A Gross Injustice

Some of you may have read about a recent crime out here on the farm.  The post included detailed information about the crime, the investigation, the suspects, the final judgement in the case, and then the punishment.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, you can catch up on the details here - Drat!

As with all things in this world, nothing is perfect, and it seems that there has been a mistake made in our Justice System.  I am truly saddened to report this because I feel like most of us want to believe that the system works all of the time.  Unfortunately, there are some details that will fall through the cracks if given a chance.

Kid, the cat, has been wrongly accused and convicted of the murder of a little girl chicken.  He has been sentenced to a severe course of rehabilitation and punishment that he has been in compliance with.  Not once has he cried foul.  He has just submitted to what fate has dealt him, and tried to endure his incarceration with three other hardened criminals.  I am not sure how this is going to be made up to him, but there are people meeting as I type, trying to come up with a plan to make this right.

The truth always comes out in the end, and this is how the drama unfolded...

I had to get some hay from the hay barn the other night, and upon entering, I caught a possum in full pursuit of another little girl chicken.  After a lot of screaming and whacking with the shovel, and some assistance from my faithful helper, I was able to apprehend him/her under a large muck bucket.  Once we had him/her secured under the bucket, we had to slide a screen under both of them and then on a, "One, Two, Three!", flip it over.  To say the least, the Thing was not happy with us, and we were not happy with the Thing!

I sent my help to run for back up, and I inspected the damage.  I had a white chicken with no tail feathers left, at all, and she was a little bloody on the back end.  That was bad in itself, but the sad part was when I caught her.  She must have been running for her life for a while, because when I was finally able to snatch her up off the ground, I thought that she was going to have a heart attack.  I have never heard a chicken cry like that before.  I did my best to calm her down, and then I put her in the infirmary so that she could heal without the other hens pecking on her.  I may have also doctored her a little with a saline wash and an antibiotic ointment?

Don't judge me.

It was sad.

When back up arrived, there was a short discussion, with everyone in agreement, we felt a New Brand of Justice was in Order.