After a year, I finally lost one

[brookwoodpat]

I found the feather spill from my missing chicken. It was just outside the fence, in a place where I have found it missing before, when it was trying to get back inside. I looked in that place last night for it, and I don't remember seeing feathers then, but it was dark,and maybe I missed it then.

I feel so bad.

She was such a sweet friendly chicken, and I had seen her in my house (the chickens do stroll in) just a little bit before, so I can't understand why she left the yard, or how she got out. I do a headcount several times a day. I count heads at night when I lock up. I must have searched for an hour and a half last night by flashlight, and never saw her. I called and called and always the few times she's been out, she's vocalized and I've gone to get her. It may have been that the animal, fox probably, because everything was gone but the feathers, may have been lying in wait for her and had already gotten her and so that's why she didn't answer me. Because I had done a head count so recently before I locked up, I hadn't thought I had a missing chicken. My neighbors put geese by the pond close to that place, and I've seen foxes there, trying to get them.

I remember that chicken from a day old just hatched chick. She was a red star that didn't have much brown striping across her back and she turned into a chicken that had a lot of cream coloring on her back, and I called her white tail.

It just breaks my heart that I lost her on Easter, that we got through this bad winter, and she was lost right at the beginning of spring. I am just devastated.

 

[speckledhen]

Im so sorry for your loss. I've never lost any to predators, but tonight some huge cat I'd never seen before was after my broody and chicks, so my time may be coming. It's never easy to lose them, whatever way it happens.

 

[sfw2]

Oh, I am so sorry! It sounds like she had a great life with you, though. Lots of love and treats!

 

[heritagebirds]

So sorry...

 

[Rock Wyandotte]

Hi BrookWP, I'm really sorry for your loss, too. If this helps, I try to think about the great life that you gave her. Nature is tough but I think it really boils down to the life that is lived. You did a great job with her, and you'll give many wonderful chickens a great home.

 

[brookwoodpat]

I appreciate all the sympathy. It's so hard for me to believe she is really gone.

White Tail did have a great life. She had an acre to wander in, all the green grass and clover, weeds and bugs she could eat. She had plenty of good treats too-- canned cat food, hot cornbread, lots of scrambled eggs and french toast, strawberries blackberries and raspberries in summer, plenty of cool shady places when it was hot, and dust baths summer and winter, a heat lamp in the coop in winter, and she was always in and out of the house. But it was too short a life. I used to think that giving them a good life would be some compensation if I lost one, as I know -- intellectually- that losing chickens is inevitable, part of keeping them, as they are shortlived anyway, and so much can happen, particularly if you free range them.

But knowing that and losing one is a big difference. Keeping them safe and cared for really is a constant daily thing, that you invest so much in their care and well being, and they become so much a part of the family, that to lose one is very hard, particularly when it was my fault.It doesn't matter that I kept her safe in 500+ different ways before. Keeping them safe is a constant business of counting heads, looking to make sure missing chickens are really around and okay, chasing stragglers into the coop every night, pulling them out of trees when they don't want to roost in the coop, locking and double locking doors, etc, etc. What ultimately mattered is that somehow she squeezed out or jumped over the fence when I wasn't expecting it. HAving just counted heads an hour before, I didn't rush out to lock up at dusk becuase nothing comes in my fence with a german shepherd on guard and I didn't realize she was gone out of the fence. Though I searched for her for an hour and a half by flashlight, by then she had probably already been killed. Probably a fox got her by then. I messed up one time when I least expected it, and it cost her her life. It is hard for me to think that her good life up till now is any kind of compensation for losing her.

Her and her two Red Star sisters were my first and favorite chickens, and they were the friendliest and most personable of all my chickens. I will never forget her personality and her tie dyed red and white plumage. I am so sorry I let her down.

 

[JennsPeeps]

Hugs & condolences on the loss of your beloved pet. May the memory of the joys that the brought to your life last longer than the thoughts of the circumstances of her passing.

 

[SpringChickens]

I'm very sorry for your loss.