A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast... Proverbs 12:10
There are so many joys that come from having animals that you are passionate about and care deeply for. Every day they bring happiness into our lives. Whether your animal of preference is chickens, dogs, cats, fish, snakes, or anything in between. We all love our animals.
We all know that there will come a time when we have to say good bye to our animals for one reason or another. It's a sad truth. Most animals aren't created to live as long as humans and so good-byes are a part of it. So whether it happens by an accident or sickness or old age, good-byes are something all animal owners must face.
We say a lot of good-byes with chickens. We just dispatched and processed a number of meat birds. They had lived short, but wonderful lives. They are fed delicious treats every day, they get plenty of exercise, good food and clean water and they are, quite frankly, spoiled rotten. That makes it a little easier when the time comes to dispatch them, but it doesn't make it easy.
Even if it's an animal that I know from the beginning will be used as food for my family, it is never easy on me to take that life. I've got too big of a heart for it. It's a necessary task and I know this. But it's not an easy one.
Taking the life of a pitiful baby chick that never had the chance to even get started in life, well, that's a tough one.
Unfortunately, that's the good bye that I have found myself saying today.
Our sweet little cross beak chick had to be culled today. It broke my heart to do it, but I know it was necessary.
Instead, I'll tell you why I made the decision to cull this animal.
She hasn't been able to eat or drink on her own for a couple of weeks now. I have been feeding her with a medicine dropper, but it isn't enough for her to gain the weight she needed to gain. The other chick is now about 13-14 ounces and the cross beak chick was still just 6.4 ounces, roughly the same as she was almost 2 weeks ago.
She was only able to eat/drink liquids. I tried dropping her chick food directly onto her lower beak and she wasn't even able to get that into her mouth. Without proper nutrition, her health would suffer. As a matter of fact, it already was. She had started losing feather, a sign of malnutrition.
Her inability to preen would soon become a problem, making her susceptible to mites, lice, and other parasites that can seriously harm a chicken and lead to death.
With the severity of her condition, she would also be prone to bullying in the flock which could leave her seriously injured and cause her to be permanently separated from the flock, another major downfall since chickens thrive in flocks.
All these are reasons that weighed into my decision to cull this animal. Her death, as is with all of our animals when the time comes, was very quick and humane. I won't go into detail about the dispatching process. There are many different articles, forums, and even videos about the topic if you have the need to know the different processes available to humanely dispatch an a chick.
I would be lying if I said I didn't cry. I didn't bawl like a baby like I expected I would, but it was a very emotionally difficult process. It's not fair that she had to die because of her deformity. But it is a fact of life and, quite frankly, life just isn't fair sometimes.
I am not happy with the situation, but I know that the decision had to be made and I feel I made the right call. After all, she was only suffering with the condition she was in and I was only prolonging her suffering by trying to keep her alive and that wasn't fair to her.
My hope is that you will make the same decision, if you are ever in the same position. It is really difficult, but it is the right choice for an animal that is suffering like this little cross beak chick was.
Any responsible animal owner has to understand that this is just a part of the job. It's not the most fun part and, fortunately, it's not something that you have to face all the time, but it is still a part of it.
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