Holding a Grudge

The Good Book tells us not to let the sun go down on our anger.  It also has a lot to say about forgiveness and not holding grudges against people.  And we shouldn't!

But what about creatures?  Is it okay to harbor anger toward a murderous varmint?  Let me explain.  At Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, we have the Blue Bell Ice Cream philosophy with the commodities we raise: "We eat all we can and sell the rest."  People stop by and purchase eggs, milk, and honey from us.  We have a sign out by the road and our neighbors stop by and "shop."

Lately, we more of a demand for eggs than we have supply.  As the daylight hours shorten, hens lay less.  We have regular customers that routinely purchase a set amount.  We routinely eat a set amount.  As the supply of eggs from the hens are reduced, the math doesn't work.  So why don't we have more hens?!  Well, you're going to get me wound up tight asking that sort of question...

Minks.  Bloodthirsty, vicious, murderous varmints.  They ate most of our birds.  I'll show you a nightly chore we must do.  This is the hen house.  In total we lost 39 laying hens to minks.  One night there were 8, I think, killed in a bloody pile beneath the roosting bars.  This was the murder scene months ago.  Now each night, we must round up the few birds that habitually go into the hen house to roost.  

We pick each one up and bring them to a couple of rabbit hutches that we've repurposed as hen habitats for humanity.  The hardware cloth that the rabbit hutches are lined with are small enough to keep the minks out.  We put the hens in the rabbit hutches at nightfall and shut the latches.  Safe for the night.

These are battle-hardened hens (and two roosters).  They've watched in horror as their friends were killed one by one like the people on Soldier Island in Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None."  If I believed in therapy, these girls would probably need several sessions on a therapist's couch.  But they keep going, day by day, looking death in the eye.  Well, truthfully, they're not that smart.  They depend on us to live another day.

I almost forgot.  Here are the 6 new birds we hatched out.  They roost each night in a dog kennel.  We shut the door to the kennel so they are safe.  In hindsight, with our egg shortage, we should have purchased more laying hens to replace the ones lost.  We did hatch out some of our own eggs by letting broody hens lay, but that's not a prescription for building your flock back up quickly as roughly half of them will be roosters.

Don't get me wrong, the roosters are great for gumbos.  We have some in the freezer waiting on "gumbo weather" right now.  But the fastest way to build the flock back up is to buy some chicks that have been 'sexed' so that you're buying only pullets.  That way in about 24 weeks, you have a good egg supply.

But C'est La Vie.  Such is life.  There are predators and unfortunately, our birds are prey.  We learn to cope and adapt and fight back.  Perhaps one day I'll forgive the minks for their deeds of darkness, but it won't be today.  The minks should have heeded the wisdom in Proverbs!:

If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.  Proverbs 1:11-16