Pumpkin, Grounded No More

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

This morning, Wings went outside to feed Miika and let the chickens out of the coop. He was back a few moments later to let me know that we had lost our Red: pumpkin, grounded no more, can fly with Cobalt and her sisters now.

It's not a good photo, but Punkin, as she was also known, somehow managed to evade the camera most of the time. At least here, in this shot from a few years ago, you can see her face. More often, despite being by far the largest of our chickens, she managed to hide herself behind the others save for a flash of rusty red feathers here or there.

When I say "hide," of course, I don't mean it literally; it was more that she was active, always finding something to peck on the ground or pull from the soil, ruining my shot at the very last second. In addition to being the largest, she was also by far the oldest of our girls, and while she wasn't exactly thrilled with being picked up, she would let me do it if I needed to scoop her up and into the coop quickly (for example, on sighting a coyote).

And because she was the oldest, today's developments were not exactly a shock, although even last night she was moving around pretty briskly for an old girl (far better than I am, to be entirely truthful about it). She was, if memory serves, one of our second crop of chickens, born [hatched] on April first or second of 2014. That would put her only days shy of her ninth birthday, and for a chicken? That's ancient. But she was always a tough little girl, still laying up until a couple of years ago. By then, she'd more than earned her rest from all of that. She was not the alpha (that status belongs to the younger and more aggressive Australorp, Jade), but she was also nowhere near the bottom of the flock. Instead, she seemed to occupy her own special space, able to discipline others if she felt the need, and entirely undisciplinable by them. She never abused it; during Cobalt's last weeks, it was Pumpkin who sat with her, side by side or face to face in broody position, just keeping her company. She did the same with Mica [Little Bent-Beak] and others; her advanced age seemed to give her special empathy for those with disabling issues.

For months, now, we've noticed Pumpkin slowing — still lively, just slower. Given her age, none of that was surprising; what was surprising was just how active and engaged she still was. And it appears that she was the same last night, going to sleep as usual and then, in the morning hours, simply not waking up. As ways to depart go, it's about as good as it gets.

But I'm going to miss my big red girl, the Rhode Island Red hybrid who outpaced all the others on size, on age, and for a while, on egg production, too. She was one the sweet girls; chickens can be bullies, but she mostly about caring for the others.

We love you, little Punkin girl. Thank you for years of beautiful eggs, and for taking care of the whole flock. 

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.          

Cobalt has left us to fly with her sisters.

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.        

Daphne flew on yesterday.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

We had to begin this day with a burial.

Daphne flew on yesterday, somewhere right around three o'clock in the afternoon. It was right in the middle of a gap in the weather; we weren't supposed to get rain yesterday, according to the forecast, but of course they're always wrong. Anyway, we knew we'd have to wait until this morning to take care of laying her little body to rest, so we did.

She had been slowing down for most of the past week or so. It didn't appear to be anything other than age-related natural causes; she was, like all but one of our now-remaining seven chickens, about five and a half years old. It's not ancient for a chicken, but it seems to be about the average life span of these "organic" local chicks. We honestly thought that Pumpkin, our old lady Red, would be the next to go, since she's about eight and a half (which is getting up there for a chicken), but while she's a little slower these days, she still seems to be going strong.

Daphne was one of a group of Americaunas we got in early 2017. They're a mix of the Spanish Aracauna (pretty much none of which are pure here anymore, although they're advertised that way) and Buff Orpington, I think it is. Apparently the mix makes for an especially hardy egger, and these fluffy golden whiskered girls are some of those that lay the turquoise eggs. Daphne certainly gave us dozens of hers over the years.

For some time, we'd been down to four (out of an initial six of this particular bunch, if memory serves); we lost Mica, A/K/A Little Bent Beak (because her beak was indeed bent, having gotten stepped on by a sibling in her first hours of life outside the egg), back in February, and then, as the saying goes, there were three.

These three were always fairly close, all named for flowers: Daffodil, Dandelion, and Daphne. Of the three, Daphne seemed to be the boss, although even she was subordinate to the real boss chicken, Jade (an Australorp). But Daphne also was a bit of a loner at times, and while she hung with her sibs, she would also regularly be found off by herself a little bit, pecking and scratching. She also dearly loved to lie on the ground by the west bird feeder and eat out of the little house tray Wings bought for the birds (a storm had knocked it off its perch), so from then on, he left it on the ground upright and filled it for her so she could enjoy herself.

Like her sisters, she was named for a little golden flower, but she was also a tough little thing. About three years ago, I noticed that she was limping slightly; she had developed some swelling in her left leg, but she didn't let it stop her. I checked her over thoroughly, of course, and could find no injury, nor any site or source of infection, and a deep dive into Google produced no answers. Whatever small amount of pain it caused her resolved itself in a matter of days and she was back to running at top speed with the others, doing her best to fly out of the gate in the morning, but the change in size remained; it never seemed to bother her, though. She spent her days doing a chicken's favorite things, principally eating, and of course drinking out of the dogs' plastic pool and creating divots in the dirt for her dust baths. 

That photo is from about a year ago — last summer, and she was escaping the heat by lying at the soft, damp base of the aspen (soft and damp because of all of Wings's hard labor watering then; Spirit knows we didn't get any measurable rain). She looked much the same this week, albeit because she apparently knew what we didn't: that her slowing down was going to be of the permanent kind. Each afternoon when I went to put them all back in the free range coop, I had to go looking for her, and each day, I'd find her a little apart from the others, in broody position, but seemingly relaxed and enjoying the cool wet grass, so I didn't think too much about it. I did notice a couple of days ago that the slowing had taken on a different quality, and mentioned briefly that she might be leaving us sooner than we would've thought. I never thought it would be this soon.

I went out yesterday between storms to put them in the coop for the night, and managed to round up seven of the eight. Daphne was missing. I searched her usual haunts, and found right up against the pups' pool, one of those hard plastic kiddie pools they can use to cool off in this ungodly heat. She liked to drink out of it, and apparently had settled herself against it to remain comfortable for whatever time she had left. She appeared to be sleeping, but when I called her name, she opened her eyes and raised her head. I realized then that she probably didn't have long, so I picked her up and carried her to the coop, eventually settling her by the water, and she responded with that little fluttery sound they make, a cross between a chirp and a purr, when they're happy. Wings had walked up, and we talked about what seemed to be occurring, so he leaned down to stroke her feathers also, and we both told her we loved her.

I went out again a little while later to find that she had taken a few steps, settled down in front of the gate, put her head down to go to sleep . . . and did, never waking up. As a way of dying, I supposed it's about as good as it gets, but from the temperature of her body, it was clear that it had happened with minutes of us leaving her earlier.  Apparently she wanted to hang on long enough to say goodbye.

We took her out and wrapped her up and put in her in a safe place so that we could bury her properly, unimpeded by a downpour, this morning. And within moments, Daffodil and Jade and one of her 'lorp sisters came over to the spot where her body had been, confused. Jade was particularly distressed, and let me know it. That, by the way, is unusual; chickens are mostly bloodthirsty and cold-hearted, not given to sentimentality much at all, but they realized that she was gone, and they were mourning.

We laid her to rest early, before the heat had forced its way through the early-morning air. The catmint has been mostly stripped by bees now, but there are plenty of deep violet edges still on the blooms, so Wings cut a large swatch of it to line her resting place. We buried her with everything she'll need, and she'll be on her way to meet up with Bent Beak again. And now there are seven.

We love you, little golden Daphne flower. Thank you for all the beautiful blue eggs you shared with us.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                               

Little Bent Beak flies with the full moon now.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

She had almost as many lives as a cat, but she's used up the last one now. Little Bent Beak flies with the full moon now.

That wasn't even her name, you know? Her real name was Mica, for the beautiful mica-like shimmer of her tailfeathers. She was one of a group of Americaunas we got in the spring of 2017 (sold as Spanish Aracaunas, but they're all Americaunas, hybrids with Buff Orps, if memory serves). They're known for their marbled golden shades, their absolutely abundant tailfeathers, and their shaggy, puffy little whisker cheeks. Of all of them, Bent Beak had absolutely the best cheeks, and the best tail, too.

When you see chicks for sale? They arrive on Day 1 out of the egg. And if you've ever raised chickens (we have, through several generations' worth over the last decade), you'll know that they have absolutely no concept of relative space or weight or anything else.  They puppy-pile each other in whatever receptacle is holding them at any given moment, and stomp all over each other in the process. Some come up with wry neck; others don't come up at all. Bent Beak came up with a, well, bent beak. Yeah, one of his sibs apparently stomped on the side of her head on Day 1 (and probably never knew it), and it sort of broke the left-side hinge of her beak so that it didn't close properly, the top half of it offset and further to her right than the bottom half. It never caused her any pain, never interfered with her ability to eat or drink. She was fine, just a little . . . lopsided at the front of her face.

Which of course made us love her all the more. She was always a quirky little thing, very independent, mostly fearless. She had a fluttery little squawk, and she also had one that sounded like something out of The Exorcist. And she worked all of it. She was a puppy-dog chicken, one who came running at the sound of her name, and who would come up to the studio door daily waiting to get her favorite snack, dog kibble.

She always got it.

Back in the late summer of 2018, we thought we had lost her. That was the year the feral pups first showed up, and while we had pretty clearly established with them that the chickens were to be left alone, the same could not be said of the half-feral dogs belonging to a neighbor, two of them such skinny Shepards, no more than pups. They showed up one day, and of course, they were hungry, and I was sitting on the couch working when suddenly an absolute tornado of dog fur and something else went rolling past the window like a giant tumbleweed. I had no idea what they had, but when strange dogs show up and they've gotten yours to pack up on something them, it's never good, and literally dropped my laptop and went outside, yelling at the top of my lungs to them to "Get off! GET OFF!!!" The Shepards were so startled they split; ours all shrank away, knowing they were busted, and I saw what was at the bottom of the pile: a chicken. I couldn't tell which one, beyond an Americauna (because of the color), and I couldn't do a thing for her until I got the dogs banished, so the fleeting thought, "It better not be Bent Beak" got shoved out of my mind until I chased all six dogs away. Then I swallowed hard and turned around, expecting to see the worst.

Instead, Zombie Chicken was weaving drunkenly toward me, eyes glassy and ready to tip over at a harsh glare, but alive and walking. Well, sort of walking. And yes, it was Bent Beak.

They had torn all her tailfeathers out. All of them. With enough force to draw blood. But she was alive, self-resurrecting, apparently. We took meticulous care of her over the days and weeks to come, and while she had to deal with a fair amount of pain and unpleasantness in the healing process, within four weeks, she had grown all new quills on her tail. Another meant, and the feathers were growing in. By year's end, she had an even more beautiful, full, abundant, glorious tail than before.

And she became spoiled rotten, of course, except that she was always a sweet girl, always happy to see us, and always so, so happy to be given her kibble and crumble. And she thrived.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

I was sitting here working early one morning, and suddenly a rolling ball of fur and . . . something, in the form of Stormy, Sunny, and some unidentifiable victim went flying past the window. I was off the couch like a shot and outdoors in the freezing cold, no coat, no boots. I was expecting some poor prairie dog that had poked its nose out too early.

Instead, it was Mica.

We don't know what set it off. I suspect it was triggered by the fact that the girls had been sitting in a particular area of the small stall, one where the little monster (that would be Stormy) had decided to start burying her bones. Both pups know the chickens are off-limits . . . but they were both also starved in their first 6 weeks of life, before we were able to bring them home, and when they're starved from birth like that, for some of them, that prey drive never goes away.

Anyway, the dogs have been chastised for it, and confined to the dog run when the chickens are out; the chickens are now confined to the free-range coop when the pups are out. It's notable that Cricket had absolutely no part in this, and he's allowed to run free at all times. But that left an injured chicken. I picked her up and brought her in and checked her over thoroughly; Wings brought in a box and we filled it with straw and food and water and let her stay in it. She was moving just fine, no evidence of pain or injury beyond trauma, and after a day or two, she was ready to get out, so we let her go back to ranging with her sisters and staying in the coop. And within a couple of days, she began to regress. Initially, it was just a limp on the right side, but it was bitterly cold that particular night, with the mercury plunging below zero, so we brought her back indoors. We did the indoor/outdoor thing for a a few days, then wound up letting her stay until it warmed up outside. And then we brought her back out with her sisters.

She was happy to be out again in the fresh air, happy to have her crumble and her kibble and fresh water daily. But she was losing mobility: the foot and leg, then the wing, then more. I've been dealing with these petit dinosaurs enough years now to know what to look for, and she showed no signs of any of it, so what we suspect happened is that a latent muscle injury at the time of the attack turned into a contracture, which in turn created a vascular impingement, cutting off blood flow. And today, I think, her little heart just . . . stopped. She was still getting herself around yesterday. Today, she was barely moving, so Wings set her in the sun where she would be warm, then came and got me. She was responsive to her name, apparently not in any pain, but also clearly very tired, the kind of tired that comes with a body winding itself down. I checked on her hourly, and early this afternoon, I thought she was gone, so I called Wings over, but she was not quite yet: She waited until he got there, gave her little fluttery squawk once more and shook her head, and then she let her little spirit go. 1:40 PM today.

It feels a little ridiculous, writing a eulogy for a chicken, but they're like any other animal: Some of them grab hold of your heart and never let go. That was Little Bent Beak: all spirit and moxie and love. And since chickens aren't really allowed to fly on this plane, I'm just gonna assume that her spirit was one of the shadows across the basically-full moon when I was out there getting photos at moonrise — no gravity to tether her, so now, she can explore the cosmos.

And we both miss her terribly.

ll content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                

Petunia Racing to Catch Poppy Now

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

It's been an incredibly difficult week. I was prepared for dealing with all the pain and fatigue attendant on season, weather, pollen, and vaccine effects; not happy, but expecting it.

I was not prepared to walk out to the chicken coop to find another of our chickens gone. 

It was Petunia this time, like Poppy, one of the three Australorp "flower girls." [These three were clutch-mates and were nearly identical triplets, with low pink combs and pinkish faces, and they were all named for "black" blossoms (which, yes, I know, I know, they're actually purple, but colloquially they're called black): Poppy, Petunia, and Peony. Peony is the only one of the three remaining now, fierce and combative as ever.] She's one of the black chickens in the photo above; if I'm not mistaken, she's the left-most of the two 'lorps to the right of the picnic table and in front of the hay barn, the one facing the camera. 

And, like Poppy, it appears to have been another case of simple heart failure, having quite literally keeled over in the night inside the enclosed space of the inner coop. I doubt she had time to feel anything more than a moment's surprise; her eyes were open, but I suspect that her heart was failing her as she slept, and she had one moment of consciousness, not enough to be afraid or indeed to have any idea what was happening, before it was done. As I said with Poppy, it appears that Australorps are somewhat prone to this problem, and as usual, there were absolutely no signs. She's been running around all week, happy, engaged, delighted to be out in the warmer weather and scratching up a storm.

Where Poppy was a bit of a loner, Petunia was fairly thoroughly bonded to her sister, Peony. But where Peony is a bit of a bully (okay, more than a bit), the other two girls were a little skittish. Petunia was one of those girls who was just happy to be able to do what she liked, run around and scratch in the dirt and find bugs and burrow in for a dust bath. She gave us four years' worth of beautiful brown eggs, medium-sized and perfectly smooth, and all in all, she was just a sweet, shy girl, one whose name suited her.

So already this morning, we've laid her to rest with everything she'll need for her journey. Her body is resting next to Spice's, with Poppy's on Spice's opposite side. But I can see Petunia racing to catch Poppy now: running for all she's worth like a little old lady with her layers of petticoats and skirts hitched up, flapping and squawking all the way. And by now, she's probably already finally learned to take flight.

We love you, Petunia. You'll be flying with your girls in no time.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.        

And now Poppy is running after Spice, headed for the Spirit World.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

It was cold, clear, and early this morning when Wings went outside to feed the animals. When he opened the gate to the chicken coop so the chickens could come to range, he found one of them keeled over by the water bowl, dead. And now Poppy is running after Spice, headed for the Spirit World.

It could have happened very early this morning, in theory, but the sun hadn't been up long and she was in full rigor, so I suspect that it happened just before they settled down to sleep last night. Poppy was one of the five remaining Australorps, a hybrid that originates from, yes, Australia, although they're common here now. They're hardy little girls, great layers of beautiful brown eggs, and often monstrous little bullies. They also have a tendency (not a lot of them, but a statistically not-insignificant amount) to have a heart defect that causes SDS, Sudden Death Syndrome, which is essentially a heart attack, or simple heart failure (or, occasionally, a stroke). And that seems to be what happened here.

In the photo above, which is from the summer of 2018, you can see all the 'lorps scattered around. I'm reasonably sure that Poppy is the one on the right-hand seat of the picnic table. She, Peony, and Petunia have always been impossible to tell apart unless they're next to each other. The other two remaining 'lorps are Jade and Emerald, and they're both a little larger, and have black faces; the three "flower girls" all had light/pinkish faces and lighter, brighter pink combs and wattles.  Oddly, Peony and Petunia have always tended to hang together, but Poppy was a bit of a loner. I wonder now if it was simply that she always had a little more trouble keeping up. Chickens tend not to show health problems unless and until they're in real distress, and she ran around with the rest of them, so it never occurred to me to notice whether she was maybe a little slower than the others; we never had reason to suspect that she had a heart arrhythmia. 

The saving grace is that it was clearly instantaneous; she would have felt no pain, probably not had time to feel a single thing at all. But the girls are a little rattled, losing two of their own in three days. They're all out ranging now, and it's keeping them occupied.

And at eight o'clock this morning, without benefit of coffee or pain meds, either one, we were out in the bitter cold, laying Poppy to rest with everything she needed. She and Spice have probably already found each other, which will make it easier for both of them. And now we have two new chicken-sized holes in our hearts.

We love you, Poppy. You'll finally be able to fly.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.       

Spice is finally able to fly on the other side now.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

I said goodnight to her about 4 PM. I just went out and checked on her at about 7:00, and Spice is finally able to fly on the other side now.

She was one of the crop of 2014 chickens, born in April of that year, which means that she just missed turning seven. That's a ripe old age for a chicken, and she and her fellow Rhode Island Red, Pumpkin, had outlived all the others of their cohort. Pumpkin is still with us, going strong, but Spice began to deteriorate a couple of weeks ago. After this many years, I know the signs, and I warned Wings that it wouldn't be long. And in truth, she lasted far longer than I expected; I had thought we would lose her within a couple of days of letting him know, and by last Friday night, I was sure she wouldn't make it to dawn on Saturday. Bt she was here Saturday, so we moved her into the studio in her own little space by the heater, and she stayed for five extra days.

Honestly, I had expected Pumpkin to be the first of the two to go; she is outsized for a hen, and I expected that to give her trouble in old age (and they are old ladies by now). Besides, Spice seemed to have nine lives, at the very least, and somehow she seemed invincible. Well, until a year or two ago, when she became egg-bound. It was a problem we had frequently with her cohort, and not all of them survived it. They were advertised as "organic chicks," but the fact of the matter is that, as we would learn, a lot of those kinds of chicks are raised by breeders brand new to the process, and not always bred well. The other chicks turned out to be far stronger and sturdier than this crop, and th egg-binding issue was only one of several. Regardless, we managed to save her at the time, but we knew then that it was unlikely she would lay any longer. Which was fine; she had more than earned her retirement by then, having given us some five or six years of beautiful brown eggs. [The Reds are prolific layers.]

But Spice had spent part of her younger years at the bottom of the pecking order, so to speak. Back in 2015, I think it was, she was targeted by Saffron, one of the yellows (yellow sex-links, which, like black sex-link chicks, are bred specifically for line-sorting by color at hatching; it's a commercial thing intended to save time and therefore make money, which meant nothing to us, but that's how they're identified). Saffron, like Spice, was a smallish hen, and like a lot of creatures made vulnerable by size or circumstance, decided that bullying another small hen was the way to go. It became so bad that we finally had to pull Spice out of the coop and set her up in the giant dog crate by herself just to keep her safe and allow her a chance to eat and drink water. She thrived, but she remained a skittish girl, naturally, I suppose. it was warm weather, so we kept the crate in the hay barn, and covered it with a heavy tarp at night so she could sleep, unmolested by either light or other creatures, and pulled the tarp off early every morning.

That summer, after dropping and baling the hay, some of the guys stacked it in the hay barn behind her crate.

They did a shit job.

And one morning, I came out to feed and water her and let her out to range, and just as I walked out, I heard some ominous heavy sound, and several hundred pounds' worth of bales came tumbling down, grazing me and smashing right onto the crate.

With her in it.

And in the giant puff of hay dust, I heard indignant squawking, and she shot upward and out of a break in the bars as the thing collapsed inward around her.

Nine lives, indeed. When I pulled the bales off, the gigantic Dane crate was a twisted mess of metal, folded in upon itself, not a square inch available to hold a chicken.  [To be clear, what happened is that when the force of the first bales hit, it literally BROKE the crate and some of the bars popped open. Spice had enough presence of mind to fly, yes, FLY, up and out of that tiny hole just in the millisecond available to her to survive.]

So, for a chicken, she had a rather exciting life. She also became a bit of a bully in her turn, but we worked on that. [Saffron? Oh, Karma got poor Saffron. She vanished into thin air one evening, and whatever got her left four discrete piles of feathers of various places on the land, so that we would know, apparently.]

Anyway, we've known this was coming for a couple of weeks. She has not been in pain; her body's simply been slowly winding itself down, as old age is wont to do. And rather than let her go fast by freezing to death, we elected (of course) to keep her comfortable and warm and safe so that she could go at her own pace. Wings kept me updated throughout the day, saying that her breathing was really shallow and she was clearly mostly asleep, but still apparently unwilling to let go. So at 4:00, just before I came in for the evening, I went to check on her. At first, I wasn't sure she was still with us, but she was breathing, slowly and steadily, if shallowly. I stroked her back and told her I loved her, and she responded to my voice by lifting her wings as best she could, taking a deep breath, and then settling back down to breathe more regularly. It wasn't a death rattle, but I knew it was close. I patted her once more, made sure she was warm, and said goodnight.

And at 7PM, when I went out to check, she was gone. Based on the rigor, probably within five to fifteen minutes of my leaving her before. She never awakened; her response to my voice was not even fully conscious. But I think she wanted to say goodbye before flying to the other side.

And now I'm sitting here bawling over a chicken, with a hole in my heart.

We love you, our feisty little Spice Girl.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Honey's On Her Way

 

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

As we've expected, we lost Honey overnight. I know it's hard to tell from the photo, but it enlarges if you click on it, and it's the only shot I could find tonight on short notice. She's the second from the left, the rusty dark gold one — which is where her name came from, actually. It wasn't a term-of-endearment kind of "Honey," it was descriptive: If you've ever seen a different types of raw honey, you'll know that some of it's darker than most of the stuff in the store, with a little bit of a reddish tint to it, more amber than yellow. She was one of our Ameracaunas, a hybrid of the feathery yellow Spanish Aracauna and Buff Orp, I think it is, and the feathers on her head and neck were the exact shade of dark raw honey.

She's one of the younger ones, not quite four, but for some chickens, that's about an average life span, and some of the hybrids from around here aren't as hardy as some of the others. She was seemingly fine, and then a few weeks ago, she started slowing down. We suspect egg binding at some point, although it eventually passed, apparently, but that can create internal fistulae that . . . well, there's not much you can do. The good news is that she did not at any point seem to be in pain; she just began slowing down, like you see happening in old age. Her body just kind of gradually wound itself down, like an old-fashioned clock, until she fell asleep for one last time. We've been expecting this for the last two weeks, frankly, and she lasted a lot longer than we thought she would; probably only the cold settled it now. We were prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep her from suffering, but I checked her rigorously, and she never seemed to be in any pain. She also responded instantly to her name, every time, and happily, and until yesterday she was still moving around when she damn well felt like it. Last night, we built her a warm burrow out of straw and made sure she was wrapped warmly in it. It could've been anytime between last night and early morning, but judging by the body, we suspect that finally, she flew on her way about 4 AM.

The Ameracaunas are mostly flighty birds, no pun intended.  Little Bent-Beak is the exception, probably because of what she's been through in her life. The others are skittish and not a little flaky. Honey was always like that, until the last couple of weeks, but during these final days she's seemed to love hearing the sound of her name and was fine with being held, both of which were new for her. Every time I called to her, she'd whip her head around, look directly at me, and usually coo or chatter a little. She was a sweet girl, just like her name, a happy girl. And Honey's on her way to make another plane happy now.

Fly on, Honey. We love you, baby girl.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Dahlia is on her way to dance in the spirit world now.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Our animals are family, plain and simple. We've kept chickens since April of 2012; that first round of birds is all gone now. We acquired the second round in 2014, a mix of Reds and of yellow and black sex-links (meaning that they are bred specifically so that, from the moment of hatching, they can be sorted into piles of male and female fluff for shipping/selling; they're usually hybrids). Of that group, who came from area farms (and apparently from farmers new to the business; this group was not an especially hardy lot), only three remained as of this year: two Reds and one of the black sex links. [We also acquired another round in 2016, a mix of breeds that are turning out mostly to be hardier.] 

Now, of the 6.5-year-olds, only the Reds remain.

The last of the black sex-links was, ironically, also the runt. She was short and round and had the glossiest, most iridescent black feathers of the lot, and I named her Dahlia (for the actual flower, not the '40s murder victim). As she grew up, she developed beautiful pumpkin-colored russet spots beneath her wattle, and wattle and comb were always bright red.

She was also an affectionate girl, willing to let me pick her up and hold her. When I reached for her, she would go into the submissive crouch typical of her kind — but unlike the others, when she did, she would always perform a little dance: one, two, three, four five, beating a quick tattoo on the ground with her feet. And so she became my little dancing girl.

She was also an independent thing, which, as the runt, probably served her well. But in late 2018, feral Coyote got first to Mica (better known as Little Bent-Beak, for her sideways beak, having apparently gotten stepped on by her fellow hatchlings but never any the worse for wear), and then some days or weeks later, to Dahlia.

Both survived, and oddly, both bonded thereafter, despite being different generations who hadn't really taken much notice of each other before. Mica was the classic zombie chicken, risen from the dead, touch and go for days but now as good as ever, if more watchful. Dahlia I got to before that point, ripping Coyote off her, but she sustained what would prove to be deeper injuries — not life-threatening, and not, apparently, particularly painful, but she sustained some muscle damage to one leg and the wing, and she limped thereafter. 

We knew she might not last long, because in all actuality, we had no real way of knowing what long-term damage those injuries might entail. All I could do was check her over thoroughly, moving limbs and wings and palpating surfaces and making sure that there were no bite wounds needing treatment, no inflammation or swelling or infection developing anywhere. And despite the pronounced and eventually progressive limp, she did just fine, apparently to the point of even returning to laying an egg on very rare occasions earlier this summer.

But last week, she began to fade: not in color, but in energy. It was clear that she was tired, although she was still very much engaged, and I made sure to put food and water and front of her so she could eat without expending extra effort. And she ate like a champ. Around the weekend, her comb lost all muscle tone and flopped over; again, not problem in and of itself, but one more indicator that her body was winding down. And while she remained engaged with her world, she also grew more tired by the day, and in all honesty, I did not think she would make it through the snow and sub-freezing temperatures of the last few days.

Then again, I didn't think she'd make it through Coyote's attack.

She had so many strikes against her: the runt of the flock; a brutal and near-deadly attack; permanent disability thereafter. Six and a half years is a good long run for even the healthiest hen.

For her? It's amazing.

I went to check on her first thing this morning, and she was still in the place she'd chosen, up against the wall underneath the coop, some of the food and water gone. She opened them upon hearing her name and looked at me, so I told her I'd be back to check on her later. When I came out again about 10:45 this morning, her eyes were closed, body not moving. I reached underneath to touch her, and her eyelids fluttered for just a moment, she gave a little sigh, and let her left wing fall to her side. And as nearly as I can tell, that was the moment. Dahlia is on her way to dance in the spirit world now.

She's buried over by Carter's tree, just a few feet north and west of it, a little east of another piñon. It's a spot where several of her sisters lie, and it's one reason why, even in this drought, those two trees are thriving. We buried her, as we do with all of our animals, with everything they need for their journey, and she has some of the last of the bright gold dill flowers, blue-violet bee balm, and a few small wild sunflowers adorning her resting place. She and Bent-Beak have long been our favorites, even before their respective injuries, and I knew this day would hurt more than the others. 

It does.

But she's on her way now, and in the best way: She waited to see the sun and feel the warmth again, and then just went to sleep.

We love you Dahlia. You'll be able to do your steps with no pain now, my Little Dancing Girl.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.    

Clover decided she's ready to fly.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Things are a zoo here this week: all the work to be done on house fixes and weatherization, plus multiple medical appointments. Yesterday afternoon was Wings's appointment for his knees (more about that later). For the moment, the upshot is that, before we left for said appointment, we needed to put the chickens back in their coop. I got all but one of the two remaining silvers inside, but when I went to look for her, I couldn't find her anywhere.

I noticed that several of the chickens had crowded in between and around the straw bales across from the coop itself (they have an actual wooden coop inside a walled and roofed structure that used to be the hay barn, with an opening to a large area in the back fenced with ProPanel and chicken wire, so that when the weather's bad or we're going to be gone and can't let them have the run of the whole place for safety's sake, at least they still have free-range space at all times). At any rate, the half-dozen or so across from the coop were raising hell, and since we found a dead magpie in that spot a few days ago, I thought I better double-check. 

Clover was not among the straw bales. However, I turned to look beneath the coop, and she was under the farthest (north) corner. They sometimes lay eggs in that spot, so I assumed she was there for that purpose, but went to check anyway — and found that instead, Clover decided she's ready to fly.

We didn't have time to do anything yesterday and got home from the appointment too late to do anything, either. Fortunately, it's cold at night, and she'd chosen the shadiest corner of the coop. Given the magpie's fate, we were a little concerned that something might have gotten her, but this morning, looking at her little body, it seemed fairly obvious that she'd just . . . gone to sleep. 

That's her up in the middle of the photo, the raggedy little black and white (a silver-laced Wyandotte, to be precise; she was named for the prairie clover found growing wild here, whose petals her white spots resembled). Last year's drought affected the chickens' molt cycles profoundly; some molted in early summer, some at their more usual time in the fall, some not at all . . . and some, like Clover, molted early last year and then didn't get their feathers back until this year. Clover, however, never got her new ones in at all. It didn't affect her any, other than cosmetically; she was one of the most active of the chicks, always on the run in pursuit of crumble or scratch or bugs or seed or kibble or her beloved suet over by the bird feeder. Her molt did make her a bit more skittish than usual, but she was always a spooky little girl, if an otherwise happy and always healthy one. there was no sign of any health issue at all; she continued to lay, continued to remain as active as always. But these are organic chicks bred locally, and we've noticed that they don't have the hardiness of those bred on the more established farms that don't advertise themselves as "organic." Their lifespans tend to be two to three years shorter on average, and I'm guessing that's what happened here: She felt a little odd, returned to the coop and went to hide in their communal "safe space," went to sleep, and her little heart just . . . stopped. No sign of trauma or pain; everything apparently peaceful.

And so we buried her this morning, with everything she needs for her journey. While her spirit travels to worlds where her sisters wait, and the dogs and horses, too, her body rests on the west side, where some of the others are buried, near a dwarf blue spruce we planted to honor a warrior and friend who walked on some years ago. That spruce is a lush, deep blue-green now. 

And now, her surviving sisters' numbers are reduced to fourteen; only one of the silvers remains. We'll miss her beautiful brown eggs, small and slightly roundish and filled with flavor. Most of all, though, we'll miss our little raggedy girl, always happy, always on the run. We love you, Clover.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Orchid flowers, and flies, in the spirit world.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

I can't tell you now which of the solid black ones she is in that photo, but she was one of what I think were originally a total of ten Australorps, if memory serves. We lost a couple early on; baby chicks have a tendency to step all over each other, completely oblivious. We were down now to seven, thanks to the ferals last year. And now, Orchid flowers, and flies, in the spirit world.

Her name came from her feathers: An Australorp, she was glossy and black, with iridescent undertones of purple and green, like a black orchid. She was, if I remember correctly, the second-largest (the largest being Jade, of the black face and green-black feathers), She was a big beautiful girl and a prolific layer, always happy with her world.

This time, there's no grave to dig, nothing to send with her on her journey. She was grabbed by yet another starving feral dog, this one barely more than a pup herself, but likely still trying to feed a litter of puppies without any milk left, from the looks of it. Wings had run up to Seco for a moment, and when he came back, she was waiting inside the gate. She had an injured eye, was terribly skinny, and also scared, so he came and got me to look after while he ran into town to pay a bill.

We fed and watered her, and she was a happy, wiggly bundle of love, when she wasn't shying away as though afraid of being hit. Little red hound girl with perfect white teeth and a badly swollen and inflamed lacrimal caruncle in her right eye. I called our friend who does local rescue, she got a temporary placement at our vet's, and I was going to grab the leash to hook her up when suddenly she bolted, cornered Orchid, grabbed her, and took off like a shot to the northeast. I was astounded that such a small dog could grab such a large chicken by the midsection (second-largest of the 'lorps), securely, and run so fast without a single slip. Starving puppies are a great motivator to a mother dog, though. My only hope is that the first bite, when she grabbed her, did the job, because I didn't hear a peep out of the poor little girl. Oh, yes, you're damn right I chased her, but with my asthma? And the rest of them were so freaked that it took more than an hour (in 80-degree heat) to corral them all and get them back in the coop; I was still at it when Wings got home, increasingly sick in body and soul.

At any rate, I failed poor Orchid terribly, and for that I won't forgive myself. No more strange ferals loose here, even for a moment. And now, there are only fifteen our of girls left.

I'm so sorry, Orchid. We love you, baby girl. Your sisters are waiting to welcome you.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Shell gets wings that work.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Yes, it's a nod to Opus, but Shell gets wings that work. Or, rather, got, past tense — about 1:15 MDT this afternoon.

She's in the photo up above, one of the three black-and-white chicks, so named for the shell-shaped white medallions on her back and tailfeathers. Silver-laced Wyandotte, that's what they're called, and of these three, little Shell was the rattiest-looking still. Their feathers have taken longer to grown back in post-molt, and hers were taking the longest of all. It made her the shyest; she seemed to be aware that her feathers, particularly her tailfeathers, were especially thin and raggedy, and it made her feel vulnerable.

She was more vulnerable than we knew.

That stupid Shepard, one of them, from northeast of us. Actually, it's not the Shepard's fault, not really; the poor thing is, as usual, starved. But I'd gone into the kitchen for just a moment, and I came back into the living room and saw it outside the studio to the southeast, shaking something in its jaws. I ran out, no coat, no boots, and yelled at it to go home; it dropped its prize immediately and took off. Remembering what happened with Bent-Beak, I had hopes for another resurrection, but by the time I got my gear on and got out there . . . well, there was already long since no hope on that score. I immediately went searching for the other chickens, and 13 of them were huddled in and under the indoor coop in the larger "coop" (i.e., barn). That left three more to find, and we eventually did, but apparently the dog had waltzed right into the coop and grabbed her out of their feed tray, given the loose feathers scattered all around it.

Yes, I know, I failed her terribly. This house is so solid, so soundproof, that I can hear almost nothing from outside, although there might not have been anything to hear, anyway. Wings was at work in the studio, and very little breaks through the sound of a hammer constantly striking metal on an anvil. If I'd only been a couple of minutes quicker, looked out the window of the laundry room, something . . . . She's buried now, on the west side next to the garden plot where some of her late sisters rest, with everything she needs for her journey. After all these years and al our many, many chickens, there will plenty of girls ready to welcome her. And she'll be able to fly now, without fear.

We're heartsick, and also furious. There's not much to be done except to scare the dog away. It seems like a very sweet pup otherwise, but when a dog is left to starve, well, we can't very well blame it for seizing an opportunity to survive. It's my fault for not noticing the dog's arrival earlier. We love you, Shell; fly safely now, little one.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Pearl follows Cinnamon.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

Pearl follows Cinnamon to the Spirit World. As of about 9:30 this morning, so our day began with a burial.

Somewhere I have a photo of her as an adult, but I can't find it now. In this one, I think she might be the one in the feed dish on the right, the little silver next to the Americauna her right; viewer's left).

At any rate, this one is down to the dogs. This house is so soundproof that I can't hear anything if there's a ruckus outside, not even with the kitchen window cracked. It wasn't wide open because it got down into the forties last night.) But just after 9:30, I went into the kitchen to make Wings some toast, and I saw Coyote walking next to the aspens, Crow lying a few feet away. And a few feet from both of them, beneath the center of the aspen stand, was a little black lump. I went tearing outside, but of course, the deed was done. 

Last week, the day after we lost Cinnamon, Pearl came up lame, unable to put weight on her left foot. It was apparently either a sprain or a deep bruise; I could find no tangible injury, and she let me manipulate both foot and leg. That morning, they had all come flying out of the coop at top speed, and they sometimes land on top of each other (since chickens can only "fly" for a few seconds at a time a foot or two off the ground). They also drink out of the birdbath and then hop down, and some are less graceful than others about it. We think she injured the foot at one point or the other. At any rate, the foot was healing; she was back to putting most of her weight on it. But the Trickster Twins are smart enough to spot a vulnerability, and I'm sure it slowed her down enough thst she couldn't get away.

I'm just sick about it. Also furious that these dogs were starved so horribly the first few months of their lives that their prey drive is now so deeply imprinted that we can't undo it. Oh, we can try, and we do, and we discipline them for stalking the wild birds, as well, but when a dog is left literally to starve to death and its only solution is to hunt birds, well, no matter how well fed they are now, at some level, that's never going to be undone.

And Pearl paid for that.

I'm heartsick, and guilty, and angry at myself, but I'm way beyond enraged at the people who damned these dogs to starvation in the first place. And I mourn this little silver girl, a Silver-Laced Wyandotte with the great round white "pearls" on her feathers and back that gave her her name. The one consolation is that it was quick and immediate; her neck was broken. And given that, there is just the slightest possibility that it was the harrier, who Blue chased off yesterday and who has been hanging around again, probably looking for easy meals in this drought. But we know it's not likely. So we're back to segregating the two and the chickens again.

Meanwhile, my little black and white girl, the one whose neck feathers had turned yellow because she got into a broken egg and got the yolk all over herself, is gone, following Cinnamon to where all the others are, chickens, dogs, horse, wild birds. And I miss her skittish, indignant little personality already.

Fly home, Pearl.  We love you, little girl.



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.

Cinnamon drinks from purer waters now.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

I know I have better photos of her somewhere, shots where you can actually see her little face, but this is the one I could find now. That's from May 26th, and that's Cinnamon perched atop the bird bath, the fluffy little red girl with her back to the camera. She and the other two red ones on the ground (Pumpkin in the foreground, Spice behind her) were the last of the reds from our second crop of chickens (plus one black, Dahlia, who's not in the photo). The other two are from this year's crop of new girls.

Cinnamon, like so many of her sisters from that bunch, became egg-bound at some point last year. It's a breeding issue; we always make sure our girls have plenty of clean water, healthy food, and the supplemental nutrients they need, but those that came from one source have been plagued by this repeatedly. We've mostly managed to save them, for a while; they get to retire from laying, but it also means, generally speaking, that we lose them a bit younger than would otherwise have been the case. Cinnamon was not quite four and a half, and by rights, probably should have had another year or two, but even with her injury, she outlasted several of her siblings/cousins.

She was also one of my favorites: sweet, gentle, friendly. She loved us, loved having us talk to her, pet her, give her the chicken treats and suet blocks she loved so much. She had still been hopping up onto the edge of the birdbath, which is one of their favorite places to drink, then hopping back onto the ground. Yesterday afternoon, she was seated comfortably just off the flagstones outside the front corner of the house where she could watch her beloved world, and where I spoke to her as I went in and out. There was no indication then that anything was wrong. But Cinnamon drinks from purer waters now.

Yesterday evening, just after 7:30, I took the trash out, which requires walking past their coop. And I saw her lying on her side in the middle of it, all her sisters up on top of the internal coop, chattering and cooing in confusion and, with chickens, what passes for grief. From outside, I couldn't tell which of the three reds it was by sight, but inside, I knew. I went in to check, and sure enough, it was her, my sweet girl. She would have been the one I would have expected to go next, but I thought, based on her lively behavior, that she had more time. Fortunately, I don't think she suffered at all; I think her little heart just stopped, and everything else with it, and she simply went over onto her side. She had already been gone probably the better part of an hour, so we're guessing the time to be around 6:45 or 7PM last night.

It was too late then (and the ground too dry) to bury her, so we wrapped her carefully and put her in a safe place. We soaked the ground briefly this morning, then buried her with everything she will need for her journey (including a couple of crumbled pieces from her beloved suet block). Shade and She-Wolf will be waiting with her various sisters and cousins to welcome her. Ice, too; his anniversary is tomorrow. Countless chickens and wild birds, Cree and all the other dogs, also. And while it was perhaps not entirely unexpected, given her condition, it was earlier than I had hoped, and it's left a hole in my heart for this sweet little girl who was perhaps the gentlest of them all, and one of our favorites. 

Last night, the sky turned the same cinnamon color as her feathers, as if to welcome her home. We love you, little Cinnamon girl.



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.

Another one: Agate takes flight. With a little help from a hawk, apparently.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

Here we go again: Agate this time, one of the silvers. I can't tell for sure at this late date, but I think she might be the one on the left in the opening to the hay bales, the one with a single white patch showing. Her name came from the fact that, unlike a lot of Silver-Laced Wyandottes, the white in her feathers was less spots, more banding.

And I think we did the dogs an injustice yesterday.

This afternoon, they were in the studio with Wings when the deed apparently went down. No one heard or saw anything until Wings saw Coyote notice a pile of feathers and go to check it out. He came and got me. It was odd: Two piles of feathers, right next to each other, all arrayed in circles of sorts, as though the feathers had simply fallen off and drifted downward onto their backs. No chicken anywhere; we searched all over. I did think I heard her once, but where the sound came from? Nothing there. Ghost chicken.

The thing is, there was no feather trail. No blood trail, either. Had it been one of the dogs, or even a coyote (the real kind, not the trickster pup), there would've been both. ::Sigh:: this drought is murderous. Everything is hungry now, and dry, too. There's no food, no prey. And the Swainson's have young way up in their nest in the cottonwood stand across the road; they have to eat. It was a spotlessly clean kill and removal, and that indicates a raptor.

Also, yesterday? Maybe a trial run. Wings thought he was catching Coyote at the kill (or at least the feed thereafter), but now we think maybe she had just run the hawk off instead. Because . . . well, without going into too many gory details, let's just say that when a raptor decides to feed where it kills? There are certain features to the how of it, features that show up in the damage to the carcass. Thinking back, it fits.

If so, we owe Coyote an apology. We owe one of a different sort to Agate, and to Marigold, too. Needless to say, the girls won't be coming out of their run for a few days (in addition to the actual coop where they sleep, they have the run of the old hay barn in which it sits, and a large fenced-in run out behind it, so they can still range freely, if not nearly so far afield). And given how few rodents there are around (since there's no water to be had, for love or money), we need to pray harder for rain, apparently.

We love you, Agate, and you, too, Marigold.







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.

Pepper Takes Flight, Too.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

The pups are banished for good. They will not be allowed back.

First thing this morning, as soon as Wings let the chickens out, Coyote and Crow took off after one of the 'lorps. They got her before anyone could do anything, dragged her under the windbreak into the red willows by the house, and killed her. 

The Australorps are the solid black ones in the image above. At first I thought it was Hail, my favorite, otherwise known as PuppyGirl, because she acts just like a puppy herself. I think now it was Pepper, the one who always did a bunk if she weren't allowed out on what she considered her schedule, so she could go lay an egg in the hay barn.  

Today, she never got the chance. 

Two in two days is not any kind of acceptable record. Now that they've coded chickens as prey, it's not undoable, at least not for the kind of time and resources we have to devote to that sort of deprogramming. Unfortunately, it means that they will no longer be as well fed, but we've given them a pretty healthy start. That will have to be handled by someone else now.

A day that I was going to devote to so many things again started off with a tiny burial. Pepper is next to Sienna, and her spirit is on its way — no doubt flying, like the chickens in A Wish for Wings That Work, in a way she could never manage in life. Like her sister, she has everything she needs for her journey, and since Sienna had only a day's head start, I imagine she and Pepper will find each other somewhere along the road and travel together the rest of the way. 

That's two that I have failed, and terribly so. I can't forgive myself for it; they deserved better than this. [If it turns out that the one I believe to be Hail, running around the back of the coop, is actually Pepper instead, I will be more even heartbroken than I am now, because Hail has been my girl. That's not saying much, though, because right now, My heart hurts with an actual physical pain beyond what I've felt since November.] But Pepper was feisty and utterly independent of mind and spirit. She was also not far down the favorite list, simply because of that independent streak. I could always count on her to wait until after everyone had been put in for the night to sneak out, or to find a way out early in the morning. I once caught a shot of her balanced on the razor-thin edge of the chicken wire in the back, so I know how she was getting out. Making it higher didn't do any good; she was resourceful, to say the least.

And she will always have that same spot in our hearts. 

We love you, Pepper, and I'm sorry, baby girl.



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.