Thank God it’s Friday! This week has been rough for a number of reasons. This week has also gone really well for a number of reasons. I think I just need to process through some of the hard stuff so I can begin to move on.
As you may know, we own chickens. We have 10 hens and we love them very much. I know that since we have 10 hens, we will also need to say goodbye to each of them in some way, someday. That doesn’t make the “someday” any easier, though.
Let me tell you about Dorothy, our Rhode Island Red hen. She’s about 3 years old, and she’s such a sweetheart. At the time of writing this post, she is still with us, but I don’t believe she will be with us much longer.
We raised Dory from a chick. We used to hold all of her in one hand. She used to nestle in and sleep there. Raising chicks is a beautiful gift.
Dory is known to wander from the flock. She’s usually one of the last ones we’d gather up from the yard. She’s special. They all are to us.
A few days ago, we noticed that Dory was showing signs of being egg bound. I won’t get into the mess of it all, and it was a mess.
At a certain point we understood that it was time to separate her from the flock, and focus on making her comfortable as she either healed or passed. There’s a hopeful part of me that believes she might recover, and there’s a part of me that believes she could go at anytime.
For survivals sake, chickens tend not to show how ill or wounded they are and so it can be hard to tell. Either way, we have been giving her extra care, extra time, and extra love. We plan to do that as best as we can until we can’t anymore.
