Beautiful

Glancing across the pasture, I couldn't make sense of the scene.  Scattered in several spots appeared to be where a pillow fight had gone bad and feathers exploded all over the ground.  I ran into the pasture and viewed the carnage.  A dead hen here, a dead hen there.  A quick count revealed several were missing.  Coyotes had struck mid-day.

As I gathered the deceased, I looked down towards the open space where the missing hens were carried away as a meal.  In the corner of my eye, I noticed another hen, fluffed up and motionless, under the neighbor's bushes.  I went to her and immediately noticed Beautiful had also been attacked.  Blood oozed from her head and an eye was swollen shut.  She survived the coyote attack, but for how much longer?


Beautiful was onet of many yellow peeps that were purchased years ago.  Initially, all danced around in a huge cardboard box, but when feathers replaced the yellow fuzz, they graduated into the chicken coop.  The coop had roosting bars, nest boxes, 3 fixed paned windows and a sliding window with a screen.  Electricity powered a red heat lamp that was plugged in when temperatures dropped severe enough to frostbite their fleshy red combs.  All the girls got along and were locked up at night within the coop for safety from predators and were allowed out in the mornings.  They matured into laying hens and had a happy life scratching in the dirt and chasing grasshoppers for snacks.  Although they looked like xerox copies of one another, each were named and identified by subltle differnces not noticed unless excessive time was spent hanging out with them.

Beautiful

After the coyote attack, injured Beautiful and unscathed Tasha were the only survivors.  I cradled Beautiful in my arms and went to the coop and carefully set her on the roost bars, propping her up in case she lost balance.  I gingerly doctored her head and winced knowing how small and fragile her bones were and feared she would soon die. 

But, she showed me something that I least expected.  Beautiful demonstrated a will to live!  She would cock her head sideways to use her good eye and drink water from a shallow dish that was held up for her.  Her beak could harldy open, so her food pellets were crumbled into dust and added to karo syrup to make a sticky mixture.  Because injury prevented opening her beak very far, she would cock her head and plunge it into the mix.

Days turned into weeks and her injured eye eventually opened, but she had lost vision.  It did not slow her down as she became adept in cocking her head while targeting food.  She taught herself how to grab a pointed pellet out of the feeder and bang it on the ground where it broke into smaller pieces that were consumed.  Old bread and vegetables were hammered by her beak as she cocked her head to target her meal.  Drinking also had her scooping water at an angle as her good eye focused on the waterline.

Beautiful even started laying eggs again and never strayed far from the security of the hen house. Several batches of new chicks were raised and moved into the coop.  Like adventurous children, they explored the pasture as Beautiful stayed close to the coop, providing a calm influence on the flock.  As if returning a favor, she hovered near and enjoyed being picked up to have her feathers stroked. 

Years went by and because of how she had to eat, her beak did not evenly wear down.  The side of her good eye wore more quickly so the other side angled and hooked downward like a hawk's beak.  This did not slow her down and never grew so long that it required being trimmed.  She would fluff up and twist her head around to bury it in her back feathers at night.  She may have also lost her hearing as she would not look up when the door was slammed after gathering eggs in the evening.  Or, maybe she recognized the sound being safe and did not feel it necessary to look.

Yesterday, she stepped out the little hen house door to bask in the sun.  I think she fluffed up in the sun to take a nap and was later found, lifeless with both eyelids closed. 

The matriarch had passed on and will be missed.