I named her Amelia after Amelia Earheart, because even as a baby chick she liked to fly and was good at it, for a chicken anyway. I know keepers of livestock are advised against getting attached and it's not fair when parents pick favorites. But both of these things happen. Amelia was my favorite chicken.
I came home from the clinic on a dusky Friday evening and saw my roommate Jefe on the hunt in the yard. I left the car and found out that a chicken was missing. He called Amelia "rainbow" because of the colorful feathers in her neck. She was always the first to head to the house and roost so as soon as I found out she was missing a pit came to my stomach. It was well past roost time. He'd last counted the chickens an hour ago, so there was a small time period in which she went missing. We searched the yard and barn and saw no sign of struggle. Befuddled we called it quits and hoped she would show the next morning. I doubted she would though. With no sign of struggle it was hard to figure out what had happened. She was also my smallest and lightest chicken so maybe a hawk carried her off? I took a benadryl to help with the anxiety/pass out early and went to bed.
The next morning there was no sign of her. I went to school and got a phone call from Joseph around noon. He hadn't answered any of my texts so I feared the worse which he soon confirmed. Amelia was dead. The neighbor's dog got her. Being an avid flyer she must have gotten over the fence. The dog being an prolific hunter of bunnies, cats, mice, and anything that moves, got her.
I spent the hour long commute home bawling and squaling and then feeling dumb for being so upset over a chicken. My neighbor, the retired truck driver felt terrible and offered to buy me a "whole fleet of chickens if it would help", but as he and I knew, a fleet of chickens would not be able to right this wrong.
As I've documented on this blog, I've lost chickens before. But their deaths have been due to spontaneous medical things not maulings. They also weren't Amelia. Fortunately, I did not have to see Amelia's mangled body. I wouldn't have been able to handle it. I also didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I guess it was fitting that Amelia went down in a ball of flames like her namesake, because like her namesake she lived on the wild side, to the extent that a domesticated chicken could.
When Amelia wasn't molting, she was on top of the pecking order. She even had her own roost spot separate and above the other ladies. She could be violent at times too. She kept everyone in line by pecking (hence the term "pecking order"). I tried time outs a couple time, locking her in a dog pen for a day. This would work but only on a short term basis. Seeking a longer term solution to my aggressive hen I found out about chicken blinders, what one visitor to our home called "sunglasses". These little orange sunglasses fit into the holes of her beak and kept her from being able to see straight ahead well enough to peck the other chickens. On some level I felt cruel but it's also cruel for the other chickens to be bullied. It would have been even meaner to get rid of Amelia and that was not an option. So she wore the sunglasses until they fell off about a year later. By that time, she seemed to have matured, or stop caring to peck my other girls, so I left the glasses off.
Because Amelia was more or less fearless, she was the only chicken who would voluntarily jump up on me to get some of her favorite snack-grapes. She loved the shit out of grapes. One day she ate so many that she started coughing. I feared I had doomed my favorite chicken to an early death by overfeeding her like a pate duck. But she pulled through. Like I said, she was a badass and like me, unable to stop when something was fun, even if it threatened to kill her. So I guess it makes sense that she went out like she did. But as the one left behind, it's not fun. I'm just missing my meelie girl.
I came home from the clinic on a dusky Friday evening and saw my roommate Jefe on the hunt in the yard. I left the car and found out that a chicken was missing. He called Amelia "rainbow" because of the colorful feathers in her neck. She was always the first to head to the house and roost so as soon as I found out she was missing a pit came to my stomach. It was well past roost time. He'd last counted the chickens an hour ago, so there was a small time period in which she went missing. We searched the yard and barn and saw no sign of struggle. Befuddled we called it quits and hoped she would show the next morning. I doubted she would though. With no sign of struggle it was hard to figure out what had happened. She was also my smallest and lightest chicken so maybe a hawk carried her off? I took a benadryl to help with the anxiety/pass out early and went to bed.
The next morning there was no sign of her. I went to school and got a phone call from Joseph around noon. He hadn't answered any of my texts so I feared the worse which he soon confirmed. Amelia was dead. The neighbor's dog got her. Being an avid flyer she must have gotten over the fence. The dog being an prolific hunter of bunnies, cats, mice, and anything that moves, got her.
I spent the hour long commute home bawling and squaling and then feeling dumb for being so upset over a chicken. My neighbor, the retired truck driver felt terrible and offered to buy me a "whole fleet of chickens if it would help", but as he and I knew, a fleet of chickens would not be able to right this wrong.
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| Amelia is in the middle |
As I've documented on this blog, I've lost chickens before. But their deaths have been due to spontaneous medical things not maulings. They also weren't Amelia. Fortunately, I did not have to see Amelia's mangled body. I wouldn't have been able to handle it. I also didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I guess it was fitting that Amelia went down in a ball of flames like her namesake, because like her namesake she lived on the wild side, to the extent that a domesticated chicken could.
When Amelia wasn't molting, she was on top of the pecking order. She even had her own roost spot separate and above the other ladies. She could be violent at times too. She kept everyone in line by pecking (hence the term "pecking order"). I tried time outs a couple time, locking her in a dog pen for a day. This would work but only on a short term basis. Seeking a longer term solution to my aggressive hen I found out about chicken blinders, what one visitor to our home called "sunglasses". These little orange sunglasses fit into the holes of her beak and kept her from being able to see straight ahead well enough to peck the other chickens. On some level I felt cruel but it's also cruel for the other chickens to be bullied. It would have been even meaner to get rid of Amelia and that was not an option. So she wore the sunglasses until they fell off about a year later. By that time, she seemed to have matured, or stop caring to peck my other girls, so I left the glasses off.
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| She's on the right, doing her own thing. |
Because Amelia was more or less fearless, she was the only chicken who would voluntarily jump up on me to get some of her favorite snack-grapes. She loved the shit out of grapes. One day she ate so many that she started coughing. I feared I had doomed my favorite chicken to an early death by overfeeding her like a pate duck. But she pulled through. Like I said, she was a badass and like me, unable to stop when something was fun, even if it threatened to kill her. So I guess it makes sense that she went out like she did. But as the one left behind, it's not fun. I'm just missing my meelie girl.
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| Here she is in front hogging the food and wearing her sunglasses. |
A very good tribute to Amelia. I love the grape story.
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