It's the truth that farming brings you closer to the circle of life from it's glorious beginning to its humble endings. It's the thing that makes you love and hate animal rearing with equal amounts of emotion.
Death is bad enough to deal with when there's an obvious cause - a disease, a predator, an accident, something that you did wrong... but it's even harder when there is no obvious reason - especially when you're a child.
I remember losing the first pet I had that was all my own - a little budgie/parakeet named Pary. It was a terrible time that I played a lot of sad songs on the piano to help me through it. Of course, I did... and went on to have more budgies and expand...
My daughters got hit with this awful truth this week and although my elder daughter sort of remembered losing animals before, it was the first one my younger daughter had really experienced - and she was the one to make the awful discovery as well.
Monday
Everyone looks happy and healthy. Fresh grass, treats, everything...
It was the splash cochin (right front) who suddenly died Tuesday while we were working on the garden. Apparently, the girls said she was a little quiet to begin with, but that was the only sign we had that anything was wrong.
One of the problems with birds in general, and any small animal is that since they are prey animals, they have to hide their problems very well. Otherwise, they become prey... So, often you do not know anything is wrong until it is too late.
My guess is that the change in weather caused too much stress for this poor chicken and she just didn't handle it as well as the others.
I've since given them some plain yogurt to help give them an immune boost, so hopefully we won't lose any more.
It was a harsh lesson for the girls who participated in burying the dead chicken, tears in everyone's eyes. She was a good, gentle chicken and I'll definitely get cochins again after we get moved.
Photos taken in June 2020 with my Nikon D7200.
Past issues...
Poultry
Chickens - A Little About Our Breeds
Chick Update and the new Warming Plate
Chickens Grow Quickly
Building our Chicken Tractor
Reinforcing our Chicken Tractor
Gardening in Wyoming
Indoor Gardening
Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble, TeePublic, PicFair and DeviantArt.)
verified author on Goodreads
(Buy my books at Books2Read and at LBRY)
find me on Twitter
