This one time we were staying with my Dad in New Plymouth.
The daily task for my cousin and I was to collect the eggs from a family friends chicken coop, who lived nearby, while they were away.
On the first day we noticed one of the hens getting picked on. Classic “pecking order” stuff. We shooed the other hens away but couldn’t do much else.
On the second day he looked a bit beaten up, and while we were there feeding them and collecting the eggs, one chicken after another would come past him and peck at the comb on top of his head!
Cruel bastards!
We shooed them away, but couldn’t do much else.
On the third day he was in really bad shape. He was sitting in the coop on an odd angle with his eyes half closed. The comb on the top of his head was completely gone, reduced to a bloodied mat of feathers.
I picked him up and stroked him for a while. But it was obvious he hadn’t eaten or drank in days and he had brain damage, barely conscious.
So we did the humane thing. We let him go…
And when I say “let him go”, I mean:
- We got back in the car, with the chicken cradled in my cousins lap…
- We accelerated up to 100km an hour on the open road…
- Opened the passenger window…
- And chucked the chicken out…
- We turned the car around…
- Found him just on the edge of the road…
- So I asked my cousin to help me position the front left tyre just behind the chicken…
- And floored it…
- After tearing up the road, we swung the car around and returned to the spot…
- And found only 4 or 5 feathers…
- The chicken had evaporated and had been put out of it’s misery… somewhat humanely…
- Mission accomplished.
My cousin, is still traumatised whenever I remind him of this story.
