Lessons Learned from Loss

I was out the door on my way to pick up my kindergartner at school. My phone rang.   My teen wasn’t at school, I was told.   I immediately pictured my teen – a new and arguably bad driver – in a school-bound automobile accident.  I told them they must be wrong.  Find her and call me back, I told them.

When I returned home with my son, my neighbor was waiting for me in the driveway.  I thought immediately of my teen.

My neighbor asked, “Is it true?” I couldn’t breath.  The news she delivered wasn’t as terrible as what I feared, but crushingly bad, none the less.   She said she worried our chickens were gone.  She’d found piles of feathers scattered about her yard and into mine.

About that time, my cell rang, my teen was safely in school taking an AP test, I was told.  Thank goodness.

My neighbor kept my kindergartner occupied while I frantically searched our yards and our woods for my chicks.  I found only feathers.  As it sunk in that, at best, there had been a huge fight, and at worst, the chickens had been killed, tears covered my cheeks.  I blamed myself.  I blame myself.

The chicks were good about free-ranging and staying within our yards.  All the neighbors loved them.  They always found their way back to their coop by themselves at dark.  I always fed them table scraps in the early evening.  They’d had strawberry and parts of red pepper that they loved the night before they disappeared.

I allowed them a lot of freedom daily.  That night, like several before, I didn’t lock the coop.  I saw them in there.  I thought it was ok.

I was actually more sure the chickens were ok that night, than I am sure my teen is ok driving.

OF COURSE, I am more protective of my children than I was of my chickens but there is still a correlation.

There are steps and protections that allow teenagers to get behind the wheel, often, safely.  But there aren’t thought out and time tested rules and protections for backyard chickens.   There aren’t set societal understandings or acceptance of backyard chickens.

I thought I’d taken all the protections for my girls.  I’d secured their coop with chicken wire all around. We have a large and private yard. We live in an area where there are some predators but after more than a year of living with them without problem, I was over confident that any predators had enough to keep them busy, way back in the woods.

Bottom line is…  I exposed three innocent lives to hazards on a “new” frontier.  I took a risk at something novel that caused them to lose their lives.  I effectively killed my chickens by exposing them to suburban life and people.

In the days after I loss them, I reached out to other chicken owners and wild life experts.  Everyone has weighed in.  If it was a fox that killed them, we would have lost one.  Not all three.  It was too much carnage for less than a pack of coyotes or traveling band of raccoons to have carried out.   Hate to say this, but it seems like people were involved.

Whatever happened to my three dears…  happened, in part, because I was reckless.  My immediate neighbors signed on for me to have chickens.  I had a farm lined up to move them to if a neighbor complained.  But I knew, deep down, I was gambling a bit by adding chickens to our lives.  I knew some folks might disapprove.  Part of me feared that kids in the neighborhood would mess with them.

What ever happened… I am responsible.  I added them to an environment that didn’t expect them.  There are no steps or rules for backyard chicken owners.  There is no cultural expectation that suburbanites have feathery friends following then around in the garden.

To be able to take the risk of driving, a teen has to go through several steps.  There are rules.  There are pamphlets to read.  There is a sizable insurance rate to pay.

Watching the chickens grow from fuzzy little peeps into hefty laying hens was an amazing experience. I hope to do it again.  I recommend it.  I fell completely in love with them and I am crushed that they are gone.  I cried for hours.  I am not exaggerating.

When you get a dog, you get a license.  You know the dog will be part of your family for 10 plus years. You get a vet.  Your neighbors have dogs.  They are an understood and excepted part of the picture.  There are steps and processes you go through…  kinda like getting a drivers license.

My teen has been good at free ranging and finding her way home at a decent hour.  I’ve given her a lot of freedom. Perhaps that’s my style.  She has her own car and I’ve allowed her to drive a fair amount even though…  well, I worry.  But perhaps because she’s gone through the processes to get her license, she’ll be safe.

I gave my chicks a lot of freedom.  But ultimately it wasn’t safe for them.

Until there is a greater understanding of the role and the place of urban chickens, and until there is a better societal acceptance of them, if you want chickens, you have to know you are putting them at risk.

I will take that risk again.  I will allow them less freedom.  I will put them in a Fort Knox of a coop.

But between now and then, I will work to educate folks about the role and benefits of urban chickens.  I want municipal and societal acceptance of backyard chickens.  And I hope, next time around, that they aren’t seen as a curiosity or something fun to mess with.  But as the beloved pets that they my girls were.