RIP

RIP Dally, sister of the late Dolly and Dilly, companion and friend to Sally, sadly missed.

Each and every creature is a unique word of God, with its own message, its own metaphor, its own energetic style, its own way of showing forth goodness, beauty, and participation in the Great Mystery. Each creature has its own glow and its own unique glory - Richard Rohr

 On the week of the commemoration of the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, one who was known for his affinity for the natural world and the animals who inhabit it, I’m taking this opportunity to give thanks to Dally, our ‘Light Sussex’ hen who has graced and grazed our property for almost 5 years. We started with four chickens and now we are down to one. 

Making a decision to euthanize a pet is hard. Recently, in the midst of her lock-down sickness I gave her permission to go, to ’be free and fly away to the other side.’  She was looking particularly worse for the wear on this day about a week ago, and her usual practice of foraging for grubs right beside me wherever I garden wasn't happening. Rather she just sat, almost upright, head tucked into her black feather collar, with her body puffed out with that ‘end of chicken life look’. I thanked her for her companionship and secretly hoped she would take herself off to her nest and go for a very long sleep. Don’t we all want to go that way? But that was over a week ago and clearly she wasn’t able to will her own life be over, so I had to help. 

She was going on 5, which isn’t that old but in chicken years is considered to be getting on. She developed a sore on the side of her beak which eventually caused a slight deformity meaning she had to turn her head to scrape the good side of her beak  through her food and use it like a scoop, not a long term sustainable feeding method.  I think Sally (her ‘Black Leghorn’ sister) got a bit brassed off with her towards the end as I found this infected sore under her wing as well, and I had seen her being pecked and bullied by her Sally  a couple of times. It’s rough in the world of chickens.

I used a spray that was known to help and for a while it seemed to, but Dally just got more and more lethargic. I googled ‘How to know when your chicken’s life is over’ and  ‘How to euthanize a chicken humanely’ and even though I was offered a variety of answers and processes, clearly the decision was mine to make. I knew I couldn’t be the one to administer her last rites, and no-one else around me was keen. It’s true that if you are prepared to keep animals, you need to be able to make the big calls for them, in life, and death, so  my decision was to take her to the vet to be put down in what I consider the most humane way. Using a broomstick to break her neck, or chop her head off with an axe, or smack her over the back of the head with a spade  wasn’t quite my cup of tea, and who's to say that a chicken doesn’t deserve the same dignified death as a cat, dog or a horse. It seems to me that chickens get a bad wrap, and become almost ‘the least of these’ in the pet pecking order. It’s true, I never brought them inside the house to sleep on my bed, and didn’t put them on a lead and walk them up the street so maybe they never really held pet status, rather garden companions.  I just let them do their own thing, which isn’t very much and takes them all day to do it.

Birds being birds.

I miss Dally already, and so does Sally. They say (well I read) that when a chicken is left on its own it can become depressed, even die of a broken heart. They are flock creatures, and even though there is often a tussle in the coop to vie for top-chick, at the end of the day they love each other and can be found nestled closely together in a bundle of hay. Whatever happened during the day seems to be forgiven and forgotten. Sounds like a healthy way to live. 

So after the event yesterday, I spent some time with Sally in the garden. She wasn’t herself.  She sat quite near but with her back turned toward me. She was upset, possibly annoyed and probably won’t ever trust me with a spade in hand again.  She stood and watched the grave being dug and is now probably very suspicious of its future potential  use.  Her breathing was laboured, ‘was she dying of shock’ I wondered, and she seemed to have a tear in her eye. So I joined her, and we lamented the passing of Dally together.

Last night  she went to bed alone, no doubt missing her closest companion, and  I was awake at 2am worrying about her.  Apparently if you have a sole chicken, in order to care for them you could consider bringing them inside for company but if this is the mark of a true lover of chickens, then the past 5 years have been not much more than a novelty experience for me. I had already decided when we got down to one that I wouldn’t bring any new girls home to  increase the flock, I really don’t want to start again from scratch, but rather I would watch her closely, see if she was coping ok and if not, find a new home for her which is possibly the most likely scenario. Unfortunately though I have some fairly steep requirements for my Sally, the first one being she can’t go to a flock with a rooster. My girl has not been subjected to any rough treatment and from what I’ve heard a rooster demands a high price in return for offering his harem protection. No, she needs to go to a small flock where she can be valued for who she is, somewhere that her refined qualities can be nurtured. But maybe she will be ok staying here, roaming her quarter acre freely, building nests for herself under the trees, digging for worms in the vege garden, laying her daily egg, and hanging out with me when I’m outside. I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, but I’m glad to say Sally didn’t die last night of a broken heart, rather she was up this morning ready for her grain. She did spend most of the day running in and out of the coop just to make sure that Dally had really gone, or possibly because she’s due to lay an egg. I’m hoping it’s the latter. Despite the losses,  I’m grateful for the experience of becoming a companion to a bunch of chickens over these years, quite the privilege! 

So thankyou Dally, Dilly and Dolly….and hang in there Sally!

A person who knew nothing but creatures would never need to attend to any sermons, for every creature is full of God and is a book. —Meister Eckhart