Beautiful day turned really really CRAPPY! Charlotte is dead!

[WriterofWords]

Started the day rehoming 5 ducks, great! Weather was nice, drove to Ruidoso with a friend to go Geocaching. While we were gone the weather at home turned awful and had a ton of rain, with wind and hail. I got home well after dark and was doing a head count with a flashlight and I found one casualty, Charlotte, Steven's little girl!
Of all the ones to lose, my son's little angel. How the heck am I going to tell him that Charlotte was killed in a rain storm because I wasn't home to close the coop door and all the really big guys got into her little area and squashed her??
I am just heartbroken right now. I know she had a little nest somewhere but I can't find it and I'm afraid it got flooded. I don't even have any of her little babies anymore.

 

[AngieChick]

Oh, I am so sorry that happened!

 

[texasbartrambaby]

I am so sorry - I saw on the radar that NM got hammered tonight. It keeps popping up around us but nothing major.

Here's hoping that you find her little nest ...

 

[luvarabhorses]

So sad for you!

I think you know not to blame yourself, weather like this could have happened during the school year when you were at work, or for any number of reasons, it just happened to occur while you were having fun with your friend which you deserve to do occasionally. Having poultry you just have to have some thick skin, we lose a lot of them for so many different reasons and it was probably just Charlotte's time. I'm s was a wonderful friend

. Try to think about and remind yourself how lucky you and your son were to have her in your life.

 

[crtrlovr]

I know the feeling. So sorry about poor Charlotte. At the risk of sounding uncaring toward some, it seems like it's never one that you are affectionate to, but don't really have the same connection and relationship with that ends up being the loss, it's the one whose loss leaves a giant hole in your heart. I left around 4:30 to get feed & run a few errands. Got back around 6 and in that 1 1/2 hrs., some dog or maybe coyote has snatched my pied guinea. Feathers at the initial hit zone, more about 10' away while she tried to escape, 30' from there is a large area of pull-out where he/she predator apparently adjusted the grip, and a few dropped feathers from trotting toward the fence line (trees). A few more were found there, then tracks heading across the soybean field toward a subdivision. My husband was wondering why I "bothered" to gather her feathers. I told him there was no way in blazes I was going to just let the signs of her last terror-filled fight for her life lie there to blow away in the wind or get chewed & spit out by the lawn mower.

A limb had blown down across the electronet fence (not energized; haven't yet figured out how to do that part, but it's been keeping them inside except for the little toots that can crawl between the rows & hop through), and the back side was down (which I couldn't see when I let them out the front of the henhouse door this morning). That hindsight makes ya feel like a fool.... (where's that darn self-flagellation smilie...)

this has been an AWFUL year for my guys & gals this year. May God smile on them and me and rebuke the devourer (both figuratively and literally!) from me & mine, and may they live healthy, happy, and content lives that last as long as they are supposed to....

 

[insiderart]

I feel for ya. Recently had to tell my DD the same news about her favorite chicken. It wasn't pretty.

 

[Mahonri]

Sorry about the death....

.... and wish we could get a little of that moisture.

 

[WriterofWords]

While he has been at basic training, we've lost two very close family friends and now his first little hen that he rescued at a swap meet from some evil kids. I'm telling him any of this until he gets home, I don't want it on his mind while he's there. I got three letters from him today, two days of mail call went by with no letters for him, they were mailed, they just didn't get there, and he's having a hard time right now. He doesn't need this.

 

[insiderart]

Quote:
Oh you're absolutely right about that. There will be a right time to tell him. It's our job as parents, to on occasion withhold information, and then dispense it when appropriate or needed. Well that's my opinion anyway.

 

[HennysMom]

Writer... I'm so sorry you lost your girl.