We had a fowl tragedy this week. It was very, very cold overnite and even though the sun was up it was still cold while we were milking and feeding in the morning. I had gone back to the house to strain milk and Moira came to say Alannah needed me. The littlest chick wasn’t well. She brought her in to the house to warm up since it looked like she had been by herself through the night and was hypothermic. We tried the hair dryer trick and then put her under the heat lamp for a bit. She seemed to rouse ever so slightly but in the end she gave up the ghost. She was holding her own in the coop but having been hatched and incubated alone she never was accepted as part of the flock.

My poor Alannah. : (  She feels every loss so keenly. The other children seem to have a certain emotional detachment from agricultural loss but Alannah is just like I was as a child. Every small bird fallen from a nest, every puppy rejected by its mother, every cat who met a bad end, they all broke my heart. I can still picture every kitten I lost growing up. I can still remember the orphan foal who died, the ducklings with the birth defects. Ugh!  Though somehow instead of hardening me it fostered a maternal instinct that is intact as ever today.  That is my wish for Alannah.  I hope she can channel this tenderness and mercy into something incredible as she grows. In the meantime we have the world’s luckiest chickens. : )