wayfaringwordhack | The Man saves the Man

Once again, we came to a season when one of our roosters was not really being the gentleman that he should be. For weeks, I hesitated over butchering him because a) killing one's chickens that have been slated to be part of the flock is hard and never fun, b) I saved him when he was crushed in his egg as a chick, c) I need another line of genetics to keep improving my flock and after bringing in Marek's disease only God knows how, I prefer the known dangers of the birds already here.

While reason C was a vote in his favor, it was also a strike against Lucky Fluffypants and an almost-attribution of a one-way ticket to the soup pot: He didn't have enough hens, and I don't want to buy in any more. We can't be building individual pens everywhere to deal with each and every scenario for our fowl, so when the hens in his pen started looking too beat up and he started showing overt aggression to one in particular, we decided the easiest solution was to process him.

Heart-heavy, but believing it had to be done, I carried him toward a temporary holding coop. Suddenly J asked, "Why don't we put him with the ducks?"

!!!

Yes! Why not?

So that is what we did, knowing we could always kill him later if we had to because of incompatibility or depression. But no. It has been more than two weeks now, and while Lucky Flufflypants certainly misses living with his ladies, we now have a tried and true option of rehousing fowl.

*applauds J's brilliance*