Friends, It is with great sadness that I report to you today that we have lost one of our feathered friends. This morning I found one of the Araucanas, I believe it is the one I called Daffy, and the one Matt memorialized with his close up, dead and buried in the straw under the roosts. The cause of death is not known. She was already rather stiff, and it looked like the others had actually buried her in a way. I almost didn't see her. Hopefully they didn't also do her in. They were acting rather subdued, and kept checking in that corner after I removed her, so they might have also been sad in their little chicken ways. The temperature in the coop was 28 when I opened it, and the water was a bit frozen and not coming out well. Hard to know. The temperture alone would not have been too low, but maybe she didn't get enough water. She also may have just been a bit weak in body as well as intelligence. Anyway, I miss her already, and I don't know quite what to do with her either. She is currently in a feed bag in front of the tractor, if anyone else wants to check her out so we can figure out what happened. Her back end does look a little ragged, and chickens do sometimes damage each other. Some of the hens have been going after each other as they establish the pecking order. We have never discussed what to do in the case of mortality. We've had such a long run without it, maybe we forgot it would come up someday. So here it is. The girls still managed 20 eggs today. No olive one, and I suspect that is the one we lost. Please post on the blog and web site, and let me know your thoughts on where she should go next in the cycle of life. We will keep her frozen. I personally do not want to just throw her out for the coyotes. But I also am not ready to eat her either. I do think we need to return her in some way to the soil eventually. Let me know.
Peggy, with the unpleasant task of mortician now.
As harsh as it sounds, I think the most "natural" thing to do is to let nature take it's course and allow the scavengers to do their job. Had dear Daffy passed away in the wild, this is what would have happened and her passing would have provided nourishment for other creatures. That being said, I would think it unwise to return her to nature anywhere near the coop. No doubt the predators in the area are well aware of the presence of the chickens, but no sense in luring them in any closer.
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