With our aspirations to self-sufficiency and high quality foods, we have shared our garden with chickens for the last 3 years. The first lot we had, we nurtured up through the summer and then as the clocks went back, dispatched, plucked, jointed and ate them. They had a good life, and a clean death and we knew where our food had come from.
The second lot we hung on to for two years, and they have had a good life, and when the clocks go back, they will have a quick, clean death. I know that we have done our best by them (warm feeds when there have been frosts, a good mix of layers ration and treats, ample slugs and worms), so I feel no guilt.
The problem is their breed - each time we have gone for the beige jobs - see below. These are bred we understand to populate the battery houses of Europe, and are incredibly efficient at producing an egg a day for a year. There is precious little meat on them, even with trying to fatten them up, and after a year they show their age, so that now our remaining two are grumpy old ladies. It is totally driven by their breeding, which seems rather unfair to us.
When we restock next year, we will not be getting "beige jobs", we will have something a bit more refined. They won't produce so many eggs - we know that - but they will keep going longer and will have a bit of meat on them if we get peckish!
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