I did a really awful internet search today on how to humanely kill a chick. It did not help that I was holding the chick in question tucked under my neck while I was reading. I walked outside to tell Jonny what I had read, but before I said a word, he took one look at my splotchy red face and said, “We’re not getting any more animals.” In other words, he doesn’t think I can handle it.
I can. I just cry a lot when things don’t go as planned.
My poor little chick can’t walk. She doesn’t seem to have any feeling at all in her legs. Thankfully all the other chicks are doing very well. I am hand feeding poor little chicky throughout the day, and she is hanging in there, but I fear that her prognosis is poor. Somehow I doubt though that we’ll be following any of the advice I found on that Google search. Do you remember how crazy I was when our chicken Trouble got injured?
Jonny remembers. I promised him I wouldn’t go there again with the “farm animals.”
In his good natured sort of way:
“Won’t it be great, Ginny? You can sit in a chair in the backyard with flowers all around. Maybe you’ll have some knitting with you. There next to you, seated on her own cushion, your paralyzed pet chicken can join you. I’ll take your picture together. Maybe you can even design a carrier to wear her in during the day.”
I got myself so worked up today that I almost had to order some yarn. Then the mail came and this arrived, and that’s good because I don’t need any yarn.
Maybe tomorrow morning when I go out to check on chicky she’ll be walking, kind of like Matthew on Downton Abbey…you never know.
Oh no! That is so sad. I would want to keep it and nurse it and make a little special place for it. I would never be good on a farm. It would have to be an animal sanctuary. I hope the little one will be healed. Or it could be a great lesson in compassion and helping for the kids.
I had a chicken when I was younger that was also handicapped and couldn’t walk, but we never thought of killing her. We ended up making her own chicken coop, exercising her legs (like a bicycle) and continued to hand feed her for the rest of her life, I believe she naturally passed almost a year later.
You don’t have to kill her, just show her the same commitment you are showing your other animals, otherwise it’s not fair.
When reading things like this I am just overcome with how smart God was to make both males and females in this world. I would have your same problem and my husband of course would be teasing about the paralyzed pet chicken. Thank God for husbands. (I would be a wimp and ask my hubby to please deal with it and then get busy to take my mind off matters.)
Oh this is so sad. I have such a huge heart for all animals as well and would most likely have a tear stained face as well if I were in your position! Praying you wake up and the little chick is walking. I still believe that miracles do happen!! 🙂
I wish i could get the chick from you. I am a home maker who has all the time in the world to let the Chickie try to live its life to the fullest. If he is no moaning or making strange sound hes fine. I would carry him with me every were and every thing for him. Shout people out here in los angels carry their dogs every were they go and the lady from 90810 the Beverly hills teen show from back in the 80 here name is Torrie Spelling she carry her rooster channel every where and i would to bless that little chick he should be treat fair like a child who need extra attention. I would take him and love him till he could no longer. Maybe you could to. Email me if you have a way of getting him to me if you like
Johnny’s got me laughing and i cannot stop, even though i know it is sad of course. This is the kind of thing liberians can say to me when i get all mushy about our animals…he really put me in liberia today so thank him for me!!, heeheehee….
oh ginny, i’m already feeling sad over some less than happy news and now this little chick. jules is right, but sometimes its just so hard. and the sampler, oh how i want it, but i have to wait till after may (our trip).
I’m sorry to add to your sad news! I am feeling much better now. There seems to be a bit of a hump for me, and once I make it over, I’m fine. and-The sampler is so pretty. I am excited for you-the trip!!
Your husband is funny!!! And thanks for ruining Downton Abbey!
That is me trying to be funny! ;).
Oh my goodness, I didn’t even think of that….I hope I haven’t ruined it for anyone!!
Aw, poor chick! 🙁
We rescued a chick with two bum legs from the brood that my brother’s 3rd grade class hatched. It lived for 7 months, but never lost all it’s down or grew in many adult feathers. And yes, it lived a life similar to what your husband imagined for you: it lived in a cute cardboard box and was toted around with us. We spent a lot of time crafting on the porch in the company of a chick that summer! Best wishes for your difficult dilemma.
“Won’t it be great, Ginny?” OMWord!
Poor little chickie. Take care.
Yes so great, right?
I feel for you, too. I also can’t handle sick or dying animals. I just can’t.
Johnny’s comment made me laugh out loud, though. He just doesn’t get how softies like us are, heh?!
The most humane is putting him in a zip-lock in the freezer for a bit. The cold makes them go to sleep and then their heart stops. I have had to have JD do it, because I can’t – but it’s the best I think!
Jenny
I’m so glad you worked Downton Abbey into this post.
it just all came together
Aw Ginny, I feel for you – we hatched two batches of chicks in our incubator last year and we had a few with splayed leg. I never could get the elastic on the legs to work despite many success stories online. I crushed up alot of B vitamins and other mineral supplements etc (and I think there is one from a vet you can get) but I ended up deciding I had to kill them – many other sources suggested they would live a life of misery (pecking, etc) if left to mature without being able to walk. The most humane (and quickest) way I decided on was a paper bag and a heavy rock dropped from above. And lots and lots of tears! Good luck with your decision, it is a heartwrenching part of it all.
We had the same problem with one of our chickens last year. If you recognize the problem soon enough you can try and bind the legs together with some elastic ( I dont know the right word) yarn until the legs are straight. If it manages to stand within 24 hours theres a good chance it will be o.k. If not you should kill it – thats what we had to do, but we started binding the legs too late. But for the next time Im prepared and maybe you d like to try it too, if it happens again
Aline
Oh one more thing. I have worked in healthcare a long time. Generally speaking, if you can see something wrong with one of God’s creatures on the outside, most likely there is something very wrong on the inside:(
God is in control. Put chicky in a box with food and water. Don’t feed chicky. Let God heal or take her home. I had a love bird that got attacked by a hawk in it’s cage and had it’s leg ripped off. It wasn’t easy. Feeding only makes chicky stronger, but legs probably won’t work anyway, and chicky will suffer more later. Good luck;(
Oh, Ginny…that’s why George doesn’t want us to keep chickens. Not because he fears I’ll get too attached (that’s a given), but because he knows *he* will, too. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your little chick… xo
so sorry about the wee chickadee 🙁
i received my sampler day before yesterday and love it. now i just need to find time to do it rather than look at it 😉
I’ll just be looking at mine for awhile 🙂
Sometimes the most humane thing for the animal is to dispatch them. I know, it sounds heartless, but it’s better than watching them keel over. The easiest way (not that any way is easy) at this age is a cervical dislocation. You actually pull their neck and body apart. I’ve had to do it and it sounds horrible, but if you can do it in one pull, it doesn’t hurt them and then it’s over. sorry.
oh, ginny, i am so sorry. i would just care for the chick too. i don’t think having a poor paralyzed chick by your side in the garden sounds so bad! i keep wondering if we should get chickens or ducks, but i’m not sure that i could handle it either. it is not an easy thing caring for animals.
Aww, Ginny, like many other commenters, I can totally empathise with you!! We get meat chickens twice a year and have laying hens as well. I DO NOT do well when they die…my husband is much more pragmatic when it comes to caring for the farm pets, er I mean animals. We lost one hen, who fell prey to an owl and my oldest son, who was 6 at the time, developped an intense dislike for owls and cried so hard, he was nearly howling! Caring for our animals, I read once, makes us good farmers, because we believe they derserve a happy life too…if only for one purpose. Blessings,
Tammy
PS ~ my husband has had many a comment much like Johnny’s…thank God for those hubby’s!!
Oh my, you had me laughing and crying at the same time. Dear, sweet Ginny. It’s a good thing you have such a jovial husband. At least, one who’s used to you by now. 🙂
I hope your day gets brighter. And if you do design a chicken sling, I’m sure there are markets for that…though certainly not in America. 🙂
Like, Igor in” Fly Away Home”.
If you just got the chicks, and it was fine before, it probably got chilled. Usually when we get chicks in the cooler months, a few die every time from getting too cold during shipping. They will look fine at first, but over the next few days they die. Their legs get funny first, and then they just lay there. You can put raw apple cider vinegar in their water to help, but otherwise there’s not much you can do, as the damage was already done. They are very fragile. One way to humanely kill chicks is to put them in the freezer. Even with a mama hen, some chicks die. They are so small and delicate. I would just make it as comfortable as possible and see what happens.
The Joel Salatin supplement for leg problems was raw ground up liver, because it can be a B vitamin deficiency, but I think that would be unlikely in such a small chick. That usually affects meat birds that grow very quickly. Calcium is also indicated in older chickens who get leg problems, but it really sounds like it got chilled.
I totally get it. I have such a connection with animals and the pain they’re going through. It’s overwhelming sometimes for me. It will all work out in the end I know for you. It’s just the waiting that hurts. I love that you said that you may just have to order some yarn. That’s funny. At least you have a sense of humor to pull you through. xo
Hugs, Ginny!
That is exactly what is stopping us, and I feel for you, I really do. You know, in the end the idea of a paralysed chicken in a chicken carrier is not so bad, is it? Wishing you much strength if you do have to go the other way.
My hubby says the same thing. We would BOTH be a mess any time we lost an animal. I don’t know if that will ever be in our future, although we were hoping it would be. I’ll say a little prayer to St. Francis for poor baby chick!
We have been discussing chickens (and ducks) around our house as well. Your blog post is about one of the biggest things stopping us…I am not sure I could handle it, and I am positive that my 9 year old could not (and so is he, actually). So for now, we stick with vegetables, and when we have learned some more, and grown some more, maybe, just maybe, we will move on to chickens. Thank you for sharing the “not so sunny and bright side”.
Hi Ginny,
Oh, we are much the same here – last spring I wrote how we nurtured a little chick that we “knew” wouldn’t make it – but we loved and cared for her just the same. We do that for all of our chickens and we also keep our old ladies around until they die a natural death – no we are not good farmers – but that is ok with us. Tears, they are ok too.
Blessings,
Tonya
i can so sympathize with you! i am completely the kind of person who would make a carrier for the chick and carry her around all the time! when i was little, i was always rescuing moles and birds from my cat and nursing them back to health in shoeboxes under my bed.
aw, Ginny hang in there!! Maybe she will be like Matthew… I saw you ordered the latest cross stitch kit from posy gets cozy, I am ordering one too as soon as I finish my current cross stitch project!
I know exactly what you mean. One of our chickens has twisted toes and walks with a terrible limp. Everything we read said that we should cull it. We thought really hard about it, and since it was very evident that she was in no pain, and we have no intention of breeding our birds (twisted toes is genetic supposedly) we decided to wait and see if she can manage.
You know what, she does. She lays the most beautiful light blue eggs. I know that they’re hers because she lays in the corner of the coop because she can’t manage getting to the nesting boxes.
My husband said that at your chick’s age, Joe Salatin (sp?) in one of his books talks about a supplement you can feed a chick with leg problems that he uses often.
If your chick does not have a miracle recovery you can always take him/her to the vet….Sorry for your stress. Love the cross stitch order, looks like a fun project!
Poor chick! I hope she recovers on her own. What are they eating in your pictures? What kind of chicks are they?
Chickens are people, too.
(well, at least in *my* house they are!)
And thank you for mentioning Matthew.
He’s my celebrity boyfriend.
::swoon::
The pictures are gorgeous. I love the cross-stitch.
I’m so sorry about your little chicky. Unfortunately, for me, whenever there is a loss, it brings up the deep emotion of other losses. Crying is good. And then I can give it to God.
Peace.
I had to google how to kill a chicken when I didn’t lock ours up properly and a fox bit my Clementine’s bottom off and it would not heal. It was just horrible, my husband said the same thing… ‘no more pets’! xxx Very cute about the chick sitting next to you on the porch – I can visualise it!
The crying IS part of handling it. I have shed tears over the loss of chickens as well and have had moments of wondering if it is worth the heartache. Thankfully, the lovely parts far outnumber the grim ones. I mean, just LOOK at those gorgeous photos of your chicks; photos that teem with the vibrancy of life.
Oh! That is so sad! It is one thing that I am not sure I am ready for when we get our chicks. I am hoping that everyone is just happy and healthy!
I’m sorry about the situation. I used to be very sensitive to baby animals as a child, but growing in a household where “farm animals” where intended to become meat, I guess I got used to it. But there’s still a difference between a chick and a chicken… May I ask what purpose do you have for your flock? Is it intended for laying only, or for meat as well? The answer may put things in perspective.
I hope you fid a way to solve this situation with minor pain for you and your family.
Ginny, there is a way of putting them to sleep first and if you need help just let me know, ok? I have never been able to do it myself, but one of my son’s is a wildlife manager for a plantation and is trained for this. Last year he had to help me with one of my chickens while I sat inside and cried.
I do know how you feel and I’m sorry.
xx
Hang on in there Ginny, I had a chick with wonky legs, and eventually she began to hobble about. She never quite walked normally and had to sit down alot, but she got by. Hope yours recovers!
Matthew sounds like the perfect name. I am so sorry about the chick. Animal husbandry is so complex. I understand the need to order yarn, but Alicia’s work is a great replacement. I vacillated on her last sampler. I still wish I could buy that kit. Have fun with it while your little Matthew watches.
I do hope that Matthew Crawley is an appropriate name 🙁
Oh poor little chick. I have no idea how to humanely kill a chick, but isn’t there some way of putting them to sleep? I know it sounds awful but I’ve heard that is how things ‘used’ to be done with kittens and then drowning them. Our rooster got badly injured in a fox attack and we (well my father in law) drowned him, neither my hubby or me could bring ourselves to do it.
That is a very pretty photo of the chicks eating in the dish, they are all such lovely colours.
Good luck with whatever needs to be done!
Oh how I love this! I hope so much your chick improves miraculously.
Awww, Ginny, keep your beak up! A little humour does indeed go a long way, though I am sorry to hear about the little feathered friend’s fate. Sometimes it helps us cope with things we’d not like to deal with. Glad that Jonny is good for that:)
xo Jules
Aw, poor little chick.