After I published the last blog post, Reese continued to
improve. The next two days she started
eating more and running around with the other two. We saw glimpses of her former self. We definitely thought we were out of the
woods but in hindsight I think we had simply entered a more dangerous zone
where she was feeling mischievous again and wandering farther away but still
not fully healed and unable to move as fast as she used to. Of course, it’s easier to notice this in
hindsight.
At some point on Tuesday afternoon, while Marc and I were
working in the house, the hens were out foraging and gradually traveling farther
and farther away from the house. Before
we were ready to head out we went looking for them and couldn’t find any. We looked in all the usual places but no
sign. We decided we would just have to leave
them out and hope they would come back by the time we got home. As we started to drive away and round the
corner off the driveway and onto the main road, we were startled to find one of
the chickens dead on the side of the road.
At first it was hard to know which one it was. Sparing you the details let’s just say it was
obvious that she had been attacked with a clear intent to eat her. Marc wrapped her up in a bag and took her
back to the house. Of course at this
point we were half expecting that all three chickens were dead. Marc tried searching again for the other two
and eventually found Sadie wandering out of the forest. He quickly put her back in the coop and went
deeper into the other forest hoping to find the other but no luck.
When we picked the girls up from school I was dreading
having to tell them what had happened.
Once we were in the car and headed home I broke the news. Screams and tears pretty much sums up their
reaction. At this point unfortunately we
couldn’t tell them which one had been killed and what had happened to the third
one. All we knew for sure was that Sadie
was okay and in the coop. As soon as we
got home, the girls sprinted to the coop.
There they found Sadie inside and Zoe waiting on the outside of the
coop. This of course meant that Reese
was the one who had been killed, which again in hindsight certainly made the
most sense because of her previous injury likely making her more of a
target. The girls were devastated.
Each day gets a little better. Still some sadness but the tears have dried
up. Both the girls made sweet little
memory books of Reese and Teah asked me to print out a picture of her so they
could always remember her. The other two
have basically been on lock-down with only 30-60 minutes each day of “yard time”. We of course still feel torn. Although they’re safe I hate that their “cooped”
up all day. Ugh! As my friend Emily said, farming is truly not
for the faint of heart. The circle of
life can sometimes be a very hard reality.
And we haven’t been very good at separating our feelings for the
chickens as pets versus farm animals. At
this point we’re happy to still have two and hope that we can keep them safe
and happy for the rest of our year here.
RIP our feisty, funny, little chicken
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