Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Do Chooks Grieve?

While I'm on the topic of death....

I was just thinking recently how good it has been having this bunch of chooks together for a while now, and that it was a while since I had lost a hen. Then, on Saturday afternoon, I went to feed the chooks and found one of my girls lying dead in front of the wheat and water buckets.

What's worse is that I'm not entirely sure which one it was. When we got them, they were wearing coloured bands around their ankles (I'm presuming the bands indicated which batch they were from). But when Eggnog's band started cutting into her leg, Duncan took them all off. Now, since many if them look alike I'm not exactly sure who's who.

I think it was Rose.

Duncan was working and the other chooks were looking a bit disturbed at the fact they couldn't get to their food and water.  So, I put on my thick gardening gloves and got rid of the body, far from the house so the dogs couldn't dig her up. Seeing my pets dead kind of freaks me out, so I was proud of myself that I could at least remove the body.  My poor girl. :(

The strange thing was that Rose's head was completely buried in dirt. The other chooks obviously did it, but why, I don't know. Is it some kind of chook grieving thing? When Russell Crowe died they did the same thing. Bizarre!

Meanwhile, Princess Layer - my sole surviving hen from Buntine - soldiers on.

I'm down to seven girls now. RIP Rose.


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