Lost one of my hens day-before-yesterday: Eugenia, a beautiful, perky Red. I still don’t know what happened. In the morning, I noticed her crouching beneath a tree in a weak, frosty sunbeam instead of merrily pecking and scratching about the yard, like her sisters. I thought maybe she was cold, and noticed that one of her nostrils seemed a little runny. We brought her inside and nestled her into a box beside the wood stove to keep her separate from the others and to make her more comfortable. She wouldn’t eat and would only drink a few sips of water. I spent most of the day alternately petting her and conducting internet research to find out what was wrong and how to help. But, in spite of all the forums and blogs and websites about chickens, I couldn’t find anything truly helpful. This is why I need a really good book–a compendium, if you will– about chickens. Doing internet research is like going into a room with five hundred people in it all shouting their (possibly unqualified) opinions at you. That, of course, can also be a positive thing; it’s all very egalitarian. But when you’re having an emergency, a nice, quiet, organized, edited book is probably more helpful.

Anyway, I had eliminated the possibility that she was egg-bound by performing a very invasive examination on the poor bird. She was so ill, she didn’t complain. But I still felt like I was in some way violating her. I smelled her breath and decided she didn’t have “sour crop,” but I thought her crop might be impacted- it was full in the morning ,despite her lack of appetite and lethargy. I was about to dose her with some olive oil and massage her crop, but when I went to the box, she had flopped onto her side and was already stiff. I never got to do anything truly helpful for her, except to bring her inside where she could be warm, and pet her a lot. I’m still very sad about it.

We had a small service for her yesterday morning, attended by Jim and myself, and four of the five remaining hens. When I carried the box containing her body out of our house, the other chickens began simultaneously doing their cluck-squawk, which they often do when they have been separated from the rest of the flock.  Call me crazy, but it was like they knew Eugenia had been separated from them, and were singing the song on her behalf, or in her honor. Until yesterday, I had never heard them all sing at the same time. It was mournful and touching and eerie. Just goes to show that animals know what’s going on.

So now there are only five- half of the little feathered fuzzballs I started out with. The flock looks conspicuously small; Eugenia’s absence seems larger than her presence was.

R. I. P. Eugenia