Chicken Rustling on the Urban Homestead

We've been robbed. Really. Our urban homestead has been visited by chicken rustlers. I originally ordered 36 meat birds. The hatchery sent us 40 chicks. They all survived. I counted them numerous times when they were babies and still corral-able, if that's a word. There were 40 chickens, roosters and hens alike, but 40 chickens in total.

This past Tuesday was the day they were scheduled to be readied for the freezer. As directed, Mickey had fed them their last meal on Sunday evening and they received only water from Monday forward to make sure they didn't get dehydrated. Not feeding the chickens for 24 hours makes for a cleaner and much easier processing. Tuesday, Mickey and the husband of the friend whom I had bartered with to perform the freezer readiness duties did their jobs transferring the 12-week old chickens into cages and getting them to my friend. It was a several-part transfer because the cages weren't large enough to hold all the birds, but it worked out well because she would be working on the batch she had just received while they guys were transporting the next batch.

And then I received a Facebook chat message from my friend asking me how many birds there were again. I responded quickly with the 40 I knew it to be. She said she had counted twice and there were only 34. I didn't know what to say to her. All I could think was that while I've been up in Lake City readying the farmhouse for move-in that some of the birds had passed and Mickey didn't have the heart (or the guts) to tell me. He was having a rather tough emotional go of it with the purpose of the day, and I decided I wouldn't ask for a day or two, giving him time to get past the situation.

So here's what appears to have happened. One day a couple weeks ago, Mickey came home to find our backyard gate open and a bicycle he had never seen before lying in the walkway between our home and our neighbor's. He thought it was odd, but let it go and continued into the backyard to count the hens who roam freely and might have escaped. All 10 were there. He noticed some feathers in the yard, but again let that go knowing that all 10 hens were safe. It never crossed his mind that it might be the meat birds because they were safely locked in our homemade chicken tractor. He could see them. And the tractor was locked. There were lots of red chickens. About an hour later, he went back outside and the bicycle was gone.

My guess is that someone in the neighborhood was hungry. And I'm okay with that. I've always told anyone stopping by to see the garden or the chickens that if they want something all they have to do is ask. I often give egg customers fresh produce from the garden when they stop to pick up their egg orders. What goads me is this person didn't ask. I would have given them the chickens. I would never knowingly let someone go hungry if I have the means to feed them a meal.

So the missing chicken mystery is solved. We've got chicken rustlers in Pembroke Pines. Beware.