The past few weeks I have been testing waters with a (semi) free range poultry farm. The idea is simple: using fencing nets I have barricaded tightly around a 25m x 4m space, and built a 3-walled shed on one end of the enclosure. The space has some natural shades almost covering the range, which I think has done well enough to hide chicks from ravaging hawks.
Next phase of the project is figuring how to supplement their feed. I am researching for some formulas and would very soon get mixing, once I find something light on the pocket and able to be sourced locally. For now the birds are living on the organic domestic waste from the kitchen, and the succulent herbs that litter the space.
I still have on the itinerary partitioning their sleeping area to allow for multiple birds to pick spots and lay eggs concurrently, without interference from the others.
In all I am trying to keep the expenses on this very low, as I consider the whole process very experimental. I am yet to see anyone in my community attempt such controlled husbandry of this local breed of birds. Everyone else is big on the genetically modified layer and broiler breeds. So much so that I fear the local breeds may well be on their way to extinction.
This past weekend came with some exciting challenge. I found a partially hatched egg in the spot where a mother hen had incubated her eggs. This was the runt of the pack, I guess. Since the hen had already taken out the 8 hatched chicks two days earlier, I thought this one was either going to die from the cold or suffocation inside the half-cracked egg. My intuition was to save the day, which I tried.
First I called a friend who is an animal scientist and he advised I can go ahead with the "c-section". He warned though I would have to provide warmth for the chick since it will be hard to get mother hen to sit over it. And then I may have some work to do to integrate her into the fold as mother hen has an intuitive count of her stock. I felt like Dwayne Johnson in Skyscraper, but I was going to try.
The following video details this process. Not before a warning:
WARNING!!! The following video contains some somewhat graphic images. If you are like me who experiences a sudden drop in blood pressure at the sight of blood, I would advice you go ahead and watch it. I mean I sat through the editing of this, having to watch repeated loops of this not-too-gross stuff. Try it. Put it on the family TV. Watch it with your kids.
That was beautiful, wasn't it? Yeah, sad too.
The chick died when I got there the next morning. It was strong enough to join the other chicks and create a room for itself beneath mother-hen's warm feathers the evening before. At that point I thought we won the race to stay alive. I suppose after that it wasn't strong enough to move till it was comfortable. So it may have died from the weight of the hen, or from suffocation, or from sheer exhaustion. Poor chick.
If I could do anything differently, it would be to have the frail chick separated for longer, in a carton with a lantern and food. For maybe another couple days till it was visibly energetic. Hindsight is 20/20.
In the brief moments the chick shared with us, it offered me and my family a chance to be fascinated at nature. An hour or so after leaving the egg, it already knew the sound of the mother hen and responded to it with excitement. The reaction of the hen and the other chicks when they first saw the new member of the family was golden. Glad I somewhat got that on tape on the memory stick. What was even more beautiful was its struggle to survive, and keep up with the rest of the fold. Beautiful soul. I hope you find peace wherever you are.
Before this becomes an eulogy to a chick, I am going to end this post. I will appreciate any suggestions or sharing of experiences with this method, in comments below. Please upvote, share and follow if you find value in this. Like that this blog post is over.
Peace,
Ubokobong Akpan