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| Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. |
I meant to post this last night, but I was so wiped out on every level that I forgot to do it (along with forgetting doses of two different medicines). It was a difficult day by any and every measure, at the end of an equally difficult week . . . in no small part because as of Thursday afternoon, Cobalt has left us to fly with her sisters.I couldn't find a good image of her by herself, but if you click on the image above, she's the black chicken with white-spotted feathers behind and to the left of the dogs and the tree. It's a shot from August of 2021, when she would've been a little over four years old. She was the last of our silver-laced Wyandottes, a skittish but tough little thing with absolutely magnificent plumage: nominally black and white, but in the sunlight? Silver and intense, deep, iridescent blues, the kind of color that gave her her name, Cobalt, although we mostly called her Cobie for short. [If you've never seen what actual cobalt looks like in its natural state, Wikipedia shows several examples in various stages of refining, and you'll why it suited her so.]
Cobie was independent; she didn't want to be picked up or held, and while she hung with the other girls, she also did her own thing. We have three Australorps, two Americaunas, and one older Rhode Island Red, and she and the Red, Pumpkin, probably felt the greatest affinity for each other, maybe precisely because they were each the last of their kind.
Two weeks ago, I went to put the chickens in for the evening, and after rounding up the other six, I discovered that Cobie was missing. I called and called, to no avail, all while looking around her usual haunts. I finally found her, sitting calmly in broody position on the west side of the open hay barn — not far away at all. But that told me that something was wrong.
She couldn't stand on her right side properly, and at first I thought it was the leg; then she spread the wing for balance and I could see where something had grabbed it — grabbed her, and apparently failed spectacularly when it came to feasting on a chicken dinner, but having inflicted some damage all the same. My first thought was Stormy, because her first weeks of starvation before she came to us have left her a particularly predatory pup, and she has a record already on that score. Thinking back on it, though, I don't think it was her: First, she always behaves with very obvious guilt whenever she's been chasing chickens or wild birds or whatever else catches her attention; and second, Cobie was sitting right out in the open, comfortable and relaxed, with the dogs all running back and forth gong about their doggy business. Cobie was the sort that would have hidden beneath the chicken coop had she had any real fear of the dogs right then.
Which leaves a couple of possibilities: One is that, while our dogs were off woofing over the fence at the neighbor dogs, either the stray dog I sighted on our west boundary about three weeks ago, or, much more likely, a stray coyote, wandered through, grabbed her, and then got scared off. The second possibility is a raptor. The red-tails and we have an unspoken agreement; they never, ever bother our chickens, apparently understanding intuitively that they are family. The harrier, though, shows no such compunction, and she is fierce. I haven't seen her for several weeks, but it's nesting season now, so I have no doubt that she's around. She could easily have grabbed Cobie without getting a firm grip, and dropped her in the process.
At any rate, we initially thought it was just a wing injury, and with no break, we assumed that it would heal. After a week, it became obvious that the real problem as her leg underneath; I had palpated it on the day of the injury, to no visible reaction from her, but presumably some damage at or above the knee joint took some time to manifest. In the meantime, Wings had built her a small straw-bale fort in the coop, and we kept her fed and watered there, with plenty of her beloved mealworm chicken treats, and altough she didn't move around a great deal, she was alert, engaged, and happy.
On Thursday morning, when Wings went into the coop, she was the same: alert, happy, watching his every move, chirping her thanks at him when he gave her her treats, eating them immediately. When I went out about 3:45 that afternoon to put them all back in for the night and feed them, she was gone. It was clear that she had closed her eyes to go to sleep, and while she was asleep, everything just . . . stopped. Which is, I suppose, probably the best possible way to go. But it did tell me that there was something internal going on that we couldn't identify, possibly a talon puncture of an organ or something. The one saving grace is that she had no apparent pain, save when she tried to stand on the injured leg. The vet had planned to come out the day before, but the weather was too bad; My guess is that he couldn't have saved her, but perhaps it was meant to happen this way, with no fear and no trauma from being examined, just being allowed to go to sleep normally . . . and then moving on. Based on body temperature and rigor, my best guess is that her little spirit left for other planes of existence about 2 PM.
Cobie would have been six years old next month; we've learned the hard way that for the "organic" chicks sold locally, that's a pretty long life. [To be clear, I don't think it's that they're "organic" that has made them vulnerable, but more likely, inexperienced breeders.] But for most of those nearly six years, she was a consistent layer, and she was a beautiful bird with a quirky personality all her own. We buried her yesterday morning, with everything she'll need for her journey — including, of course, some of the mealworm treats she loved so much. And yes, she was a chicken, but we miss her.
We love you, little Cobalt girl. Thank you for all the beautiful brown eggs.
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
