A Murder Most Fowl
I fear we may have lost a chicken from our flock yesterday, although there is no gore or collection of feathers to indicate a murder has taken place. Evidence is not always left behind after a crime, however.
She is a sweet bird, gentle and timid, and likes to remain in the chicken run and away from the other birds mostly. She has one wonky eye, perhaps the result of an errant peck from another hen, or some disease or injury from somewhere else, and we’re fairly certain that she’s blind on that side, or near to.
At dusk, when all the other chickens go into the coop and wait for us to lock them up for the night, this hen would stay in an open area of the barn, perched on a crossbeam, and every evening I would have to put my hand under her and let her step up onto my fingers, like a falcom or a hawk with a handler, and I would carry her into the coop to nest with the rest of the flock. It’s been the routine for the past couple of months since we inherited new hens to add to our existing flock.
Last night, this hen was missing when I went to put them to bed. She wasn’t in the coop with the others, nor was she in her usual waiting place. We did a look around the run and the trees beside it, but there was no sign at all of the hen, alive or otherwise.
She wasn’t there this morning either, when I let the flock out for the day. We don’t have much hope for her return.
Our chickens live as good lives as we can give them, and we let them free range on the property. They are free to wander, to eat bugs and toads and salamanders as they will. The price for not being cooped up (hah) all the time is that sometimes…
… sometimes there is a murder.
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