Tragedy - What was I thinking?

4hooves&featheredfriends · Apr 25, 2009

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Up until this point I was such a good chicken Mom, I even saved my Oz from an impacted crop by doing surgery but yesterday I really blew it. I am devastated.

It was such beautiful day I wanted to get the flock outside but the girls kept staying under the corn crib and not coming in at dark, so I was crawling under there to snag chickens. My poor knees and then my 76 yr old mother is under there one evening. Yesterday I tacked up some wire to keep the chickens in the run outside of the corn crib. I was a few feet short - so ah ha I can use the trailer divider (the 3x4 panel metal screen that divides the front) and lean it up against the wall and stabilize it with a 2x8.

As I was grooming my horse for a ride and heard a commotion, looked up and nothing seemed odd. The flock was off to the right and the rooster was harassing a girlie. I looked up again and realized the panel had fallen away from the wall.

OH NO - I ran over imagining-please no, please no don't let an of my girls be under there. I came around the corner and there was my largest black Australorp pinned under the panel, quite obviously deceased and a little SLW looking up at me - like, "Mom get me out of here." The larger bird actually had taken the impact and her body size kept the SLW from being killed. I am thankful I didn't lose two but what an awful thing -it makes me so sad to lose her and to have had a hand in it.

bethandjoeync · Apr 25, 2009

I am so sorry for your loss. I hate to hear when people lose a member of their flock

Sunny Side Up · Apr 25, 2009

I am sorry for your loss!

Hindsight is always 20-20. You did what you knew at the time to be the best course of action. It's impossible to protect our flock from every thing that could go wrong. Stupid would be if you did this very same thing again, which I do not think you ever will.

You live & learn, forgive yourself & go on. Find a favorite bush or tree to bury your hen under so her essence can contribute to its growth and, in that way, continue to live.

patyrdz · Apr 25, 2009

I am so sorry you lost one of your babies!

lovemychix · Apr 25, 2009

So sorry!

shawnm2639 · Apr 25, 2009

Oh man, I am so sorry for the big girl but glad the little one made it. When I moved my chicken wire dog crate in my house one freezing night a couple of days after getting 20 br day olds I must have lost one through the bottom somehow. I counted the next day and thought the feed store just miss counted. A day or so later I found the little body all the way on the other side of the house next to the water spiket. I have blamed myself for it. I know you Big Girl was with you much longer..I can just barely imagine how you feel if what I felt after a day is any indication.

CoopCrazy · Apr 25, 2009

Ive done the same thing.. With a peice of plywood... Don't beat yourself up it happens... SOrry bout your girl though

Judy · Apr 25, 2009

Just to say, I agree, many of us have messed up in a similar way, and stupid is only when you don't learn from your mistake.

So sorry.

buck-wild-chick · Apr 25, 2009

awww it happens

iv done it twice

speckledhen · Apr 25, 2009

Sometimes things happen that we just never foresee or imagine. I'm sorry you lost one.

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Tragedy - What was I thinking?

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