From: "danceswithcarp" <dcombs-AT-bloomington.in.us> Subject: We're going to have to do something about Elvis... Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 22:02:18 -0500 It has come down to it: We're going to have to put Elvis down, tommorrow. He has been in seriously failing health these last couple, three weeks. His feet swelled tremendously about a week after we moved him into Graceland, so much so that he couldn't walk. He had really enjoyed the new digs and had worn the grass off in just a few days from his incessant strutting back and forth, tail in full bloom, a loud "lurp, lurp," coming from his chest. Then he got to the point of just standing and stomping his feet for hour after hour. When I'd go into Graceland to feed him, my mate, Pat, would have to follow me in to ward off his attacks while I dished out his food and changed his water. But his stomping and his massive weight combined to seal his fate more so than any fist-fight with me would have. One of his feet swelled to the point it looked like it would burst from the inner-pressure. He couldn't put any weight on it and was forced to stand on one shank. Literally, he was down to his last leg. So I carried him into the turkey-house we'd built him and for the last two weeks I've been carrying feed and water to him and feeding him aspirin, anti-arthritis and inflammatory durgs that I've accumulated over the years, but to no avail; he has been alert and hungry, but crippled. There are two windows in the turkey-home and every morning I open the door so he gets air and he has spent these early winter days looking about and crapping out the doorway. He goes "lurp, lurp," when he sees me and he quit trying to attack me days ago. But he hasn't been that same happy turkey who tried to beat the tar out of me just a month or so ago. I called a poultry vet and she lamented with me but there wan't much she could do. She reaffirmed my knowledge that these big white birds are so hybridized they only live for about three years if given the chance, and then their pre-programmed great weight becomes too much for their frames, and heart. The swelling, she said, was either in response to his 40 pounds or was an edema of fluids caused by a failing heart. She said just to make him comfortable and love him and remember the good times we'd shared. Okay, I says, so I made up memories of good times to remember. But tonight I had to go to a school function and son Levi was to shut up the chicken houses and Graceland. Pat called him from the school and he said the chickens were up but Elvis was laying out in Graceland's yard and he couldn't get him in. Meanwhile it had recommenced to raining; a cold and steady Novemeber rain--One that makes my knees ache. The instant Pat and I were finished at the school we bailed out to come home and get Elvis out of the rain. I saw him before I got the gate to Graceland opened. He was lying off to the side, by the fence, in the bare spot he'd stomped into the grass. He'd had to have flapped and flogged his wings to get himself out that far as his bad foot is now curled in some horrific fetal-looking position. The bare spot was inch-deep mud with puddles that shined and shimmered in the dark and there Elvis lay in that mud, feathers soaked and drenched to the skin, shivering uncontrollably in the rain. He looked so very small laying in the mud, nothing like the proud bird we'd put in there a few weeks ago. I picked him up and carried him back to his turkey-house in Graceland. His "lurp, lurp" was soft and weak. I doubt I ever forget how he shook in my arms from the cold and probably from The Fear. I put him in his house, and heaped up the hay around him to help him warm and came back inside to brood. I think Elvis put himself out in that yard for a reason. I also think I have learned a lot from Elvis; it is a cruel society that reduces an animal to a commodity; that creates a breed destined to suffer if it is lucky enough to live. I have killed cows, pigs, deer, squirrel, quail and all manners of other meats, but I will never again eat a store-bought bred-for-meat turkey Because tommorrow we're going to have to do something about Elvis. Someone tell Heather for me. carp
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