creeks running thru this countryside, with deep spots that keep water in them for a month or two at a time, filling with minnows and frogs and crawdads… and snakes.

  I think of that dance I saw the snakes doing, it made me think of that old Tom T. Hall song “Sneaky Snake” where he goes dancin’, a wigglin’ and a hissin’. I suspect it a mating dance and think of baby snakes. Once, Clint shot a large cotton mouth snake behind our house in the creek. It sunk and then…bubbling to the surface…16 baby cotton mouths that hadn’t been born yet. So my husband has killed 17 snakes with one shot, we like to say.

  I went outside to check my tomato plants and grieve over the peaches that insist on falling off the limbs before they are ripe. Stupid, suicidal peaches, I’ll mutter. I hear, in the distance…Onkey. He is braying loudly, insistently. I know coyotes will come to the composter to dig up dead chickens. They have to run across the pasture to get to it and I suspect Onkey sees them and warns them of his omnipotence. I don’t go check, I know the Great and Powerful Onk has things well in hand. Hoof. Whichever. His bray echoes and another peach comes off with the slightest brush of my hand, soft and slightly rotten. Stupid peaches, I think.

  But…higher up…a healthy, beautiful peach. I touch it, it is firm and clings tightly to the branch. It ignores the rotten other peaches and hangs on, storing up summer and sunshine. Oh, nothing holds the sun like a peach. Eating a fresh peach will warm you from the inside out. Edible sunshine, a peach. 

  Sometimes….dear reader, it’s just hanging on that makes the difference. It’s not being the biggest or most beautiful. It’s being Onkey, strong because he THINKS he is strong. It’s a peach, just staying there, hanging on for dear life, soaking up God’s sunshine.

   I think of times past, in my childhood…I planted my feet, braying loudly against something or someone, some bad thing…I made noise and I STAYED and I BRAYED and circled my herd. Oh, does everyone in my life like me or love me or respect me for this? No, dear reader, they do NOT. Even though… sometimes it was for THEM, for their safety. It is alright. I would do it for them anyway. I would do it again, for them, my herd.

   But… peaches  fall early  from trees and herds move on and snakes dance.

Today…I think…I shall be a peach that hangs on, soaking up God’s sunshine.

 A sweet, soft, ripe peach.

I’ll also be a donkey, braying and chasing. I’ve been called worse. J