Our family has come to like chicken.
Over the past few years, our friends and neighbours have raised enough to go around.
This spring we were alarmed to realize that everyone we knew had backed out of raising extra chickens.
On the spot we decided we had little choice but to do it ourselves.
Two dozen came to us in a box not much bigger than a shoebox.
A day is as much as a year in the life of a meat bird.
Within eight weeks, not a single bird could fit into that box.
As a bird bred to be juicy tender breast meat,
I was pleased that they seemed prettier and more active than I had expected.
We new it was time to do them in when they had to strain to lift their cheast from the ground.
After walking a few steps they would let their legs collapse with an audible thunk.
We took them apart in the front yard.
The next day I changed gears.
I went to the Ogilvie Mountains where Willow Ptarmigan,
the local counterparts of our Cornish Giants
live at large.
Joe Bishop took this photo.
