Welcome to Thunderdome

So who among us have killed an animal, prepped it, and eaten it in the same day? I guess fish would count.

Do insects count?

Fish and squirrel. Maybe chicken soon. One of the hens has taken a run at me a couple of times when opening their coop. She looks at me with this crazy eye. I told her we're eating her first.

Vince wrote:Fish and squirrel. Maybe chicken soon. One of the hens has taken a run at me a couple of times when opening their coop. She looks at me with this crazy eye. I told her we're eating her first.

She's definitely put you into the bitch position in the pecking order.

Fish and dove. Although I haven't done either since I was 12.

GORDON wrote:

Vince wrote:Fish and squirrel. Maybe chicken soon. One of the hens has taken a run at me a couple of times when opening their coop. She looks at me with this crazy eye. I told her we're eating her first.

She's definitely put you into the bitch position in the pecking order.

Definitely. I need to start setting a potato next to her while she's nesting just so she can get used to the idea.

Ha.

Well, a day later and I still feel a little bad about killing it, though in my brain I understand it needed to be done. I'm just not a gleeful animal killer.

And I am ready to bet a dollar that another one is going to start crowing any day now..... unless it took the lesson of the first rooster to heart.

GORDON wrote:the first rooster

Did you in fact end up with a rooster, then?

Well, yeah. Little fucker was looking me in the eye as he crowed over and over, daring me to do something about it.

So I got out the "hunting" knife that I bought a couple years ago for my Yellowstone trip (I was going to be the slowest hiker, so in case of bear attack I was going to stand my ground and get one good stab at the fucker before it killed me), and I hung it upside down, cut its throat, watched it bleed out, plucked the feathers, gutted it, dressed it, cooked it with bbq sauce, and ate it.

GORDON wrote:Well, a day later and I still feel a little bad about killing it, though in my brain I understand it needed to be done. I'm just not a gleeful animal killer.

The next one will be easier. I doubt it will ever be a "gleeful" event, but after a bit of time you realize that it's what happened to every chicken you've ever eaten. Also, he lived a better life than most chickens.

Every chicken dies. Not every chicken really lives.

The Braveheart line made me chuckle.

And that's funny, I used the exact argument with my wife last night, saying Christine had a better life than any of the chickens we ever bought at Kroger.

Then my son said, "Yeah but tomorrow he will be living in our septic tank."

GORDON wrote:Well, yeah. Little fucker was looking me in the eye as he crowed over and over, daring me to do something about it.

So I got out the "hunting" knife that I bought a couple years ago for my Yellowstone trip (I was going to be the slowest hiker, so in case of bear attack I was going to stand my ground and get one good stab at the fucker before it killed me), and I hung it upside down, cut its throat, watched it bleed out, plucked the feathers, gutted it, dressed it, cooked it with bbq sauce, and ate it.

I hope you made the others watch.

They had line of sight.

And they actually seemed subdued after it was done...

"Guess we're not getting laid any more."
"I dunno, the big guy with the knife is still here."

Funny, in an unrelated facebook conversation I am getting a reputation as a goat fucker.

You sure get around. Hope the chickens don't hear about it.

GORDON wrote:Funny, in an unrelated facebook conversation I am getting a reputation as a goat fucker.

You should correct them and say, "It's goat seducer, asswipe."

Any eggs yet? Ours (or a couple any way) started laying this week. First eggs was small, but a good first effort. Second and third eggs had paper thin shells and collapsed. Read that isn't unusual in the first week of egg laying. Today got one this AM and two this PM.

"Raising CHickens for Dummies" calls those first few undersized eggs "practice eggs." Yeah, supposedly normal.

Do you have them on commercial feed? I've read an incorrect ration of protein/whatever can cause fucked up shells.

Mine are about 14 weeks old... book says they start laying 18-22 weeks. I am still looking at one of those black ones to start crowing... its feathers have a masculine sheen, it's big, and it is possibly growing a fancy tail. But it is quiet. So dunno.... my book says that sexing adult chickens is easy. "If it lays eggs, it is a girl. If it crows, it is a boy." For dummies, indeed.

I was surprised to learn that a chicken egg goes from a single cell into the thing in our refrigerators in under 24 hours. I assumed there was like a 10-day pipeline of eggs up the chickens' asses.