horsegirlll
In the Brooder
- May 2, 2022
- 21
- 48
- 44
warning: long story
my little girl, our og, passed away on the 29th of january, 22:36 AEST. this was the last chicken i had left of the very first 7 we got in 2018.
i’m 14 years old, so i was in primary school the day my dad picked me up. there was a box on the back of the ute, i asked him what it was, all he said; “you’ll see”. i thought nothing of it till we got home and i could hear chirping, and then suddenly it dawned on me. we had already finished building our coop, but i was still so surprised to actually have the chickens here with me.
they weren’t actually sexed when we got them, even though they were pullets, us being the inexperienced chicken people we were then we couldn’t tell the difference till we started hearing them crowing in the morning.
one of my dads friends took our 3 of 4 roosters, i had a sick feeling they weren’t going to a lovely farm like everyone was telling me about. i was probably right, but have never asked about it since, id probably rather keep it a possibility in my mind they lived happily for a little while.
so now we had 3 hens and a rooster. midnight, digger and fawkes were the girls, i can’t remember the roosters name but i do have it written down somewhere.
i do remember that digger jumped over the fence to the jaws of my dog, who did not mean a thing and has since gotten along well with my girls and boys.
so now we had 3. we knew that we couldn’t keep this up for long because our boy would stress out midnight and fawkes too much. we got 5 more chickens- ginger, popcorn, red, another chicken i can’t name and dusty(?). dusty and popcorn both passed away not long after, one to the dog next door and the other to a fox after being left out at night. after her i always made sure to count before locking the door.
i think it was around this point that ginger, red and our other girl jumped out of the coop to the jaws of yet another dog, our new pup. i’m not sure if he’s learnt yet, but he is playful and the flapping of their wings must make him excited.
i came home that day. it was mother’s day, my poppa had died that morning. me and my dad had just arrived when i looked out the back door and saw the 3 chickens with feathers laying around. i yelled out to my dad, locked the dog away and grabbed the hens. we sat in the garage for hours with our fire/heater on.
ginger had a hole in her neck, red was a bit bloodied up and missing feathers but otherwise okay. our other girl had a lot of blood on her back, and died of what i think was shock.
before she died, i went to bed. i woke up at around 3 that morning with a worried feeling in my stomach, but i ignored it and went back to sleep. oh, how i wish i had gotten up to spend the last moments with my girl.
next day we took ginger to the vets, i was afraid they would say euthanasia was the only option so i hid a note in the carrier with her begging the vet to help her. anyway, all we needed was some cream so it wouldn’t get infected
fast forward to now. like i said, my girl fawkes has just died. she’s met all the chickens we’ve owned, even the one we only had for 2 days because we picked her up thinking she was ours. she flew over the fence to the neighbours dog. (man i’m glad they moved, they were useless with getting her body back to us.)
i’ve had so many memories with fawkes. her sitting on my shoulder as a pullet. her always being top of the pecking order but being nice to the new girls, whenever they were put together.
her own little hens and roosters she created.
all her little things that were just hers, like the perch in the corner of the chicken coop.
she was a rhode island red. so so pretty. it’s going to take me a while to get used to not seeing her with the others.
i’ll always love you forky
pictures description:
1- fawkes while we only had 3 chickens
2- fawkes’ son (june 2019)
3- fawkes’ daughter (june 2019)
4- fawkes (may 2022)
5- fawkes and ginger (may 2022)
6- buckbeak, hermione, ginger, fawkes and shadow (december 2021)
7- fawkes, ginger and in the background is cookies (may 2022)
8- the 7 original chickens
9- fawkes again (early january 2023)
10- sleeping positions, 2 chickens not visible (september 2022)
my little girl, our og, passed away on the 29th of january, 22:36 AEST. this was the last chicken i had left of the very first 7 we got in 2018.
i’m 14 years old, so i was in primary school the day my dad picked me up. there was a box on the back of the ute, i asked him what it was, all he said; “you’ll see”. i thought nothing of it till we got home and i could hear chirping, and then suddenly it dawned on me. we had already finished building our coop, but i was still so surprised to actually have the chickens here with me.
they weren’t actually sexed when we got them, even though they were pullets, us being the inexperienced chicken people we were then we couldn’t tell the difference till we started hearing them crowing in the morning.
one of my dads friends took our 3 of 4 roosters, i had a sick feeling they weren’t going to a lovely farm like everyone was telling me about. i was probably right, but have never asked about it since, id probably rather keep it a possibility in my mind they lived happily for a little while.
so now we had 3 hens and a rooster. midnight, digger and fawkes were the girls, i can’t remember the roosters name but i do have it written down somewhere.
i do remember that digger jumped over the fence to the jaws of my dog, who did not mean a thing and has since gotten along well with my girls and boys.
so now we had 3. we knew that we couldn’t keep this up for long because our boy would stress out midnight and fawkes too much. we got 5 more chickens- ginger, popcorn, red, another chicken i can’t name and dusty(?). dusty and popcorn both passed away not long after, one to the dog next door and the other to a fox after being left out at night. after her i always made sure to count before locking the door.
i think it was around this point that ginger, red and our other girl jumped out of the coop to the jaws of yet another dog, our new pup. i’m not sure if he’s learnt yet, but he is playful and the flapping of their wings must make him excited.
i came home that day. it was mother’s day, my poppa had died that morning. me and my dad had just arrived when i looked out the back door and saw the 3 chickens with feathers laying around. i yelled out to my dad, locked the dog away and grabbed the hens. we sat in the garage for hours with our fire/heater on.
ginger had a hole in her neck, red was a bit bloodied up and missing feathers but otherwise okay. our other girl had a lot of blood on her back, and died of what i think was shock.
before she died, i went to bed. i woke up at around 3 that morning with a worried feeling in my stomach, but i ignored it and went back to sleep. oh, how i wish i had gotten up to spend the last moments with my girl.
next day we took ginger to the vets, i was afraid they would say euthanasia was the only option so i hid a note in the carrier with her begging the vet to help her. anyway, all we needed was some cream so it wouldn’t get infected
fast forward to now. like i said, my girl fawkes has just died. she’s met all the chickens we’ve owned, even the one we only had for 2 days because we picked her up thinking she was ours. she flew over the fence to the neighbours dog. (man i’m glad they moved, they were useless with getting her body back to us.)
i’ve had so many memories with fawkes. her sitting on my shoulder as a pullet. her always being top of the pecking order but being nice to the new girls, whenever they were put together.
her own little hens and roosters she created.
all her little things that were just hers, like the perch in the corner of the chicken coop.
she was a rhode island red. so so pretty. it’s going to take me a while to get used to not seeing her with the others.
i’ll always love you forky
pictures description:
1- fawkes while we only had 3 chickens
2- fawkes’ son (june 2019)
3- fawkes’ daughter (june 2019)
4- fawkes (may 2022)
5- fawkes and ginger (may 2022)
6- buckbeak, hermione, ginger, fawkes and shadow (december 2021)
7- fawkes, ginger and in the background is cookies (may 2022)
8- the 7 original chickens
9- fawkes again (early january 2023)
10- sleeping positions, 2 chickens not visible (september 2022)
Attachments
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But I am so sorry for your loss. 
