The Brown/Red Hen (we never named her, we’d lost too many chickens) was with us almost from the very beginning of life on the second Bedlam Farm about nine years ago.

She had a long and good life for a chicken. She was industrious and ate many worms and bugs, and gave us many good breakfasts.

Maria is closer to the chickens than I am and made sure the Red Hen, as she called her (I called her the Brown Hen), had snacks and treats at least once a day. Maria cleaned out the roost faithfully and supplied it with fresh and heated water throughout the winter.

Of all the hens, the Red Hen was the most skittish, but in the past few months, she seemed to warm up to us. She always turned up for Maria’s 3 p.m. tea and gourmet snack party for the chickens.

 

(Fate has known this hen just about all of her life, and she came to say goodbye and sniff the body.)

I don’t cry over chickens, but it’s no fun for me to shoot one.

It is hard to lose an animal you’ve seen every day for years and who is an integral part of life and landscape here.

We were used to seeing her, and she was used to seeing us, although she never relaxed around any of the dogs. She was perhaps prescient.

It’s one thing to have a hawk or weasel come in and kill a chicken, another for one of our dogs to do it. It’s not Bud’s fault, but it stung.

Zinnia tried once or twice to become pals, as she is with the other chickens and the barn cats, but the Brown Hen wasn’t buying it.

She never trusted the dogs and was attacked last week by Bud after we left one of the gates open, and she never really recovered from the injury to her backside.

We did all the things one is supposed to do for an injured chicken (we don’t take chickens to the vets, but we talk to them about their injuries), but she continued to decline over the last two days.

She hadn’t eaten or been out of the roost for two days and wasn’t drinking any water. She was bent over and disoriented. We are planning on going away for a four-day vacation on Sunday, and we also didn’t want to leave a dying chicken for somebody else to have to deal with.

That means she was suffering from starvation as well as the injury; it was a red line for Maria and me. I felt strongly that we needed to help her leave the world in relative comfort, and this morning, Maria agreed.

I loaded the .22 rifle and went out to the back lawn.

Maria had carried her out of the roost.

She walked around a bit to get near her pal the White hen but then surrendered.

She just lay down next to one of the lawn chairs. I was able to get right next to her and point the rifle right next to her heart.

It’s odd, but I have the feeling that sick animals are ready to go when they are suffering; like the sick sheep I put down, she sat still and presented her heart to me.

I killed her with one shot, and she died in seconds, unusual for a chicken and a sign she was weak. I fired a second time to make sure, but she was already dead.

I used to apologize for shooting one of my animals; people with pets are often horrified by it.

But I consider this my most important duty as an animal steward – to prevent the suffering that so many humans inflict on dogs and other animals (and people) because they can’t let go. I love to post cute and endearing photos of my animals, but that is only part of the story, as anyone with a farm knows.

People love the bright side but not the other side.

Farms with animals see as much death as life. And Bud was doing what every animal on the earth does – killing living things for food and work. But it’s a sad thing when it happens.

I’ve learned to keep the process of dealing with a sick or dying animal simple and primarily private.

We don’t share the process; we just share the results and final decisions. That keeps well-meaning people from flooding us with advice – much of it, we have learned over the years – wrong or bad. Someone was berating me yesterday for not giving the Brown Hen painkillers. I told her we didn’t discuss animal health care with strangers on Facebook. And we don’t.

I no longer respond or post messages from some of the pet people and the extreme wing of the animal rights movement who believe no animal should ever die for any reason and that people with farms are, by their nature, cruel.

I have very little testosterone, I’m sure, and I’m not into shooting things. Before I came to live on the farm, the idea was beyond my imagination.

I wouldn’t dream of living here without a rifle, not for protection but for the animals.

Over the years, some people have come to equate keeping dogs and other animals alive at all costs by any means as a measure of their love. I see it as sanctioned animal cruelty.

People often brag about how much money they have borrowed and spent to keep their sick cats and dogs alive. Maria and I are in accord; we won’t do that.

We are called to do what’s best for them, not us. We are their advocates, their only voices.

On a farm, letting go is a life and death thing, a matter of mercy and the farm’s survival and health. The other hens would start pecking at her any minute now, and I am grateful I could do this; I wish we could do it for people when the time came.

Any vet when asked will say the worst part of their job is watching animals suffer because their humans don’t want to lose them.

The most moving part of this was the original White hen, who came at the same time the  Brown hen came. This two have been inseparable all these years.

She slept next to her friend every night after the attack and stayed with her throughout the day, protecting her, it seemed, from the younger chickens, who turn cannibalistic when another chicken gets sick.

That’s the other side of the cute animal photos.

I publish the photo above not out of an interest in shocking but out of respect for this hen who lived peacefully and productively with us for all these years, gave us fresh eggs every day, and helped keep the yard free of ticks. She deserved to be acknowledged.

The life of the chicken is not romantic, they don’t write many books or make many movies about chickens. Almost every four-legged creature or hawk will eat them.

But they are peaceful and hard-working souls, part of the fabric and rhythms and traditions of any farm.

All they want in life are bugs and worms and occasional leftovers from humans.

After the Brown Hen died, Maria picked her up, and the two of us walked down into the woods. Maria left her in the open as an offering to the hungry animals who live out there.

Godspeed to you,  Brown Hen; I hope you’re picking some worms up there or wherever dead chickens go.