R.I.P.

I wanted to cry, but I had a grave to dig. As balls of sweat rolled off my forehead and into my eyes, I wondered if I was crying. In any event, the need to bury my dead chicken was propelling me through the grave digging task.

A few minutes ago I had gone to the portable chicken home (commonly called a chicken tractor) to put the girls back into the full size coop. There, in the back corner of the chicken tractor was my Arucana hen, obviously dead.

"What happened here??, What's going on???" I screamed as I opened the door. Five chickens ignored my questions and scurried past me into their permanent coop. I moved the tractor away from the hen and inspected the scene. She was missing a couple feathers from the area on her back where Steve had worn a bald spot (aggressive mating) but I could see no other signs of struggle. For a split second I wondered if a non vegetarian owner would eat her at this point. I sure as hell wouldn't.

I was upset but I just wanted to get the dirty deed over with and bury her body. I got out my shovel and transported her body to a bag I could carry. I couldn't stomach the thought of carrying her corpse across the yard by her legs. First, she had to weigh 20 pounds. Second, this wasn't just some nameless hen. She was my nervous Nellie. She laid me the first egg I had ever had! Ever time I collected one of her blue green eggs, I felt like a lucky kid in a easter egg hunt. I had even bathed this chicken!

Taking a bath last fall

I found a spot in the barnyard and got to digging. Once the hole was deep enough I carefully dropped her body in. I then gently replaced the chunks of clay earth into the whole. One particularly large chunk of clay was so heavy that it caused a squeak to come from my dead hen. In a split second I transformed from a sweaty grave digging farmer to a freaked out girly girl and then a trucker. "Fuck"! I screamed. I finished filling in my grave and left the barnyard. 

Over the next couple weeks, I tried to figure out why she had died. I talked to everyone I encountered with chicken experience. All my other hens were perfectly healthy. After numerous consults I determined that she had died of a heart attack. I believe she was bullied by one of my other hens and then went into nervous overload. I had named her nervous nellie for a reason. She was super skittish. Unless, of course she was taking a warm bubble bath. 

I learned at least 3 things from Nellie's death.

1) Grave digging is a great antidote for shock. It gave me something to do in the immediate freak out period, and I burned off some steam with the digging. 

2) All animals, even livestock, can break your heart. 

Her death also presented me with a brand new problem. What do you do with the eggs of a dead chicken? I knew which ones were her's. She was my only blue egg layer. I had three sitting in my fridge at the time of her death. At first I was too sad to eat them. Then, I was kind of weirded out. How do you manage to feel ok eating the byproduct of an animal that has died. You might be thinking that people eat dead animals all the time, so what's the big deal. Somehow, this is different. It's just creepy to eat the eggs of a dead hen. Or maybe it's just ridiculously sad. Then I brainstormed and  thought maybe I could have a ceremonial dinner where I ate the eggs and we kind of dedicated the dinner to her. But this seemed to be an even more eccentric solution. (Or perfectly normal if you're Catholic). On the one hand I don't want her eggs to go to waste, and on the other I really don't want to eat them. So, it's two months later and there are still three blue eggs tucked away in my fridge. You tell me. What do I do with them? 

This problem leads me to lesson number three:

3) Death, no matter how small, is so complicated.