A couple of days ago, one of our chickens went missing. Just gone from the coop. No tell-tale pile of feathers from a raccoon or raptor attack, just no chicken. Today she wandered back into the chicken pen in the middle of the day and promptly squawked twice loudly and fell over dead. I have no idea what was wrong with her, a mystery chicken death. I am wondering if she ate a mushroom of some sort since the recent massive rains have caused a large sprouting of many varieties of mushrooms in the woods and even in my raised garden boxes! We have had another chicken die like this a couple of years ago and I just don't have a clue.
RIP Bingo, this is a photo of her about three years ago, happily foraging through our leaf piles. She was a bit of a mystery chicken from the get-go, she was supposed to be an Americauna chicken, but never developed the fluffy face feathers that our other Americaunas did. She had her own unique look to her, but was a very pretty girl. Here she is in her awkward teenage days, next to Saphire, our Blue Andalusian:
5 comments:
I am so sorry to hear about your chicken. How strange for her to die like that. How many chickens does that leave you with? And can I ask ('cause I have 8 chickens that will someday die), what did you do with her? Sorry if that is too graphic! New chicken herders need to know.
Well, we used to bury them (funerals and all) but the kids are used to farm life/animal death now. So she went into a trash bag and into the freezer, to be taken out with the garbage on Monday. If I knew how to compost dead bodies (I know it can be done), I'd do that, but I'm not at that point yet ;-)
Nice chicken story but it's sad. It looks like the pet chicken I had when I was little. It was a buff orffington (sp) rooster that lived at least 15 years. I like your stories.
Oh my, thanks! I guess I better get a bigger freezer, just in case:) Let me know if you do figure out how to compost a dead chicken, it sounds sort of interesting.
I would be curious to know if it was a mushroom. In my garden I have a pair of shiitake mushroom logs and, unlike every other bit of food in the garden, my hens steer clear of them. I had just assumed that the hens just knew better than to eat unknown vegetables.
Post a Comment