- Jan 4, 2015
- 34
- 101
- 134
I should be good at this whole grieving thing by now, but I'm having a really hard time with this one. I'm writing this to help myself cope.
Having lost so many of our feathered friends in the past, we stopped naming them at some point. This hen is known affectionately as the "little purple one." We've had her since she hatched out of her egg just shy of six years ago.
She's always been skittish, choosing to range on her own whenever we'd let the flock out. In her earlier years, she was known to hide in leaves by the treeline, building her nests outside of the coop. I learned soon enough not to worry when I was short one on the nightly headcount. If I looked, I knew I would find the little purple one in the shrubs or under the shed—her two favorite spots.
Inside of the coop, she would often perch high above everyone else on the roof beam along with a few of her siblings.
The Little Purple One, not far from one of her favorite spots under the shed
Inside of the coop, she would often perch far above everyone else on the roof beam along with a few of her siblings.
Her tendency to remain distant meant she was often out of sight, out of mind, and out of a lot of pictures that I snapped of the crew.
That started changing after we relocated our flock to a smaller coop two autumns ago. The smaller area and lack of high perches meant she was almost always in sight.
Then the pandemic hit. I returned home to my parents' house where we keep the flock. Being able to work remotely on my own hours, I set aside a few hours each day to letting the flock graze. They brought me comfort and joy when everything else in the world seemed to go awry. Naturally, I formed a deep bond with them.
And then our little purple one became severely ill. She lost the use of her right leg. She exhibited open-mouth breathing at a rapid pace. Her stool was watery. She had developed ascites. She had no appetite. I thought for sure she was a goner.
We brought her inside and lavished her with all of the care, love, and attention one could afford to give during a pandemic. That's to say, lots of it. Slowly, she recovered. Her symptoms began subsiding. She learned how to use her right leg despite having lost control of her foot (curled toes). I found, through some effort, a bottle of itraconazole to treat her breathing issues and those subsided too.
Before long, she made what seemed like a full recovery. One day, we set her out to graze with the others. When it was time to return home, she went back to the coop with everyone else. She was defiant about coming back inside to her little cardboard box in our home so we let her reintegrate with the rest of the flock.
The Little Purple One while recovering from her illness, sitting in the door of the coop
By then I had moved back to my own home, returning once every few weeks to visit. Most recently, I visited late last month (February). The little purple one had recovered so well that I treated her as I did all of the others—she was practically normal. The one exception was that I brought small treats to her during my stay and sometimes picked her up to give her a head start on the range.
This Saturday, my parents called to tell me that they found our little purple one barely conscious, blood covering her feathers near her vent. They asked what to do. I frantically searched for answers. I thought perhaps she had fatty liver hemorrhage or a broken egg inside. I asked my parents to treat her for shock, to provide her with warmth and fluids.
She died shortly after.
I have so many questions. It seemed that she was fine just a week ago. That's one of the many hard parts about grief, the questions.
As I've learned for myself through the years, it helps to cherish the memories of a passing loved one to start the coping and healing process. For the little purple one, I was fortunate to have collected hundreds of pictures and a handful of videos of her, many taken during the pandemic and when we had her homed. So I started gathering these.
I felt grateful for having had the chance to give her so much love, grateful that I could revisit those moments through images. From her youth, I found videos of her jumping onto her high perch and of her nestled in the bushes across the yard. I have pictures of her picking off blossoms from a tree. A more recent picture from last summer shows her on the roof of the newer coop. How she loved high perches!
The Little Purple One on the roof
I had also set up a coop camera this past summer, so I went scrubbing through the footage for moments of her. That's when I came to her last moments. And here is where I find myself sent to this dark place in the grieving process. I'm stuck here and it hurts so badly.
While much of it was off-camera, I could establish through the footage that she was bullied and pecked all of Saturday morning. In the end, it seems like she succumbed to vent pecking. At one point, she dragged herself to her normal hiding spot where my parents found her some thirty minutes later.
And now I'm left confused, shocked, angered, regretful, and sad.
Confused because I don't know how to love the flock that remains after what they've done. Shocked and angered at this even happening. Regretful that we hadn't homed her again or done something differently that day—letting them graze even a little earlier might have prevented any of this from happening.
Most of all, I'm sad. Sad because of her passing. The same recurring thought keeps coming to me, "she shouldn't be gone, she should still be here with us."
But I'm also sad because I now know that her last hours were filled with pain. It's not just the physical pain. What agony must she have known being taken out of this world by the same flock-mates she had lived happily with her whole life?
When she had her illness months ago, I remember sitting down, picking her up, and cradling her on my lap to let her know she was not alone and that she was loved, to remind her to hang on when her eyes could barely open. I would give everything to have been there as she slipped away on Saturday, to hold her and reassure her that she was still very much loved. Maybe she could have hung on a bit longer. Maybe she could have made another miraculous recovery.
What makes this grieving process so hard is that there's so much I don't know. There are so many what-if's and could-have's. My mind's gone numb, I haven't eaten well, and to many (especially those who have never kept chickens as pets), I probably seem to have lost my sanity. What I do know is this:
The little purple one never harmed anyone. She loved nothing more than to gobble a few bites of a favorite treat, graze the far corners of the yard, and find her strange little nesting spot for the day. She was so innocent and sweet. Nothing, not even a bad leg, prevented her from scuttling up for a greeting. I'll have her in my memory forever.
The Little Purple One at ~7-8 months old on a ledge by the roses
Having lost so many of our feathered friends in the past, we stopped naming them at some point. This hen is known affectionately as the "little purple one." We've had her since she hatched out of her egg just shy of six years ago.
She's always been skittish, choosing to range on her own whenever we'd let the flock out. In her earlier years, she was known to hide in leaves by the treeline, building her nests outside of the coop. I learned soon enough not to worry when I was short one on the nightly headcount. If I looked, I knew I would find the little purple one in the shrubs or under the shed—her two favorite spots.
Inside of the coop, she would often perch high above everyone else on the roof beam along with a few of her siblings.
The Little Purple One, not far from one of her favorite spots under the shed
Inside of the coop, she would often perch far above everyone else on the roof beam along with a few of her siblings.
Her tendency to remain distant meant she was often out of sight, out of mind, and out of a lot of pictures that I snapped of the crew.
That started changing after we relocated our flock to a smaller coop two autumns ago. The smaller area and lack of high perches meant she was almost always in sight.
Then the pandemic hit. I returned home to my parents' house where we keep the flock. Being able to work remotely on my own hours, I set aside a few hours each day to letting the flock graze. They brought me comfort and joy when everything else in the world seemed to go awry. Naturally, I formed a deep bond with them.
And then our little purple one became severely ill. She lost the use of her right leg. She exhibited open-mouth breathing at a rapid pace. Her stool was watery. She had developed ascites. She had no appetite. I thought for sure she was a goner.
We brought her inside and lavished her with all of the care, love, and attention one could afford to give during a pandemic. That's to say, lots of it. Slowly, she recovered. Her symptoms began subsiding. She learned how to use her right leg despite having lost control of her foot (curled toes). I found, through some effort, a bottle of itraconazole to treat her breathing issues and those subsided too.
Before long, she made what seemed like a full recovery. One day, we set her out to graze with the others. When it was time to return home, she went back to the coop with everyone else. She was defiant about coming back inside to her little cardboard box in our home so we let her reintegrate with the rest of the flock.
The Little Purple One while recovering from her illness, sitting in the door of the coop
By then I had moved back to my own home, returning once every few weeks to visit. Most recently, I visited late last month (February). The little purple one had recovered so well that I treated her as I did all of the others—she was practically normal. The one exception was that I brought small treats to her during my stay and sometimes picked her up to give her a head start on the range.
This Saturday, my parents called to tell me that they found our little purple one barely conscious, blood covering her feathers near her vent. They asked what to do. I frantically searched for answers. I thought perhaps she had fatty liver hemorrhage or a broken egg inside. I asked my parents to treat her for shock, to provide her with warmth and fluids.
She died shortly after.
I have so many questions. It seemed that she was fine just a week ago. That's one of the many hard parts about grief, the questions.
As I've learned for myself through the years, it helps to cherish the memories of a passing loved one to start the coping and healing process. For the little purple one, I was fortunate to have collected hundreds of pictures and a handful of videos of her, many taken during the pandemic and when we had her homed. So I started gathering these.
I felt grateful for having had the chance to give her so much love, grateful that I could revisit those moments through images. From her youth, I found videos of her jumping onto her high perch and of her nestled in the bushes across the yard. I have pictures of her picking off blossoms from a tree. A more recent picture from last summer shows her on the roof of the newer coop. How she loved high perches!
The Little Purple One on the roof
I had also set up a coop camera this past summer, so I went scrubbing through the footage for moments of her. That's when I came to her last moments. And here is where I find myself sent to this dark place in the grieving process. I'm stuck here and it hurts so badly.
While much of it was off-camera, I could establish through the footage that she was bullied and pecked all of Saturday morning. In the end, it seems like she succumbed to vent pecking. At one point, she dragged herself to her normal hiding spot where my parents found her some thirty minutes later.
And now I'm left confused, shocked, angered, regretful, and sad.
Confused because I don't know how to love the flock that remains after what they've done. Shocked and angered at this even happening. Regretful that we hadn't homed her again or done something differently that day—letting them graze even a little earlier might have prevented any of this from happening.
Most of all, I'm sad. Sad because of her passing. The same recurring thought keeps coming to me, "she shouldn't be gone, she should still be here with us."
But I'm also sad because I now know that her last hours were filled with pain. It's not just the physical pain. What agony must she have known being taken out of this world by the same flock-mates she had lived happily with her whole life?
When she had her illness months ago, I remember sitting down, picking her up, and cradling her on my lap to let her know she was not alone and that she was loved, to remind her to hang on when her eyes could barely open. I would give everything to have been there as she slipped away on Saturday, to hold her and reassure her that she was still very much loved. Maybe she could have hung on a bit longer. Maybe she could have made another miraculous recovery.
What makes this grieving process so hard is that there's so much I don't know. There are so many what-if's and could-have's. My mind's gone numb, I haven't eaten well, and to many (especially those who have never kept chickens as pets), I probably seem to have lost my sanity. What I do know is this:
The little purple one never harmed anyone. She loved nothing more than to gobble a few bites of a favorite treat, graze the far corners of the yard, and find her strange little nesting spot for the day. She was so innocent and sweet. Nothing, not even a bad leg, prevented her from scuttling up for a greeting. I'll have her in my memory forever.
The Little Purple One at ~7-8 months old on a ledge by the roses
