The chickens of Little Pup Lodge do not roam its fields and gardens because I got tired of serving too many free-range entrées to the coyotes.  However, their life is vastly better than those that are supposedly raised “cage–free." The ladies  just got a brand-new gorgeous home and they have a large pen for dust baths and working on their tans.  I still feel guilty so I collect treats for them two or three times a day, their favorite being escargot. We had no snails here on the property so I posted an ad on Freecycle.

  Attila the Hen and her gang.

The responses were both numerous and rather illuminating about my fellow Santa Cruzans. One potential snail donor was seriously conflicted about whether to share her snails with me.  Heather, after admitting she did have a few hanging around, emailed, "....Is giving them to the chickens a cruel way to die?  Its not like when you step on one and its [sic] dead instantly... arent [sic]the chickens going to peck at them and kill them slowly?"

Avez-vous des escargots plus?

Well, Heather, yes and yes. It certainly is an awful way for our little mollusk friends to die. On the scale of cruelty, however, it beats snail-bait or some kid with a magnifying glass on a sunny day. And although chickens snap those bad boys up pretty fast, it must feel slow, very slow, to  the soon-to-be appetizers. Perhaps their life flashes before their eyes, or tentacles, or whatever. They think of garden plants they've eaten, places they've traveled (usually about a two-foot radius) and hot snail sex they've had. Which can be pretty often, since each snail has both male and female reproductive organs.

I'm just a shell of my former self.

Then there was Cecile, who got taken by one of those notorious snail-ranch scams. She (and about another 50 people, she said) paid $20 to hear a speaker expound on how to make quick, easy money with her very own snail ranch. The grifter promised to come back around and buy them all up but, alas, never showed. I got a little excited at this point in the email, pretty sure Cecile was going to offer me her whole herd, which must be enormous by now. Unfortunately, explained Cecile, the ranch's roof caved in and they all stampeded into the night. However, a few wandered back and I was welcome to them.

Help! I've been slugged in the face!

I took a pass on Heather's offer; I couldn't handle the emotional baggage that went with it. I was concerned that Cecile would regale me with more stories about her days as a slug-wrangler. Fascinating, no doubt, but I had a business to run. In the end, I settled on three slug connections, but within a couple of weeks, I wiped them out.

Fortunately, Safeway has the hens' other favorite treat on special this week; six ears of corn for a buck.