We Bought a Farm: Meatless the Chicken

A farm is made up of thousands of stories. Tiny little stories that we reminisce over during farm dinners as the days and weeks and months carry on. Some are quite sad. Stories of bad decisions and mistakes that meant death and loss.

But many are good. Funny. Encouraging. Happy. Reminders of the real life that is going on here at the Bauernhof and the happiness surrounding it.

One of those stories has to do with a white chicken named Meatless.  

Last night I went to put our laying chickens to bed as someone on the farm does every single evening just as the sun is going down. It was a beautiful night, and I took out my camera to record some of the sights and sounds of twilight on the farm. The chickens are parked near our pond and the sounds of the frogs mixed with chickens and bugs is so peaceful to me.

Meatless was the last chicken in for the evening.

Sometimes I forget the Meatless story until I see her again, and I remembered how one ten-year-old girl saved her life.

We were processing an entire tractor of meat birds. Three hundred of them. Meatless was one of those 300 birds. From the moment we got that shipment of birds in, Meatless didn't grow. She was so much smaller than all of the other chickens. 

My niece Kari helping to feed the chickens.

When it came time to process Meatless, my niece, Kari, begged for mercy. John explained that Meatless was a meat bird which meant she couldn't live forever. She'd get too heavy and eventually not be able to get up into the egg-mobile, and we'd have to put the chicken down. 

Kari would not be deterred. She said that she would promise to put Meatless down when the time came.

(Actually she promised her father would do it, but still. She took ownership of it.)

So John agreed to put Meatless out with the laying chickens instead of processing her on that cold, wet processing day. It was truly just a favor to Kari. It felt like a waste of time. Meatless wasn't a laying chicken. Kari was just giving her a stay of execution.

But we did it for Kari.

And wouldn't you know it, Meatless ended up being a white layer. Not a meat bird at all. She was a "different" chicken accidentally thrown in with all the meat birds. She grew into a beautiful layer and has now lived two years with our laying chickens, laying eggs, and enjoying her name: Meatless which is the whole reason she is still alive.

I love that story. And I love seeing Meatless and seeing how one little girl jumped in front of the firing squad to save her life. 

And she lives on,