Ouch!

We are now down to 1 duck and 2 chooks. One of the chooks was just never quite right. She had a gimpy comb that never grew, an extra long beak, she never laid eggs and all of a sudden she started to limp and the she developed quite a noticeable list to starboard. I moved her away from the other birds in case her gimpiness was contagious and expected that she would expire almost immediately. It would seem though that living in a box in our laundry and being fed through a dropper was to her liking and so she malingered for quite a while until S could stand it no longer. When I asked him what he was going to tell Jack he replied that he would say, "Daddy had to euthanise the chicken. I guessed correctly that he only wanted to say this so that Jack would use the word euthanise at preschool.
The remaining poultry continue to do well. They lay eggs and in return receive extravagant praise and a variety of scraps provided not only by us but by workmates (thanks Sarah & Jen) and even the local school canteen. Recently I went to collect the eggs and found this enormous offering (pictured next to a normal egg). As Amy pointed out you can even see the line half way down where the chicken has paused to say, No, that's it I can't do it. Ouch.