CW: improper, negligent, irresponsible animal care
The first time I visited the farm, M collected eggs out of the chicken coop at dusk. Not thinking clearly, I was impressed by the number they were able to collect, given that they said they only forgot to harvest them the day before. At that time, they “only” had 60-80 laying hens. By the time I left the farm, there were over 150 laying hens, 200 meat birds, 12 ducks, and 12 guinea fowl.
The birds were my responsibility once I was settled on the farm. M hated when I would talk about the “responsibilities” I held on the farm.
“You aren’t responsible for any of this. It’s mine. I don’t need you.”
Quite different than the sentiment they expressed when we were watching that horrifying Netflix show, You, together (M’s choice, of course, it was always their pick). Spoiler: in the show, a hostage is kept by her stalker in a glass room within the basement.
“This is your glass box, you know that, right? You can never leave.”
In any case, the birds were my responsibility on the farm. At first, this just meant I was responsible for the chicken chores. Before they moved it within spitting distance of their own front door, the bus I slept in was parked next to the chicken coop. At night, their coos would sound like warning voices.
Every dawn and dusk, I would feed and water the chickens, and collect their eggs.
One of the first things I put together was how much smaller my daily collection of eggs was compared to the first time I saw M harvest them. I remember comparing outloud, in a hushed tone to court over Facetime within in the first couple weeks of living there, “I have no idea when the last time they had checked the coop was.” Whether I brushed it off, compassionately chalked it up to overwhelm of farming, was obstructed in my perceptions by their lovebombing - or some combination of all three - I didn’t mention anything to them about it.
Within a few days of me moving to the farm, M purchased a dozen ducks off of Craigslist “for me.” The thing about me is, I love ducks. I had no qualms with this addition to my daily responsibilities.
The flock continued to grow, though, and its size got so out of control so quickly that I often have a hard time making sense of it.
If you visit the farm’s website, M is described as someone who “rescues” their animals. One day in the early spring, when there hadn’t been quite enough eggs to fill CSA boxes, M “rescued” 100 new adult laying hens from a couple on Craigslist. The birds were delivered in tiny plastic crates, handled roughly, and looked absolutely unwell. Rescued? No. Purchased. Complicit in the birds’ mistreatment.
For weeks these scrawny, half-naked, wet-looking birds would huddle in the corner of the pen, underneath the coop. Any day that one or more of them didn’t die was a good day, especially when it rained. I couldn’t handle M’s violent reaction every time I found another dead bird, so when I could, I stopped telling them. I would feed the lost hen to the hogs, knowing that it would be hours before M made rounds and by then the hogs would have devoured every feather of evidence. It was their idea, anyways.
“If I ever killed you I would feed you to the hogs to get rid of the evidence.”
Eventually, I started cooping all 100 (take a few) shellshocked birds up at night by hand, one by one. I would army crawl under the coop through a small door, gently grab up to two chickens at a time, and worm my way backwards out the door, kneel so that I could reach up, and then place them through the chicken-sized door into the coop; repeat.
Those that survived the weeks of adjustment did ultimately become healthy, consistent laying hens. Rescued? Still no.
It was in the time between the arrival of the 100 laying hens, and before the start of M’s meat bird venture, that I started paying for all of the bird feed. I still have some of the invoice slips from the feed mill filed away. I don’t ever want to forget the numbers attached to this sequence of events:
I move to the farm, and agree to do chicken chores as my exchange/contribution.
Chicken chores become bird chores, as ducks are added.
100 new laying hens are added to the existing near-100, in a coop/pen suitable for less than 20 birds.
I begin paying for all bird feed. I drive at least twice per month to KY to the feed mill, spending between $600-$1,000 each trip.
M convinces me to quit my job and work on the farm full-time. They do not offer to pay me for my farm work.
M announces that they want to start raising meat birds. I will still be paying for all bird feed.
M gets 100 meat birds, and we raise and harvest them ourselves.
M gets 200 meat birds, and we raise them, and then pay to have them processed.
M gets 200 meat birds, and 50 new laying chicks. They also impulse purchase a dozen guinea fowl “for me” while we are at the hatchery.
There are now just short of 400 birds that live on M’s farm.
Those 400 birds? In M’s mind, still not my responsibility. Me? Still unneeded. The invoices for the feed mill? Only getting bigger. The stress of bird chores? Only increasing.
If the laying hen coop was already overcrowded, where did all these meat birds go? I am so glad you asked. Aside from the first few weeks of the first set of 100 meat birds, they would all live in a coop I had frankenstein-ed together out of scrap wood and pieces of a donated coop. I had been tasked with building a chicken tractor, with M as my demanding, clueless, and impatient foreman. That structure would half-collapse the first time M - determined as they are, and confident as they were that it would work - tried to haul it to a new spot. It never moved again… defeating the purpose of a chicken tractor, and creating yet another overcrowded coop.
This new coop was not only overcrowded, but also exposed to the elements with absolutely no climate control. There was constant finagling of heat lamps, tarps, empty feed bags, and whatever else was around to create a survivable environment for the chicks. I have many photos and videos of the way that coop was set up, because I never want to forget how bad it really was. I would have to weave between wires, bungees, and pieces of twine in the tight space like it was set up with a laser-alarm system. After I left the farm, but before I went no contact with M, they told me that the meat bird coop had caught fire in the middle of the night when they happened to be up, and that after dumping water on it, they had pissed to put the fire out.
When you are raising chicks, some of them won’t survive. Cornish Cross chickens - the meat birds M chose - are particularly inbred as a result of being the most popular breed choice for mass produced chicken products. They are nearly immobile, as their bodies grow so quickly and disproportionately. They are so thick and clumsy, they regularly suffocate one another in overcrowded spaces or spaces with poor temperature regulation. Because they are harvested at about 8 weeks, they often never become fully feathered. A particularly freakish meat bird in the first 100, whom I dubbed “Stinky,” became one of my favorite animals on the farm for a time. I would give Stinky private feedings to prevent trampling, and spared Stinky’s life when we processed the rest of that flock.
After I left the farm, M tried to persuade me to come back to TN earlier than I planned for my next farmsit, so that I could help them load up the last round of meat birds to take to the processor. I said there was nothing I wanted to do less than be berated while loading up 200 chickens for transport at 4AM. Instead, they guilted me into talking to them their entire drive to and from the processor - two hours each way.
“You don’t want me to fall asleep while I’m driving, do you?”
I’m so proud of you to be processing and sharing. And I’m so sorry you lived through this. I love you!