What it is like to lose a chicken
Yesterday morning when Pan was outside at the garden she decided to check the water inside the chicken coop. When she opened the door she saw Johntavious sitting next to one of the beds. He was motionless. She quickly realized that just yesterday he had laid an egg that had a soft shell and was a bit disfigured. We didn’t think much of it until later in the day when Pan went out to collect the eggs she found Johntavious in the exact same spot still motionless.
My pop came home early in the afternoon and after hearing about ‘J’ decided to isolate her into her own pen. She didn’t flinch or make noise when he carefully picked her up to move her.
I got home about 6pm and immediately checked on her. She stood, again, motionless without making a sound and literally gasping for breath. Her feathers were matted and oil and some of them had fallen out. My first thought is that because she is at the bottom of the pecking order the other hens were reminding her of her position and she was in a bit of shock. But being pecked on would not cause your eyes to glaze over and your talons to become discolored. I knew something was wrong and called Pop back out. He and I talked quietly about her fate as if she might hear us and get scared. It was all a little surreal considering she was just a hen. Through the last few months though our hens have become part of our family. They seem to recognize us when we go out to feed them. They bawk at us. They let us hold them. They provide us with food…and plenty of entertainment. And here we were faced with one literally dying before our eyes.
I made the decision before bed that if ‘J’ wasn’t any better by morning we would take her out and “let her go,” so to speak. I was okay with that decision because I certainly didn’t want her to suffer and paying upwards of $30 to the vet is just not economical in this situation. I said goodbye to ‘J’, thanked her for her contributions and went on to bed.
This morning Johntavious had passed away. We buried him out in the back pasture and for the first time in a long time I felt a real sense of loss – not because I saw her as a pet but because she was part of our little existence now on our little farm and because I would, to some extent, miss her.
Johntavious
October 2008 – July 2009
July 29th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Oh no! Poor little chook.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I read this the other morning, and had to read something else for a few minutes.
I had been eating bacon and eggs, and I got a little sick.
I finished reading after breakfast, though. Sorry about the chicken. :*(