To Greener Pastures

Two days after our first batch of chickens was processed, we moved the second batch out to pasture.  They were three weeks old.  You can see that they love the new terrain.  Although there is some grain in the trough, they prefer to take advantage of the greens and bugs laying around.  It's such a beautiful site to see the chickens acting like birds instead of like zombies in the confinement operations. 

We had a major thunderstorm that night.  But when I went to check on them in the morning, they were doing well.  There was one little guy, however, that somehow got stuck in the rain.  He didn't go into the sheltered area with his brothers.  When I got the pen, he was lying by the door as though he may have been trying to get out.  He shivered and tried to stand only to fall over.  I put him in the corner of the pen with some grain while I tended to all the others. When I came back, some of the bigger birds were eating his grain and stepping on him.

While it's an assault on our sensibilities to see the weak taken advantage of, we remember that this is the animal kingdom.  Though we attribute complex emotions such as kindness and empathy to animals, they cannot be characterized as having those emotions.  What they do have, I'm not entirely sure.  But as I watch the chickens, I understand where the term "pecking order" comes from.  There is no mistake that in a flock of chickens there is a pecking order.  When one chicken is down, the others feel compelled only to torment the  hurting, or smaller, bird.  If that bird can no longer move, he will be trampled by the others.  It's that simple. 

So, being human, and understanding my role as a steward of God's earth, I took the chicken back to the barn and gave him some grain.  This is what we call "The Hospital".

I paid a visit to the hospital the next day.  He looked just fine to me. 

Update - Of course I post this on a nigh when the storms are much worse than the one this little guy suffered through.  And the results were much worse too.  But right now I'm tired.  I think you'll have to wait for the next post.