A good day to die.

I have over 40 hens and love them all but only one has a name. Mother. Not very original but apt as she was a little hybrid that one year brought up a happy brood of chicks. She was the perfect mother. She originally came with a friend and they happily free ranged until one morning about four Autumns ago Mothers friend went blind. I kept her in a broody coop all winter with her food and water in the same place each day but once the winter had passed and she didn't regain her sight I sadly dispatched her. Mother continued to live quite happily here until a few days ago. I noticed her wings drooping and she seemed to struggle for her breath. She was still eating, drinking and pecking around just everything was done at a slower pace, well after all she must have been seven or eight pretty good going for a hybrid. Yesterday afternoon I fed everyone some corn and put up a new ring of cabbage leaves and gave some soaked bread as a once a week treat. Mother was as usual in the thick of it. I sat to watch the hens in the warm Autumn sunshine and noticed Mother on her side. I though she was sunbathing but no she had gone. I'll really miss this little hen but what a good day and way to die, so peacefully.

sounds like a good life well lived!  be proud as well as sad

I try not to be sentimental about my chickens but his one was such a sweetie. I don't usually name them for this very reason so here I am missing her perky face. Never mind as you say she had a really decent free ranging happy and long life, was always fairly high up in the pecking order right to the end. I forgot to say in my original post that one of my cockerels was standing about a yard from her at her going time so she was not alone. He was looking very concerned when I walked over. Good lad.

Oh Orchard Lady what a lovely story, tears and smiles all in one.  You must really be missing her but she had a good full life and a fair few chicks are now hens because of her so her legacy continues. 

A good way to live and die.  Sorry for your sadness and pain.

wow wat a story i am sorry you lost her bit if she had to go wat better way eh

That's a lovely story Orchardlady.  And mother went just the way she would have wanted to.  Happily doing what she's been doing for the past 7or 8 years!

Awwwwww