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Death in the Hen House
All was strangely quiet this morning. The chickens were still closed into their sheltered quarters, but the normal muffled chorus was absent. The noise which so often raises me from slumber and causes curses to spill from my lips, was worryingly absent. I didn’t think anything of it, other than the fact that I noticed the silence. Trotting down the garden in my underpants, I slid the hatch open and awaited for the excited flock to scurry through. Nothing. I could hear them, the odd croak, a quick squawk, but they wouldn’t come out. There was a sobering air, something was wrong. I quickly dashed into the garage, trying to coax them off of their roosts and then I saw a Light Speckled Sussex, wedged halfway into their nestbox. I still hoped nothing was wrong, that the flock was just panicked for some reason, oddly wary and quiet. But when the stiff, hard touch of her body hit my fingers I knew, she was dead.
I hate when rigor mortis sets in. Strangely I can handle it when something lies lifeless but soft, floppy, remnants of it’s life still about it. But when you get the stiffness of death, the half open rolled eyes, the strange dying look, it makes me shudder. Death becomes all the more real, no matter what worldly creature it falls upon. I carefully removed some feathers from her neck – her crop was full. I checked she wasn’t egg bound…..nothing. Poor little hen.
She’s been buried between the Dahlia’s for I cannot eat her due to her death circumstances. It’s furthered my already subdued character. The feelings of the hermitage are coming on. Social saturation has reached a level where I can no longer participate with other humans for a while…..I even ran from the post lady this morning, knowing that even a smile and hello was too much to manage.
The flock seem ok. I’ve dug out their flooring and added new bark, fed them some greens, and cleaned the nest box and provided fresh straw. More for me than them I suppose, I don’t want signs of the lingering death. Whilst they chortle on, establish a new pecking order now that one has departed, and scratch in their new surroundings, my little one year old hen’s death will play on my mind for sometime.
Poor little hen.
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