In Loving Memory...


This article is dedicated in it's entirety to Peep - my mascot, Queen of Fluffy Butts, the resident bass in the Kewl Chix Choir, and the coolest chicken to ever walk the face of the earth. RIP October 13, 2016


~~~

Peep was one of my very first chickens. We got her and four other buff orpingtons, along with 10 other RIR and BR chicks, to be our first flock. As a chick, Peep and her siblings were wild. They absolutely hated being around, and God forbid, being held by people. But she was one of the few we could tell apart as chicks (she was a more orangey color) so my brother named her Peep, after the kid's show "Peep and the Big Wide World." :lol:
As she grew up, Peep chilled out a lot, so when Mom needed a chicken to bring to her preschool "Life On the Farm" class, she was out first choice. So we loaded her up in a kennel, brought her to school with us, and let the kids hold her (which I'm sure she hated :lol: ) and pet her. She handled it all like a pro, i was so proud of her.
Then we brought her home and she laid her first egg. :lau :th
As me and my sister figured out the chicken's pecking order, it became obvious (and I mean WAY obvious) that Peeper was the Big Boss. Nobody dared to peck Peep. Then the younger pullets started growing up and she got knocked down a few notches, but the original girls still respected her as #1. Even the roosters left her be! :lol: Every time she saw me she'd come running. Only on rare occasions did she let me catch her, but I would pick dandelion leaves for her and we'd talk about our lives and such. :lol: This went on for about 2 years.

For my birthday last year, Mom took me to a "breeder" in a nearby town so i could pick out a couple chickens. They had some pretty awesome breeds - bielefelders, english orpingtons in all the colors you can imagine, bresse, marans, etc. But they weren't kept in the best conditions. I fell in love with a little bielefelder pullet, and a raggedy-looking lavender cuckoo orpington. After 2 weeks of some pretty darn lazy quarantine, we let them out. After about a week, the sneeze/cough that the orp, Sugar, had been dealing with got really bad. Next week, she went downhill overnight, and died the next night. That was when the rest of the flock got sick. Nasty runny noses, rattley breathing, and combined with molting season, it made for one sickly looking flock. A few of them lost pretty much all sense of balance, which at the time we guessed was Marek's... Me and Sis decided that since we didn't know what to do about it, that we should cull all the sickies - Peep was among the sickies.
The night before we went on vacation to Arizona, we put all the affected birds into the quarantine coop so Dad could cull them. 19 chickens died that day. We lost 21 birds to whatever that disease was. Including my precious Peepa.
I made my BYC account about 2 weeks before we decided to cull. Naturally I "named" myself after the most prominent girl in the flock, and her memory lives on in it. Rest in peace, darlin'. I miss you more than you'll ever know.

Peep was also the vict-ehem, subject of a couple songs/poems i wrote. :p I wrote these awhile back, and they kinda suck, but hey what can I say. :lol:

Peep
Her feathers are yellow,
Her feet are white-pink,
Her comb is all crooked,
And she likes me - I think.
Peep's fun to talk with
She only says "Perp!"
So If I say "You're ugly"
She says "Okay, sure."
When folk's say ,"She's fat!"
My Peep gets offended,
And so I will tell them,
"She's only well feathered."
I love Peep so much
And when she quits layin'
I made Peep a promise
That we'd let her stay.


~


Oh my sweet Peepers Buffy,
You were my favorite hen,
And Oh my sweet Peepers Buffy,
I loved you like my best friend.

Peepers, Aspen, Dixie Chick and Goldilocks- the members in the Kewl Chix Gang.
Aspen is soprano, Dixie alto,
Goldi was tenor and my Peep was the bass!

Oh my sweet Peepers Buffy,
I loved you like my best friend!
And OH my sweet Peepers Buffy,
I loved you to the end.

~~~~~~~~~~


700 (1).jpg
  • Like
Reactions: Dawnclucks22