In Viking Times, the month of October had a different name. A name, which loosely translate "Slaughter Month." This was the time of year, before modern agriculture (around the 1700's) that a householder had to decide which of his very few animals he could afford to feed through the long Winter. The rest of the critters would be salted down, dried, smoked or otherwise processed to provide the family with meat for the Winter. It wasn't just Scandinavians that did this, almost all pre-industrial societies have some version of it. But being good Vikings, my husband (the Wolf) and his best friend (the Bear) have minds that associated the chill of Autumn air, with the need to go out and kill something. This, is not necessarily a bad thing. Properly directed, this urge can result in a anything from an entire freezer full of meat (deer season starts early in Ireland) to a few nice birdies for dinner. The weather being dreadful (and more importantly hunting permits still being processed) our heros had to pass on the sporting option this weekend. Still hoping to fill the freezer, they called around for a live pig, but couldn't get ahold of our organic farmer, to see if he had any the right size. Since they were looking rather glum about the whole thing, I happened to mention last night that I had a couple of extra chickens that I was not excited about feeding through the winter.
Those readers who think of all farm animals as fluffy pets, can stop reading now. You see, even in modern times, it does not make sense to feed all your farm animals through the Winter. Real farmers just work this into their yearly program. Selling off excess steer in the Fall and lambs in the Spring. Those of us who just have a few critters wondering around, may have to be a bit more conscious about it. If you have 500 chickens to deal with, you sell them off on a regular basis for stewing hens. If you have nine of ten chickens scratching up the back yard, you may wait around until your hens produce too many little roosters. Who then grow up to become big roosters. Which leads to what I have tried to describe to my nice vegetarian friends as: The Barn Yard Problem.
What is The Barn Yard Problem? This is the problem that nature set up for us by creating two sexes, male and female. And, by insuring that, most of the time, as many boy animals are born as girl animals. In the wild, most of the boys start fighting and kill each other off. In humans, we have obviously evolved to where our male animals just kill of the males of other species, ah evolution in action! Whey do our males do this? Because if we left all the cute, little male animals to grow up into big animals; they would all fight each other (often to the death) just the way nature designed them. This may work really well on the ancient African Savanna, but its rather disturbing when its going on inside your barn. This is the other reason our ancestors invented "Slaughter Months" where ever they invented agriculture. The long Winter in the northern climates, just gave a pre-determined date for the event. Not being the sort to waste resources, people chose to eat these animals and developed many ways to preserve and keep the meat from spoiling. In the tropics, you could be more flexible about your slaughter schedule, but the extra males had to be killed and eaten, none the less. As I've explained to vegetarian friends (or tried to) a modern society could choose not to eat the meat provided by excess male animals themselves (they could feed it to pets or something). But, since my family does eat meat, we'd rather consume our excess animals ourselves. Although our dogs and kitties usually get a share...
Anyway, when it comes to chickens, old age can also be a reason for not extending life through the winter. Like most people who have a small barnyard, we do have a few favorite hens (and a cockerel) who are likely to live out their full lifespan. Most of my girls were rejects from the local agricultural college. The college (like most commercial breeders) gives them away when they are "too old" to lay commercial amounts of eggs. This is about at age two, most chickens will continue to lay every other day (rather than every day) for four or five more years after their commercial sell by date. One reason I don't have too much trouble when the time comes to put down our older gals is because I feel like we gave them a second chance at a great life already. Instead of going straight into local freezers, they got to run about the place, lay eggs, make woopie and have general chicken fun for awhile. I try and tag the ladies that hatch out chicks. That's a skill that I want my hens to have, but that sadly the egg industry has tried to breed out of them. A commercial breeder wants eggs, not more chickens. I like to have a combination of both.
When chickens get really old (which for a chicken is somewhere between eight and twelve) they may stop laying any eggs at all. I had one of these, a nasty tempered black bantam (tiny) hen, who had never lived up to the bantam reputation of being a good mother either. I also had last years beta rooster, who has decided that although he is smaller than either our primary cockerel (Saladin of the Many Wives) or Stew Pot (this years surviving male) he was going to try to prove the better man of either of them. This was leading to lots of fights, squawks and heading toward possible injury.
Now Saladin, my big colorful guy, was bought from a local farmer at a street fair. A farmer who seemed very anxious to get rid of him. Further inspection of his colorful body revealed natural leg spurs like carving knives and a beak pointed like a dagger. Realizing we probably had a "failed" fighting cockerel on our hands, my husband and I told Saladin that if he hurt predators, he was a good boy. If he every hurt either of us, he was toast, or at least chicken stew. So far, Saladin has been a very good boy and his wonderful colors impress our city guests. So, he gets to live, his bata cockerel "Vlad the Impaler" has now impaled for the last time.
For constant acts of disruption, mayhem and robbing out hens of needed tail feathers: Vlad is himself to be Impaled. Leaving Stew Pot to live through the Winter as "cockerel Insurance." We suspect he may be dinner sometime next year, but young cockerels raised to respect their elders tend to wait a year or so before dominance fighting. Meanwhile, he's insurance against Saladin meeting a hungry fox or death by natural causes (Winter is just not a good time to be a chicken).
So, the guys went out to visit the chicken run, and found a third lady who had injured her leg and it had gone very bad. This make me wonder just how often the chickens have been checked since I have been laid up with my foot. But I decide that greeting the happy hunters returning from their kill, is not the time to ask. Besides, chickens can go down pretty quickly, I might not have noticed it either. We can't eat her, but we can put her out of her misery. Most vets won't treat a chicken, even if looked like she could recover. Which she most certainly does not.
Meanwhile, The Fox (wife of The Bear) and I have decided to bag up some Icelandic Spinning wool for later yarn making, and have taken over the kitchen table. Bloody men come in with even bloodier chickens. Fox takes a second look at Bear. Uh oh, some of the blood is not in fact coming from the chicken. Some of it is coming from The Bear. Husband of Disaster Cat is directed away from table full of wool toward sink, where he promptly waives bleeding chickens over previously clean dishes..
"You want me to put them over here?"...he askers? well, it wasn't exactly what we have in mind, but now that they are there...
Husband now discoverers that because Disaster Cat can not walk more than a few inches at a time. She will not in fact be standing over a sink (or on the ground) plucking and processing a chicken. What he thought was going to happen, she is not sure, but what is going to happen is up to him.
At the same time, The Fox, directs her blooded warrior to the bathroom sink. While he tells her all about the tale of the "Black Hen that Didn't Want To Die"...and got her revenge by running back into the chicken coop, causing The Bear to Run after her and run into the metal siding of the chicken coop. "It was all the fault of the chicken! Really, a nasty piece of work....."
In the middle of this hunting tale, of the one who almost, but not quite got away, Fox and I both notice just how big this gash is. We notify the Wolf, who leaves the chickens in the sink and goes to properly attend his buddy's hunting injuries. A few minutes later they both come downstairs, The Bear sporting a huge blood soaked bandage and smiling from ear to ear. Fox and I do our best to look very impressed. Our men have done what few modern males can accomplish. They have gone outside, killed their prey and brought it home for dinner..
There's just one problem, they are going to get to cook it...
But, not right now, exhausted from the hunt (and the removal of feather and other obnoxious dead chicken parts best left unmentioned) they each decide to take a well deserved nap. Disaster Cat's husband asking The Fox on the way out of the room, "I'd really appreciate it if you can put them into the fridge, I'll do something with them later.."
Well, it is Halloween after all, I guess a midnight dinner will be fun!
I'll let you know how it turns out....
Disaster Cat