Farewell, sweet friend

This morning I went out to the barn feeling chipper and Cheerful (is that redundant?). That is.... Until I opened the barn door that leads to our pasture. There, just a few feet away, on the damp ground were tiny little golden hued feathers....Stained with blood. Around the feathers were telltale coyote tracks....That led to a hole dug underneath our fence.

My dear sweet little Olde English Game hen was killed sometime early this morning by a ruthless coyote. Her name was Lucy and she has always had her own fan club. ;)
She was the one who hatched a chick three times her size.... She was the one who hid a clutch of 12 eggs and I didn't find it until two months later....She was my show bird and rewarded me with countless ribbons.... She sat on my shoulder during barn chores.... And had the sassiest attitude you could imagine. :D

You're probably wondering why on earth I am making such a fuss over a chicken. The answer is, she was more than just a chicken. She was my pet. Much like one would miss their dog, so was Lucy to me. I had her for 4 years and she lived to the age of 7.

She did have her own clutch going. There are seven eggs in her little nest. They aren't fertile though; I always let her go broody first and then in the night I switch all her tiny eggs for one big one.

All the little kids who ever met her absolutely adored her. Who couldn't though? Weighing only 12 ounces and calm enough to where she would sit on you shoulder, she was easy to like.

She was a creature of habit, and that was what led to her death. For some reason unbeknownst to me, every morning she would go out into the pasture and just walk around and look for bugs, then she would come into the feed room and eat breakfast with the cats (she liked the chicken flavored cat food the best). Afterwards came everything else a chicken normally does: scratching eating, sleeping.... Every day for four years it was the same.

Yeah, I'll probably feel ridiculous later for writing all this, but at least in the years to come I can come back to this post and see pictures of her again.

All for now.

~Caitlyn