Still here

Hello, world. It's me. I know it's been six months since I last checked in -- a record, yes -- but I'm still here.

I'm still on the farm, but tonight my children are not. They're at their dad's place, his small apartment in the village, their new second home.

Instead of reading them stories and tucking them into bed tonight with never enough 'I love yous,' I snatch a hug, glance a peck on each cheek, and watch them rush out the door towards the headlights of his waiting car, moths drawn to a flame.

Instead of strolling down the driveway tomorrow morning and waiting for the bus amidst knock-knock jokes and who-gets-on-the-bus-firsts, he'll send them off from his streetscape doorway with hugs and kisses and reminders about street safety before they walk to school with their friends.

Instead of bracing for after-school bursts through the front door, a flurry of backpacks and artwork and dogs barking and calls of, "Mum, what's to eat?" peppered with stories of schoolyard drama and how many goals, the dogs will still be sleeping in front of the fire at 4:05 pm as their young charges walk to the park or the library or home. His home.

It's exciting, this new second home, and I want to be excited, even happy, for them. For him. And yet, right now, I'm just sad and scared and empty.

But I'm still here.

Gutted

As I was walking to the barn yesterday to start my morning chores, I noticed an unusual huddle --a wild turkey and a few crows picking at something down by the pond. The something was snow white, which puzzled me, as I knew all the chickens -- including the few white Columbian crosses we have left -- were safely locked in the barn. 

I struggled to think what it could be -- the wild ducks that we've seen visiting our pond are all dark and brown earthy colours. Then I remembered: two of the Muscovies, one male and one female, refused to come into the barn the previous night. I tried to chase them, shoo them in, but they simply flapped away from me. As I left the barnyard I felt uncomfortable leaving them outside as we'd seen a mature fox just the week before, but the male duck can be a vicious beast, so I told myself the lady would be ok.

As I walked towards the carnage crew, I realized I was wrong. As the wild birds flew away, I saw the lady duck, gutted; her chest and body cavity ripped away, with bloodied feathers scattered around her.

I didn't cry or freak out; in fact I felt strangely disassociated from what I saw. I was disappointed, sure, but we'd lost ducks and chickens before (though usually all that's left is the feathers) and my mind started spewing platitudes of all sorts -- "Where there's livestock, there's deadstock"; or "It's part of farm life"; and "Nature can be cruel."

I picked her up carefully by her limp neck and started walking back up the hill towards the barn, stopping only to grab a shovel. I continued past the barn and into the woods at the back of the second paddock, the donkeys and horse following me in a bizarre funeral parade.

I quickly dug a grave and buried what was left of the lady duck, saying some sort of cursory 'return to earth' blessing, ending with an apology. Then I returned the shovel and continued on with my chores. This is part of farm life, I told myself -- buck up and get on with it. It's just a duck.

But for the rest of the day I felt agitated, uneasy, fragile, and the more I tried to dismiss that, push it away, the more it grew. Until finally, just before the kids got home, Lucas called me on the phone to see how my day was.

My eyes started to gloss over, my throat tighten and a sick churning began deep in my belly. The details of the story gushed out and I wanted to share with him, unload, all of the gory images that were weighing heavily on me -- the shocking contrast of the blood to her feathers, her breastbone picked clean of all flesh, her unseeing eyes, and how just the night before, after giving up on trying to get her back into the barn, I had taken a moment to admire her form, her beauty, her aliveness and gentle personality, as she paddled off into the darkness after her mate.

As I shared the story, I could sense the pain lose its grip on me. I didn't feel any less sad that the lady duck had been ravaged this way, but I could feel the sadness and not suffer by it.

I thought of a passage that author Jon Katz recently wrote on his Bedlam Farm blog about how these sorts of losses are a part of life:

"This is a familiar part of life on the farm, this sickening feeling seeing things you are responsible for and live with killed suddenly, and then the process of sorting through it, because you know the foxes or raccoons or whatever will return... It is a nice life, not a perfect life, and there are no simple or easy solutions... So there is the happy time cuddling a lamb and the other time picking up body parts of animals you were talking to the day before…. It is disturbing, yet also oddly routine. It happens, anyone with a farm and livestock has experienced it. This lesson, I learn again and again. It is not a crisis, not a drama. It is life itself."

In trying to remove the drama, or what I thought was drama but was actually just feeling, I stifled a piece of my humanity. Rallying against these inevitabilities creates suffering, but so does not fully acknowledging the pain that accompanies these losses. Keeping animals on a farm is such a gift, but if you're not careful, it can become a burden, and I've wondered before that perhaps I'd be better off if I didn't keep animals as I get so attached to them. But that would deny me the happy times. 

So what's the solution? I'm learning that allowing myself to completely appreciate the joy of their life, then fully acknowledging and experiencing the sadness of their death, before finally letting both go, leads to greater feelings of peace, acceptance and ultimately freedom. It's something of a roller-coaster ride, but then again, that is life itself.

Not just a barn cat

On his examination report card from the veterinarian, his name was noted as "Barn cat."

On the invoice record when I paid for his euthanasia, he was simply known as "Stray Cat."

But he wasn't a stray and he was so much more than 'just' a barn cat. He was our Chris, my constant barnyard companion, and now he's gone.

We found him this afternoon about 10 feet away from the road. He was curled up and alert but his hind legs weren't working well and he was covering in slug goo. Fearing the worst but hoping for the best, I rushed him to the vet. Her face told me what I already knew before she gave me her prognosis: his back was broken. Some driver had hit him and failed to stop. And it's not like ours is a busy road.

As the vet talked about x-rays and neurologists and surgery and rehabilitation options, this massive surge of sadness opened up in me. Tears streamed down my face and dripped off my nose as I hung my head and said, "no."

"There's a third option," she said. I nodded.

During the time it took for the sedation to take effect before the final injection -- about 15 minutes -- I rubbed Chris and thanked him for all the great memories.

He was supposed to be an unsocialized barn cat, but he was never very good at that job.

He'd get locked in the hayloft, caught frogs instead of barn mice, got stuck in trees and was relentlessly bullied by the rooster. His meow was almost inaudible and he always needed a piggyback to the barn whenever it snowed, as he didn't like getting his feet wet.

But he was great at many things: snoozing on our deck, either underneath the hammock or on one of the kid's chairs, playing tag with the dog and befriending our other barn cat Gracie who before Chris, was too scared to leave the rafters. He napped under the bird feeders, paddled in the ponds and slept with the goats at night. The moment you stood still, he'd wind himself between your legs, arching his back, simply begging to be petted and loved. While his meow was but a squeak, his purr rivaled that of a lion.

He'd escort the kids to the school bus in the morning and pick them up at the end of the day. He was the first face I'd meet in the barn in the morning and as darkness fell, he'd wait at the front door of the house to walk back with me.

He was just a barn cat, but his absence leaves a huge hole at our farm.

He was just a barn cat, but already we miss him terribly.

Dealing with prolapse - an update

So thanks to you amazing readers, I figured what I had to do. I knew before but I needed that extra push, someone telling me, "It's okay... you can do this."

Well I can't.

Not yet at least. And I tried. I got everything ready -- the block, the hatchet AND an axe, just in case. I got the hen, who had since nested down in a corner under the sink in the barn and brought her her final place. As I laid her down, I apologized, explained that this was for the best and I thanked her for her eggs and her contribution to our farm.

I raised the hatchet, took a deep breath in.... and she started freaking out, squawking and flapping at me. So I of course panicked and let go. She stood up, pooped all over the block (that was thankfully covered in newspaper) and jumped down with the hideous prolapse hanging like a pendulum behind her. She then proceeded to walk, albeit slowly, over to the remains of the rhubarb, sit herself down and stare back at me as if to say, "Well that didn't go very well. What are you going to do now?"

The only thing I can: I just called in my own reinforcements. Lucas said he'd help as soon as he got home.

I don't know what feels worse - the fact that I have to do this or the fact that I can't.

Now I'm wondering if I can't see them through their entire life cycle, should I even be keeping chickens?

For the back story, go here.

UPDATE ON MY UPDATE: It's done. Lucas took the hatchet to her. I told him I wanted to be there but he did it when I was getting the kids from the bus. It was his first time too and he wanted to do it without an audience. I get that, except it does feel like I'm still stuck in the same mental spot. That said, I know we'll have to do another dispatch sooner or later. Hopefully, I'll be more ready then.

Dealing with prolapse

This isn't the blog post I expected to be writing this morning. I have a lovely one all ready, in my head at least, about these amazing whole wheat cinnamon buns that we made yesterday.

Instead, I'm writing about prolapse in chickens. (If you're feeling squeamy today, stop reading now.)

I went out to the barn this morning on my usual round of chores and I noticed one of the Minorca Blacks was sitting under the watering stand. Even when I threw down some feed, she just sat there. I gently gave her a nudge with my boot and when she stood up, I immediately understood why she was there.

Hanging from her backside was what looked like a bloody, poopy mass: it was a prolapsed oviduct, also known as eversion or blowout. This usually occurs when a chicken (or duck or goose) strains to pass a too big egg. Essentially, the lower part of the oviduct, the tube by which the eggs passes, turns inside out.

If caught early, I've read that it's possible to wash the area with warm water and a gentle antiseptic or even sugar water, to help reduce the swelling, before gently pushing the mass back in. Then you apply hemorrhoidal cream such as Prep H to the area and isolate the hen so the others don't pick at her. (If you want more info, go here, here, here or here.)

Unfortunately, I think I found it too late. I tried cleaning the area and while she wasn't agitated at all, it was impossible to remove all the detritus. There was just too much swelling and poop and nastiness. And the smell... I'm not normally a queasy person but thank goodness I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Unfortunately, a stench like that suggests infection and that's not a good thing.

So I know what I have to do: I should put her out of her misery. And I'm being a total coward about it. If I'm totally honest, there's a part of me that hopes she passes while I'm inside trying to figure out HOW to do this. Like dying a slow death due to shock or sepsis is more palatable than a quick death my hands. Right.

I'm not the only greenhorn to go through this, I know. Just yesterday I read and commented on a great post at E-I-E-I-OMG! about how blogger Susan had to call in a neighbour to help her do the ultimate dispatch.

She captured my feeling towards this perfectly when she wrote,

"I think a lot of my cowardice comes from equal parts: fear and ignorance. Fear that I will somehow botch the job and make the suffering worse, and ignorance of what is the best and most humane way to end a chicken's life. Sure, I know all the processing methods - quick chop/sharp axe, broom handle/foot, cone/knife - I've got the books. But this (at least to me) is different. Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. I had better arm myself better for the future - knowledge-wise, that is."

I promised to share the misses and blisses of life on our farm and this is definitely one of the misses. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm still sitting at my computer trying to figure out what to do. I've been reading this thread at BackYard Chickens and I'm more confused than ever! Do I break its neck, using its head like a handle and then spin (I shuddered just writing that) or take a hatchet to it (the thought totally turns my stomach)? Or do something else? I've never ever killed anything before but I don't think it's fair that I always get Lucas to do this kind of dirty work.

I'm freaking out here. Any thoughts, suggestions?

The darker side of spring

Spring is a time for new beginnings, fresh starts and miraculous birth. But as there is birth, there is also death, and I'm getting really tired of the latter.

When the two Muscovy ducks went broody, I decided to let them sit on their eggs and let nature take its course. I'm a total bookworm and I spend far too much time reading up on everything from starting seedlings to using cold frames, always searching for the best way to do things “right”. I often have to push myself to get my nose out of the book and get into the field or the barn or wherever, so this time I thought, let's just see what happens next. It'd be a hands-on lesson in hatching eggs naturally, rather than in an incubator. Mother Nature knows best, yes? I’d forgotten that Mother Nature can sometimes be cruel too.

The first duckling that hatched was a wonderful surprise. Despite almost being trampled by four clumsy mature ducks, almost being eaten by a crafty barn cat and falling out of the brooder area, it rallied for two days until I left a container of water in overnight and it drowned in two inches of water. The second duckling didn't survive the hatching. I found it dead besides the mother duck with no clue as to what happened.

Despite being upset over the natural loss of the second duckling and my sheer stupidity that caused the loss of the first, I thought as there were still eight or so other eggs under mama duck, we'd have more ducklings soon. I couldn't have been more wrong.

A few days after we lost the first duckling, I found an egg that had been pushed out of the nest as far away as possible. It was partially cracked open and in it was a mature duckling that was dead. The sight and the smell of it made me gag. I quietly disposed of the tiny corpse and went on with my barn chores.

The next day, I found two more broken eggs with two more dead ducklings. The third day, I knew what I'd find before I even got to the brooding pen because I was hit with a putrid smell when I was still about a foot away from the door. There it was - another fully formed but dead duckling. One by one, mama duck had pushed the dead eggs out of her nest until there were only a few left.

When she left the nest to get some food, only after carefully covering her remaining eggs with white downy feathers from her breast and clean wood shavings, I carefully and quietly pulled out the last of the eggs. All smelled rotten and horrible, a smell that lingered in my nose for hours.

I took the last of her eggs, filled the nest again with clean shavings and quietly tucked in two newly laid Rouen duck eggs. Mama duck squeaked at me, ruffled her feathers in indignation and then resumed her maternal post to sit for another 28 days.

Since then, I've tried to find information about natural incubation but most of what I've found online refers to incubating eggs artificially. Based on my limited reading, I started thinking that that perhaps the second egg harboured bacteria that contaminated the nest and the rest of the eggs in the nest, killing the un-hatched ducklings. If this is the case, then maybe I shouldn’t have introduced new eggs to the nest at all. But the softie in me couldn’t leave her with an empty nest. (Yes I’m anthropomorphizing, but that’s what happens when you read and love books like, “The pig who sang to the moon: the emotional world of farm animals” by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.)

But then yesterday, I found a dead chick outside the area where the duck and hen are co-nesting. And today I found a dead duckling. There was no horrible smell, no sign of disease, no evidence of trauma or malformation. Just more dead.

I hate going into the barn right now. Since this all started, it's been a horrible way to start the day. Every morning I’m reminded of my lack of experience and knowledge. It's one thing to kill seedlings or plants because I didn't know better but it's an entirely different feeling when living creatures are dying at your hands.

I've always had a huge heart for animals -- both real and fictional -- that was easily wounded if it sensed any pain or hurts. As I child, I couldn't watch the movie Dumbo, especially the scene where his mother held him in her trunk and rocked him through the bars of her circus cage. Even as a small child it just seemed so unfair that he had to suffer at the hands of grown-ups who should be taking care of him. Even today, animal movies such as Lassie, The Fox and the Hound and Old Yeller send me into full-out blubbering fits that leave me weepy for hours.

So it's no surprise that I'm taking these deaths hard. If I could chalk it up to experience then it might be easier to deal with. But the problem is, there's no lesson learned here.

I have no idea what's going wrong.

Not again

I went out to the barn this morning and once again, found a quiet duck pen. The little duckling, who was doing so well last night when I last checked in before closing up the barn , had drowned in two inches of water.

While I had the drown-proof duckling water dispenser in the pen, I also had a small container for mama to drink out of. Looks like baby got herself in and couldn't get out.

I feel horrible. I should have known better. This totally sucks.

Please tell me this gets easier.

Our morning sadness

After yesterday's wonderful surprise, when I found that new baby duckling, I was looking forward to being welcomed by a chorus of peeps this morning. Instead, I found only silence.

When I shut down the barn last night, I discovered that the second duckling had completely hatched from her shell. She was still all curled up in a ball -- hatching is exhausting work! -- but she was already starting to dry off.

Mama only let me take a quick glimpse of her newest charge before settling back down on the nest. I secured the duck pen, making sure the barn cats couldn't get in and then turned off the barn lights for the night. I debated whether or not I should bring the babies into the house or simply put the heat lamp back on as I know ducklings need supplemental heating for their first few weeks. But I decided that since mama was here, I'd leave her to take care of the new arrivals. Perhaps I made the wrong choice.

When I checked in to the duck pen this morning, there was mama sitting on her nest. And lying still beside her was one of the ducklings. While she'd started to fluff up she was still a bit crusty in spots (so I'm assuming it was the new one), but she was long gone. I'm not sure what happened -- I know babies are very fragile and perhaps she died shortly after emerging from the shell and no matter what I'd done, we would have lost her. But it's hard not to think, "or maybe she froze to death because I didn't turn the lamp on or take her inside."

(Thankfully, I found the other duckling -- still alive -- with her head shoved into mama's chest. She seemed no worse for wear and in fact, showed quite a healthy appetite for her duckling feed.)

The kids and I buried the new hatchling down by the pond and then slowly made our way back to the barn to continue on with the morning chores. As I was feeding Gall his bucket of grain, I felt some comfort in the sheer numbers of living beings around me -- especially the fully-grown ducks that I'd raised from day-olds.

But what got me about the dead duckling was an overwhelming feeling that because of my inexperience, I'd made the "wrong" choice.

The qualities that make me particularly well suited to caring for these creatures -- my deep love and commitment to raising them to the best of my ability, my appreciation for their quirky personalities and the immense sense of satisfaction I get from just being with them -- also creates a lot of pain as a caretaker.

With life, there is death, just as with happiness exists suffering and I think I'd find a much greater sense of peace by simply accepting these moments without taking personal responsibility for each and every one of them. It still sucks, though.

And now, I'm faced with another decision. Do I leave the remaining duckling with mama or do I take her inside? My instinct is to leave them together -- perhaps put the heat lamp on tonight just to help -- but I'd really hate to be met with more silence tomorrow morning.