Cruel Irony.

Ever just have that one chicken that is the first one to greet you?  The one that practically flies into your arms expecting leftover dinner treats?  Yeah, I think most of us do.  I never would have expected a chicken to have personality so you can imagine what a bummer it was to have her turn up missing.

It started on a Friday morning.  I live on the edge of this park that has lots of wildlife.  Pets are banned to keep them from scaring the natural critters.  It's a steep cliff from my property down to the park and it is so steep I wouldn't try to go down it.  Well I get a call from a neighbor, she says she saw a chicken in the park Thursday evening and again Friday morning.  Most critters here do not survive a night in the wild.  Raccoons and coyotes are thick.

So over Friday and Saturday I made about 4 trips down a day and spent an hour to 90 minutes each time. I placed apples every 100 yards or so in an area beneath my home.  It worked and I saw peck marks on them so I knew she was close.  Half the people I talked to had seen her but I couldn't find her.  After nothing on Sunday I assumed she was dead.

Come Tuesday one my family members went down to the park to go for a jog.  He asked the park monitors if they had seen a chicken and they got excited and said they had, and showed exactly where it had been roosting every night.  I was shocked it had survived and again went down there to check for her.  The cliff is so steep it's near impossible for her to make it back up, especially since she was lost.  The big problem was the rain.  It kept her tucked away in the brush and I couldn't find her.

It finally quit raining Wednesday night and the forecast was looking good for Thursday.  I decided to go down at daybreak on Thursday to look around for her.  Well I did just that and found nothing.  When I got home I let the rest of my birds out and noticed a sad discovery.  The chicken I had been looking for was torn up by a raccoon next to my wood shed.  

After surviving a grueling park for 6 nights she found her way home, just to be eaten by a raccoon before I woke up and discovered her.  Cruel irony!  

Thanks.  It will be all right it's just a bummer that she was sooo close to being reunited with her pals.  I was impressed she survived for nearly a week.  Proves chickens can find food and water on their own.  Time to break out the traps and declare war.