She was such a marauder, I must confess to not holding a lot of affection for her, but she and her buddy Joyce were hands down the funniest pair of hens I ever met.
Of course, now she's died I'm rifling through the behaviours I observed but didn't identify as symptomatic of ill health. When she took to sleeping on the floor of the roost I thought she was cold at night and seeking a spot under Mary's copious fluff, after all, we're in the depths of winter, the nights are chilly by Adelaide standards, and she never had an excess of feathers. But now I realise she was probably unwell. The morning she died, she didn't eat breakfast and I assumed she'd already filled up from the dispenser. It was only when she walked so slowly to the roost it dawned on me she needed veterinary support. Too little, too late.
But everyone's right in that I provided her with as much chicken lifestyle as possible in a suburban backyard. At least she didn't drown in the floods or end up in a really bad home.