Eventually, as Winter came, a fitted tarp was secured to
the top of the kennel to prevent their flying out, and being caught by predators.
Henrietta, "Boo-Boo" was a chick who hatched one summer from an unplanned breeding between one of my particularly speedy and beautiful quick moving Bantam girls, and a much larger Rhode Island Red rooster. Unplanned, successful hatchings are rare, in part because some of the chickens aren't particularly good mothers and also because the temperature variant even in summer can be broad. Most fertilized eggs, unless we incubate them do not result in a successful chick here. Henrietta was one in a million.
Because she had been hatched at a time of year that was unusual, and was smaller than the other hens of her type, she tended to be picked on. She frequently received boo-boos, and they seemed to attack her comb, which is quite vascular and can bleed a great deal. Eventually I decided that the older girls were dangerous to her, and I decided to place her in a different hen house with a young rooster who could protect her. The two happily played house together for years in their own pen, and survived attempts to get them by coyotes, raccoons, young foxes and even a possum. Each day, Henrietta produced a perfect brown egg, which I collected and usually used each day, mostly because she was so proud of the egg.
After about thirteen years, her mate died, early on a Fall morning. I wasn't sure what to do for Henrietta. Eventually, I placed an elderly rooster, a brother of her former spouse, in the pen with her, and although she seemed relieved, I don't think it was quite the same. The following year, her second mate died of old age.
By then, she was no longer producing eggs and I thought that perhaps she could live with a couple of girls who were also getting on in years. Unlike some farms, I do not cull the chickens when they no longer produce eggs. It costs me little to allow them to live out their lifespans. The hens did not welcome Henrietta, again seeming jealous.
Eventually, I placed her with a Lavender Orpington rooster who, although he was beautiful and a bit vain, didn't seem to want to bother her. He kept her safe, and she seemed grateful for it. Recently, at what would normally have been about two years beyond her normal life expectancy, she got wobbly. I looked at her closely and decided that she probably had the end of life pneumonia that takes most of them in the end. I decided to provide one round of antibiotic, one because she had a roommate and I wished to keep him healthy, and two because she would not be eaten and would not be producing eggs and so the antibiotic would not cause food chain issues. She did seem to improve, and was eating and drinking well the following day. Several days after, one morning, I found that she had died while sleeping in what looked like a comfortable position. Her latest rooster friend was most upset, not understanding how very old she really was, and how she had cheated death so many times in one way or another.
Thank you God, for the gift of this sweet, gentle, long lived girl. She was the very model of gratitude, Please keep her for me, until I get home to the farm in the sky, and I can resume my duties.
Although this is an ending, it is also a beginning. A couple of weeks after Henrietta's passing, I put the young Lavender Orpington rooster nearby five young Asian black hens I had bought. In about fifteen weeks, he will begin his task as their protector.
