Margo

On Easter morning we returned home from church and prepared for the joy of children searching for plastic eggs filled with goodies all around the farm yard.  The cold rainy weather had lifted and the sun was shining slightly as the kids prepared their baskets. We let the 2 littlest ones go first, then one a little older, and finally the oldest were free to gather all that they could.  Shortly after the hunt began, my son called to me. “Mom, I think the rooster is over here dying!”  And sure enough, he was right.  Our rooster Chanticleer was lying on his stomach with his face turned to his left. Upon seeing him, I knew instantly that his neck was broken.  He was silently gasping his last breaths.  I knelt down next to him and stroked his back.  “I’m so sorry Chanticleer.” I whispered to him.

My husband came over and together we realized that Chanticleer needed to be put out of his suffering.  We also noticed that there were random piles of feathers around other areas of the barnyard. My husband went into the house and brought out his handgun, after a few shots and a lot of flapping (Chickens do not die quickly), Chanticleer was dead.

I walked down to through the barn out into the pasture and found another hen dead, still intact.  She had been dead for a while, her body as stiff as a board.  I carried her up to the barn and gave her to Dan.  All told, we were missing 4 hens and Chanticleer.  We can to the conclusion that the heavy fog we had encountered that morning as we left early for church, had disguised a pack of coyotes in the early hours of Easter.  The hens had left the security of the coop to feast on early morning bugs and had been unaware of being hunted.  Chanticleer appeared to have tried to save his hens as we found feathers 50 yards away from where he had fallen, neck broken, too hurt to resume the fight.

It was odd to me that the coyotes didn’t take away all of the bodies, Chanticleer was fully intact.  Why waste a meal?  I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.  Had the horses intervened? Had they interrupted the feast and scared the pack away? We will never truly know what happened.  But when I prayed over Chanticleer, I felt certain that this brave rooster had died protecting the rest of his ladies.  I thanked him for his great service, for all of the times he had alerted them to the presence of eagles, and for the times he showed them all where the best grubs were.  I told him I forgave him for ripping off their feathers during his intimate moments with the hens and that I would miss him.

Two nights later, one of the missing hens returned. It was Margo, one of the first hens to arrive during our first fall living at the farm. She has always been one of my favorites, her black and white feathers made up the softest coat I have ever touched on a bird.  She was a silent chicken, never raising her voice to scold the other ladies.  When I saw Margo had returned, I was ecstatic! I ran to her and picked her up, placing her on the hay bales where she stood and slept on every night. She was not ok. I could tell right away that she was badly hurt.  I placed her gently there in her favorite spot, along with some grain and told the other ladies to leave her be.  I prayed for healing as I could tell that her left side had been crushed and she was missing a lot of her feathers.  She had no open wounds as far as I could tell, but the color was fading from her crest and waddles, an indication of aging or ill health.  I told her that I was happy she had come home.

Margo lasted two days before she passed away.  I had found her several times on the ground, having fallen off of the hay bales and unable to get up off of her left side. I gently picked her up each time and placed her back in her “bed”. The final night I could tell death was eminent. Her color was draining rapidly from her usually vibrant crest and her waddles were following suit.  She had begun to drool and her eyes were half open.  I went to the house and asked my husband to please put her down too.  I asked him to do it quickly and to spare me any details. 

As I reflect back on these events, I feel so blessed to have had these critters in my life.  I appreciate the event of death more now than at any time in my life.  I’ve lost my grandparents to death, but honestly these events are so sporadic that they hardly seem real.  This spring we have encountered so many small deaths at the farm that my perception is really changing. When my husband recently called me to say he had found two dead kittens in the barn, I was sad, but not shaken. I felt blessed that we had been able to help Mui Mui the barn cat deliver the other four without incident.

I dare say that I am getting more comfortable with death. Not that I want to start spending all of my time at funerals, but I am more understanding of the role of death in a process called life. 

So often we celebrate things in our world. I had already mastered that ability early in life. I loved celebrating things! Purses, cars, all sorts of stuff had always filled me with joy. But the time I have spent birthing and watching the deaths of these simple farm animals, the more I realize that it truly is in the moments shared that purpose and fulfillment exist, not in the moments of acquisition. Now, I know that most of you reading this figured all of this out much earlier than me.  I am a late bloomer.  But if you have not held a small body from its birth until its death, I encourage you to not underestimate the positive impact to your life when you care for some one or something else, no matter how long or short your time together may be.

Chanticleer eating scratch with his ladies.