Posted on 07/26/2021 11:23:09 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
At the start of the pandemic, when daring to go to the supermarket meant staring at empty shelves where the dairy products, canned goods, and yeast packets used to be, some people decided that they'd adopt chickens to give themselves a steady supply of fresh eggs, or just to take control of something in their lives.
But now that everything feels slightly different and many of us are inching our way back to normal, those chickens have become just another responsibility—or perhaps a reminder of what life was like twelve-plus months ago. As a result, some people are giving up their backyard birds, which is proving to be stressful for the chickens themselves, and for the organizations that rescue roosters and hens.
According to Block Club Chicago, the Chicago Roo Crew is one of those animal advocacy groups, and they're struggling to pay for veterinary care for the birds they already have. They've been inundated with so many requests to take in abandoned or unwanted chickens that they've had to start turning them down, and referring those people to other organizations. "Right now, currently, we're closed for intake," Julia Magnus, an animal rights attorney and Chicago Roo Crew volunteer, told the outlet. "Because we have too many [birds] and our vet bills are tremendous."
This isn't just happening in Chicago either: Tamerlaine Sanctuary & Preserve in Montague, New Jersey told the West Milford Messenger that they've had to stop taking in new birds after having to accept 20 hens in the past few months. The sanctuary houses around 150 birds, and it might spend as much as $20,000 every year on veterinary care for the chickens.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My idea of "chicken rescue" involves a Dutch Oven.
Slice some sweet potatoes, put them at the bottom with a little olive oil and season. Lay the seasoned bird on top and stick in a 400 degree oven for about 90 minutes or until it reaches 160 degrees on the inside. Then let rest for about a half hour.
Perfect every time and all the drippings saturate those sweet potato slices.
Cornish Cross, the commercial meat breed, takes 6 weeks to processing time.
Oh, you betcha about the yolks. Night and Day difference!
Mother kept 200-300 layers on the farm for extra income. Every once in a while we would have an old & retired one for chicken soup. About once a year about the time the pullets started to lay we would cull the flock & those no longer producing eggs were sold to someone in town. Never saw a veterinary for the birds, but we did vaccinate for something, I think it was cholera.
Ha...seriously!! Doomed indeed.
Never had a cone when I needed one. But back in the ‘60s my sister and a cousin won 2 ducks at a ring toss game one summer. So they went back to the house, which was Grandma’s house for the vacation, and made up a little duck nest place in the mud room.
Well my uncle and I got up really early to go do some lake trout fishing and I went through the mud room with some equipment and I heard this noise and Grandma was up by this time because she was a very early riser, she came out to the “Duck Room” and ordered something in an understandable Czechoslovakian, which I never understood a single word that ever came out of her mouth... Anyway Grandma seized unto the ducks. Meanwhile... uncle and I are loading up his Nomad station wagon for the fishing, Grandma steps out to the back porch with a duck in each hand - cracked them like a whip and walked back into the mud room. Uncle turns to me saying, “well if we don’t catch any fish we got duck.”
Oh, Gawd! I’m sure that left a lasting impression, LOL!
My Mom and her cousins would send all of us kids to my Aunt Alice’s farm for the summer to get us out from under and out of the city. We were basically slave labor for her for the summer, but I learned to love Farm Livin’ for sure!
My mean Country Cousins had little Georgie take care of this adorable veal calf for the summer, and of course, he LOVED that little calf - and the mean Country Cousins made sure Georgie knew he was eating him when we had Veal for supper a few weeks later. :(
I’m still amazed that Georgie didn’t grow up to be a serial killer or a Vegetarian, LOL!
As long as they didn't have to do it they were ok with the idea.
Don't think they ever told their kids though
Blessed be His Holy Name.
My 5 pandemic chickens are egg laying machines.
A friend of my son’s moved away and gave son a pair of chickens rescued from the meat farm. These things were morbidly obese and could not even climb up the ramp into the coop. One just dropped dead one day. The other became so pathetic and torn up by the rooster that both were dispatched.
” ‘the spa’ “
Hmmm, I’m screwed. The wife just asked I wanted to go to the spa. She may know something I don’t.
I raised them one year for high school Ag. class. Sold them for the end of the year bbq.
I heard a woman say she couldn’t eat eggs because they were aborted chicks and she’s against abortion.
1) The act of laying an egg isn’t abortion.
2) Store bought eggs have never been fertilized. Same with most of these home grown ones.
3) Lots of ignoramuses in this world.
Buffies are good people. I had an incubator fail, once. Shoved the eggs under a setting Buff. Only one that made it was a tiny little Amhearst Pheasant hen.
We give our chickens antibiotics in their water about once a year but they get electrolytes in their water everyday.
We cull our old stock to the local Hispanics for $5 bird that’s about $1 per year of age.
This past June when the temps were at record high we only lost 2 birds both were elderly. We had another that we were sure was on death’s door, pull out out of it and is doing great. Even though she is older than dirt, if their on my farm we will try to give any animal a fighting chance.
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