A little spark goes out, and Ember flies on.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

That's a photo from almost four years ago, when our second group of chicks were first released into the coop. There were four of the black sex-links, all pictured. One of those four was Ember.

She walked on, or perhaps flew on, about 9:30 PM last night. Little girl fought hard, but she didn't make it to the new year.

There are only four girls remaining from that group now: her sister black sex-link, Dahlia, and three of the reds, Cinnamon, Spice, and Pumpkin. Spice is the little girl with nine lives and no social skills, and she took off out the gate this morning after we'd laid her sister to rest; the other three were more hesitant, emerging only slowly, looking from her resting place, out of their line of sight, to me and back again and again. Dahlia in particular seems to know she's gone.  

I have close-ups of Ember herself, but they all seem to be on my old laptop, currently unreachable. So it's the photo above, and this one, which in its way is the cause of her early departure last night:

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

A couple of years ago, Ember became badly egg-bound. That was, unfortunately, not unusual for that particular group of chicks; it's a breeder issue, and these were apparently bred carelessly, to say the least. Too many of them suffered from genetic predispositions to it. We fought like hell to save ever single one of them, but absent costly surgical intervention that, as far as I know, no vet around here handles anyway, there's not much that can be done aside from some external efforts and a lot of luck. We still tried. And with Ember, we fought for days to save her.

And we did. We knew she was out of the woods when she laid the egg shown above. That was hers, and proof that she'd conquered the condition. Then.

But it puts them at greater risk for future incidents, and she and her cohort were getting older, and it's cold now and they're more vulnerable. And on the 29th, Wings came and found and asked me to take a look at her, because she was standing huddled up with one leg lifted. That's usually a sign; the egg is in the wrong place, and they lift or stretch a leg trying to shift the weight to a more comfortable position. I checked her over, worked on her for a bit, and she put her leg down and started moving around again. I monitored her, and she spent the rest of the day happily scratching and pecking, as engaged as all the rest. She was the same on the 30th . . . until evening, and then she put herself to bed inside the inner part of the coop (they normally sleep stubbornly on top of it) in the corner where she and Dahlia have always gone when they don't feel well and want to be safe. 

Yesterday, she didn't come out, although she did get herself to her feet. By evening, she had moved to the other side, but she was clearly unsteady and uncomfortable, her internal heater just as clearly not working properly. So we got an old plastic shopping basket and put an old throw rug in it, and I lifted her out and placed her carefully in it. We brought her indoors and set her near the larger woodstove, and she settled in comfortably, happy to be warm. I checked on her every few minutes. A bit before 9:30, she was still responsive, if too tired to do more than move her head and chirp in acknowledgment. At 9:40, she was gone, and clearly had been gone for a few minutes, her head nestled into her chest. She simply went to sleep in the warmth, and kept going.

We buried her this morning, out by some of the sisters who predeceased her, near a dwarf blue spruce that we planted in honor and memory of a warrior who has walked on; his anniversary was less than a week ago. She has everything she needs for her journey. And yes, it broke my heart — it always does — but in this instance, it seemed she was relaxed, at peace, in no pain and now content to join her sisters.

And still, a little spark has gone out of the coop, and our lives. We love you, Ember.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.