A Sad Day for Chickens

I feel like I'm having that moment in 3rd Grade that I never had. I remember kids in class crying, inconsolable because their dog had died. I remember not understanding why they were so upset... after all, it was only a dog. I had a cat as a kid, but being allergic to it, I rarely played with it or petted it. And it lived to be pretty old. I wasn't around when it died.

So now, 20 years later, I'm having that 3rd Grade moment. I feel like I want to cry my eyes out, but feel that it's silly to be so attached to, of all things, a chicken. And then I feel guilt. Guilt that comes with being glad it wasn't my favorite chicken, the spunky yet calm and cuddle-loving Lolo. And then, finitely, I am overwhelmingly sad that Lolo is now alone.

Sleeping in my hands at just a few days old.

I raised both birds from the day after the hatched. The two have been inseparable for the past 8 months. When they were tiny babies together they would fall asleep in my hands, on my lap, in my arms. When they got big enough to start flapping around, they would wreck havoc together, running around the house, pooping EVERYWHERE (that lasted about a day before they got the boot to the yard). When they were almost full grown there was a day that one of them flew onto my head and fell asleep there while I sat holding the other. And they both used to escape together. Down the street a few times. Into the trees on the street below a few times.  Worried for their safety, I continually built the fence around the yard higher... until one day it was clear that though they were perfectly capable of escaping, they simply didn't want to anymore.

They started sleeping side-by-side on the porch railing, ignoring the nearby chicken coop. My little chicken soldiers standing watch over the house. Every night at dusk they would take flight and fly over the fence into the open yard, then hop up the front stairs (completely capable of hoping down the front stairs instead to the street below) and fly up to the railing to perch. Every morning at dawn I would wake up to the flutter of feathers as they flew back into the fenced yard below the porch.

But last night when I got home I only had one soldier standing guard.
I searched the yard in the dark. Nothing. I searched the nearby churchyard where they've escaped before. Empty. And then I searched the street. I found feathers and and smear. No body, but a squish of dark brown feathers, the same color as feisty Laka.

Sick at heart I went to bed. And I dreamed of chickens. I dreamt at one point that Laka showed up at the house with a huge gaping hole in her back and I was urgently trying to find a vet. But over and over, I dreamt that Lolo was sad and lonely. I dreamt she wouldn't leave my side. I actually dreamt she was sleeping in the bed with me, like a small baby who needs to be held. And I woke up to the empty sound of one pair of wings flying into the yard below.

I don't know enough about chickens to know if she'll notice her sister is gone. I don't know if she'll be lonely or just confused. I just don't know what to do.

Part of me wants to rush out and get two more hatchlings to raise so that there is a family for Lolo. But I also know that I'll need to keep those babies in a box in the house for at least a month until they're big enough to be on their own. A month is a long time for a human to be lonely. Let alone a chicken.

I still feel silly as I write this. And I still feel like crying. It's only a freaking chicken. But its only also the first pet I've ever raised and taken care of myself.

So the 3rd grader in me will cry big wet tears and the adult in me will try to be rational. But both will miss the lost chicken and worry about the one that is still alive.