our roosters

this morning james and i delivered 11 chickens to be butchered.  8 were our pubescent roosters born in august and 3 were older hens.  i felt strange as we chased the 11 chickens around their free-range area last night, then even stranger as we transferred them from their crate into a teeny box at the processor's home this morning.  strange is the best word i can find for the conflict inside me over this process....

why?  why do we put ourselves through this?  feeding the animals, wading through poop to retrieve a few precious eggs, watching them grow, observing the kids playing with them, the dogs barking at them, then taking them to slaughter.  i was at the grocery store yesterday, why not just buy one of those nice clean chickens in the plastic for a few dollars?

my fervent thirst for doing all i can to move toward a just world for all.  "all i can" seems usually to be disappointedly small.  but if i can feed my family animals from our own backyard, i accomplish a few things i can feel really good about.  one, i know that my family is getting meat that has been healthily and ethically raised.  my hope is our chickens have a great life, then one bad day (which happens to be today for our unlucky 11).  additionally, i know that a fair wage is paid to the family butchering and processing our birds.  do we save money?  in the end, probably not.  it's just something i enjoy doing in our little piece of the world to hopefully make it a little more just for us all.  am i a purist?  no, i have a frozen chicken from the grocery store sitting in my freezer as i write this.  all we can do is the best we can, and hope all of our little collective efforts add up to making a bigger difference together, right?

so at 2:00 i go to retrieve our chickens.  i can only describe the feeling as "strange" because of the attachment that comes from taking care of a creature for 5 months, and thus sadness.  this is coupled with the hope that i've done a small good thing, as well as excitement about a yummy free-range roast chicken coming soon!  well, 11 to be exact.