so long, Libby

We lost our first layer hen last night.

Apparently I hadn't shut the trap door all the way on Saturday night, so on Sunday morning, the chickens squeezed out and spent the morning pecking around their caged-in area. That's just fine, except they couldn't back into the part with their food and water. Usually not a big deal, but maybe this time it was? Anyway, when we came home after church, five of our hens were fine but one of them was just laying on her side. We wrapped her and gave her water and a bit of food and brought her inside, but she never really recovered. Perhaps she had a stroke or injured herself trying to get back through the mostly-closed door, or maybe there was some random other thing that happened. Either way, I'm pretty bummed.

Libby (the white one all on her own) was a flock leader and one of our best layers.

Logically, I know that this is how it goes when you have chickens, and I suppose that I have been expecting some kind of animal attack on the hens when they are out wandering in the fields around our house or at night when they are vulnerable in their little house before we shut them in. But nothing like that has happened. I'm glad that this first loss was relatively simple and non-gory. I am still carrying the scars of remembrance from having seen our chickens (and other animals too) die death after tragic death when I was little and my parents were trying to have a farm. So this was not so bad as that... but it's still a disappointment.

And I am thinking too that it was not such a good idea to name our chickens after Lost characters. Better than naming them after friends, I guess, but what was I thinking to name a chicken Libby? Kate has already proved a wanderer, and now Libby has met with an early demise. Let's hope that Charlotte, Penny, Claire, and Juliet fare a little better.