poultry update

Chester, the lame rooster, died a week or so ago.

Honestly, the poor thing was not living a good life, and more than once, I told Tyler I thought we'd be kind to put him out of his misery. 

But I didn't want to go killing chickens right after we'd been given them. Somehow that didn't seem very grateful, 

even though Gayle herself had admitted she should have let him die after the dog got 'im.

 Tuesday night, we only locked up 23 chickens, instead of 24.

Then, last night, while Tyler and I were out shopping, Brandon sent a text asking how many chickens we should have.

There were only 22.

Now.

Loss is part of life in the country,

and part of why we got baby chicks - to replenish the flock,

but this was getting ridiculous.

Both nights, we locked the coop, but left the gate open, in case the rogue hen returned.

I was in the kitchen around 2 this morning (why, is another story for another time...)

and thought I heard a chicken talking.

I decided it must be frogs.

I went on with my work, and heard it again.

I was pretty sure it wasn't frogs.

but it wasn't a nervous sound, more of a friendly chattering.

I hopped up, grabbed a flashlight (yay ~ I could find a flashlight - amazingly, right where it belonged!)

and went outside.

There,

walking around in the light coming from the kitchen window, was a bedraggled hen.

I was so happy to see her!

She didn't want me to pick her up,

but she wasn't too keen to follow me either,

so I set down the flashlight and snatched her up anyways.

I picked up the light

and we walked through the mist to the chicken coop, me talking to her the whole way.

~

Here she is all dried out, and giving me an egg :-)  (and a stink-eye)

And here are the babies, already getting bigger!