Dear Departed Chicken

A few years ago we decided to get ourselves some chickens. My daughter was going to vacation care one school holidays and they had an incubator and hatched some eggs into baby chicks. They all watched them come out of the egg and looked after them till they were a few weeks old. Then the question came, who was going to take the chickens home? Well I was pleaded with and begged and finally gave in. Truth be told I had actually wanted to get some chickens for a long time, it was really my husband that needed convincing. Anyway we brought home these 3 baby chicks. Then we had keep them warm while they were babies, feed them, give them medicine, build a chicken coop, the list went on and on. But these chickens were definitely loved. They watched TV, were sung too, kissed and cuddled. They became part of the family.

Well that was about 3 years ago and they have survived all this time. That was until a few weeks ago. I started noticing that Petal, as she had become known (my daughters choice) was not acting herself. She didn't move around as much, stopped laying and generally looked not too well. As time when on she got worse and worse till she finally died. I didn't realise how attached I could become to a chicken. It's just a chicken, my husband said. But they all have different personalities and they really are quite cute. Anyway we had a funeral for Petal and have now moved on.

Petal a couple of days before she died.

We got some more chicks that are now growing very fast. I guess these ones will become part of the family too, and I guess they too will say goodbye one day, but until then we can enjoy their company and the yummy eggs they give us.