Sad morning here. The old homily that everything happens in three's, though I do not hold to old wives' tales and such, just seems to hold true a good bit of the time. More specifically, as I said to DH, for the ones you do expect, there is always the one you don't expect. We got that when we went to the barn a little while ago. Rita has passed away.
Rita was one of those weird, happy accidents, an unauthorized breeding. She hatched from a pretty blue egg from a BBS Ameraucana flock. The breeder's husband's BLRW rooster got into the flock and that's how I got Rita. When she popped out of her egg, I said, wait a minute, that is a RED chick! But I'd been warned that if I got a funny-looking chick, the BLRW would be the sire.
Rita was the best of the best, that girl. She loved to be held, loved to boss the underlings. She went broody just one time in her entire life and raised one chick, Rex, Atlas's dad. Rita would have turned 7 years old in early spring, along with Tiny (also from a blue egg) and my three BBS Rock hens, Emily, Alice and Neela. She went through a bad molt, lost an unusual amount of weight, had a sluggish crop for awhile, which we did fix, but she never gained her weight back, though she did eat like a pig, and she never started up laying again, though she was always one of my very best layers.
The last thing I have of Rita was this very recent video of her chasing the Brahma kids. She is the little red hen. That one hurt. No idea what happened, she didn't appear ill, just was gone this morning, had been gone for a couple of hours at least. RIP, sweet Rita.
we ourselves are having three designed by a local designer. One bachelor pad, a laying hen house, and a 8-stalled breeding pen for our eventual breeding quads. 
