The Massacre

It was Halloween Day.  A day where many people in the world dress up and "Trick or Treat."  Most expect treats, candy or such.  Not many people think about getting a trick instead.  On Halloween Day I woke up to do the chores and filled the feed bucket to go feed our 49 meat birds that are only two weeks away from butchering.  Well, there was no treat for me - only a trick.  A cruel trick, if you will.  It was a massacre.

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines massacre as follows:

massacre

/ˈmasəkər/

A massacre is the violent, cruel, and indiscriminate killing of a large number of people—(birds, in this case) especially those who are defenseless, unresisting, or non-combatants.

I opened the door to the chicken tractor in the dawn hours before the sun peeked above the eastern horizon.  Normally, I'm greeted by hungry birds awaiting breakfast making all sorts of noise and commotion.  Instead there was dead silence. I found ALL 49 of our birds DEAD.  I can't put into words the frustration and anger I felt toward the perpetrator of this crime.

I had been thinking about the 300 pounds of chicken we were going to store in our freezer in two weeks, and I think the old saying, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" can be altered to "Don't count your chickens until they are in your freezer."  Starting the race is one thing, but you gotta finish it.

The Killing Field

It was a mink, to be sure.  They are cruel, devious animals, programmed with a bloodlust, a zeal for killing, and they kill all at once.  They don't even eat the animal.  They bite the neck and bleed the chicken out, leaving their wasteful kill for you to find in an almost mocking fashion.  The population of minks have exploded due to the expansion of their habitat which locally is crawfish ponds.  More crawfish ponds and rice fields mean more mink.  More mink means more chicken deaths.  It's not just us.  All of our neighbors have lost their flocks.

Butchered, but not by us.

The chicken tractor is protected by chicken wire which has, historically, done the job.  However, minks can dig as you can see the point of entry in the photo below.  All they need is an inch of clearance and the opportunistic killer is inside.  Their murderous intent at this point is easy, like shooting fish in a barrel.

The chink in the armor

The horror the birds must have felt as they were picked off, one by one.  You can see that some tried in vain to find refuge from the killing spree under the waterer.  They found no safe quarter.  There was no life left in the chicken tractor.

No place to hide

Our weekly Wednesday weigh ins have come to an end as we have realized a 100% mortality rate.  Sickening, I tell you.  There was nothing to be done except bury the dead.  I loaded 49 beautiful, but dead birds into my wagon and pulled it down the boulevard of broken dreams.  I estimate 250 pounds of meat wasted.  Is it a total loss?  Yes and no.  We won't be able to butcher and eat any of these birds, but I'm trying to find whatever silver lining I can find.  I'll bury them in the garden and they'll at least provide fertilizer for next Spring's vegetables.

The (wasted) meat wagon

I began to dig their tomb in the spot where the sweet potatoes were just dug up.  I figured I would dig a trench, lay 8 birds in the hole, cover it and repeat the process until they were all interred.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

But not so fast, my friend.  Before burial, I gutted out the birds, saving the guts and organs.  I'll freeze them.  Why?  Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven things the Lord hates, one of them being "hands that shed innocent blood."  God is not talking about animals here, so it doesn't really apply to our situation, but I hate minks that shed my chickens' blood.  And I'm going to do something about it.  I know the Bible says, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."  I agree.  I won't act in vengeance, but I think as a steward over the little piece of Creation He's given us, I've got to exact some justice and stop it from happening again.

Tricia told me, "Kyle, it's just like swatting mosquitoes.  You can't kill them all.  No matter how many mink you trap and kill, more will arise."  Maybe so.  But you don't stop swatting mosquitoes.  Every mosquito you kill is unable to bite you or lay eggs to make more mosquitoes.  Same with a dead mink.  Hence the bucket of chicken guts which I'll use to bait my traps.

Bait for the mink traps

The burial went swiftly, each trench holding the remains of 8 fat birds.  I shoveled the dirt over their carcasses, about 6-8 inches deep.

Finally, the work was done except for adding a two inch layer of mulch over the exposed soil which will come later.  Within three hours of finding the carnage, all 49 birds were buried.  Now came taking down the waterer, removing the feed troughs, heat lamps, extension cord and removing the tarps from the top of the chicken tractor and putting everything back in its place.

I did a brief 'post-mortem' regarding the financial implications of the mink attack.  The chicks cost $223.50.  So far we had $200.88 in feed costs.  We never factor in the cost of labor (our own) because if we weren't working on the chickens, we'd be doing something else.  $425 is a bitter pill to swallow.  An investment down the toilet.  We may be down, but we're not out.

As discouraging as this might be, I think about the settlers, the sod-busters, the homesteaders that founded this land.  When calamity like this struck them, and it often did, the ramifications were far more serious.  There was no store down the road to go to when you lost your laying hens to varmints in order to buy meat.  They had to make things work.  They re-doubled their efforts and moved forward. 

I plan on ordering another 50 chicks in early spring, and I'm researching "mink-proofing your chicken tractor, which includes lining the outside with hardware cloth and then making "hardware cloth" wings on hinges to lay down on the perimeter of the tractor that are a foot wide.  Minks don't dig tunnels that far.  We'll also do some trapping to thin out the mink population.  Maybe I'll make Tricia that mink coat I joke about.  We've been raising meat birds for years and years and never had this happen before.  We'll try to improve our process so that it never happens again.  Join us again this spring as we try again.