Cock Up

Boiled piss and other regrets

The cockerel wheezed and hacked, his entire body hunched over. He was raking at the ground gasping for air, his comb turned blue as his body became desperate for oxygen. I dithered and held up my hands batting them ineffectually. Do I pick him up? Won’t that stress him more? Can you give chickens mouth to mouth?

He crouched down in the wood chip and after a few agonising moments his breathing eased and the dreadful soul-shaking rasps calmed to a rattle. His heart managed to keep beating. Watching an animal in distress is a special kind of torture, particularly when you can’t help. Particularly when you have caused it.

Merlin the cockerel is king of the flock of hens. Overall, he is a gentleman, he breaks up squabbles between his ladies and keeps the peace (more about that later). He leads them around the pasture with the confidence of a Victorian adventurer trekking through unknown jungle. If he finds a juicy morsel, he sings to let the girls know and give them first taste. He performs elaborate flamenco dances to his ladies that involve a great deal of formal wing-waving and spinning. When I got my new pullets, Cobweb and Mustardseed, he dipped his beak in corn and stood very still so they could peck bits off him.

Merlin’s daily crow is the soundtrack to our little farm. When the girls lay, they sing to tell Merlin to come and take them back to the field. Merlin sings back and the whole hullaballoo takes at least ten minutes each time. With seven hens, I spend much of day serenaded by song.

However, as with so many despots, Merlin‘s reign has a dark side. He is a ferocious bully. He attacks and occasionally pulls out the feathers of his least favourites. Last month, Calypso, my gentlest Maran, had stopped laying out of sheer terror, so I crated him for a month to give her a break.

Merlin was jailed in a large dog crate. Initially, he was furious and strode up and down, roaring at his fate.

Merlin crated and visited by the sheep and kitten

But then the heatwave struck. Suddenly, I was on a desperate mission to keep the hens alive. Still, they insisted on nesting in the coop, even in 39 degree heat, I kept fishing out dehydrated hens on the verge of collapse and putting them in the shade with electrolytes to recuperate. I didn’t want to let Merlin out as he would revert back to his old ways, so I poured a bucket of water in the base of the crate to keep his temperature down. It appeared to work so I repeated it several times a day. This, it turns out was a murderous mistake.

After the heatwave abated, I congratulated myself that I had kept the hens alive. But it soon became clear that something was wrong, Merlin couldn’t crow, his voice was reduced to a rasp and his breathing whistled. The backing singer to my life was quiet and clearly unhappy.

At first, I thought it was gapeworm that he’d had previously. I treated him accordingly (it’s the same medicine I’d given my kids for threadworms, urgh). Usually that works almost instantly but he continued to get more breathless and stayed mute.

I had to let him out of his crate. He immediately ran across the field and attacked Calypso, prison hadn’t reformed his character. But the activity caused him to pant and gasp, he was clearly in distress.

After much googling, I realised my error. I had repeatedly poured water over the deep bedding in his crate during the heatwave. The heat, water and pee had formed a toxic ammonia gas that had scarred his throat. I’d nearly murdered him with boiled cock piss.

I was devastated. One of my many flaws is that I like to be knowledgeable. I cannot bear being foolish or doing the wrong thing. I’m not someone who laughs gracefully at their blunders, I wish I was. I was so mortified at my stupidity and the thought I may have condemned an animal in my care to death through ineptitude - it nearly undid me. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even tell my husband what I had done.

For the next few days, I watched Merlin closely. I put him back in the crate, cleaned out this time and fed him bolstering tonic and scrambled egg. I visited him hourly and monitored every symptom. For two days he seemed to be getting worse, his breathing became laboured and the slightest action tired him out. Occasionally, his comb turned a dark threatening blue. I was warned online that his heart would probably give out.

And then yesterday at dawn, I was crowed awake. Merlin had shaken off his infection and was trumpeting his return from near death. I was so relieved I staggered out at 4.30am to see him, guilty and overjoyed.

I’m left with a horny cockerel that needs taming. I wish I could say that I had learned to own up to my mistakes, but I haven’t. I haven’t admitted to my husband that it was my idiocy that nearly killed Merlin and I’m not going to be able to tie this up in a bow with a neat witticism.