Playing Chicken With Grief and Joy.

Chickens are a whole different way of life.

If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be sitting here at my computer ruminating about chicken decisions, I would have probably told you to get out there and seek some professional help. But now we're here.

These animals are so damn fragile, but complicated at the same time. You grow to love them, and as anything you love, you want them to have all the opportunities in the world to be happy. So recently, we decided to expand their free-range area to open up their world a bit.

We spent the afternoon moving coops and replanting our movable fences to an area flanked by a huge oak tree and taller overgrowth so they can safely pick through all the mess. Now they could to get to the good stuff the good lord left in the ground for them to eat.

This space is twice as big as their last playground, so they were excited. But unfortunately, I made it a little too big.

I looked outside and knew there was something wrong. You see, whenever a predator enters a chicken's area, the hens get weird. They hide in weird places and scatter. When you see things like this, you immediately know it’s bad, and you are just hoping it's not as bad as it could be. 

Choosing to live in the country is a blessing; I can’t express that enough. But with that blessing comes the reality that we live within a land of predators and prey, and undoubtedly you will see the Grace and Grief of that struggle.

As I approached the coops, I immediately saw the hawk scatter. It had definitely got one of the girls. It was Rockout, our only Polish hen, and my heart sank.

You see, Polish hens are super cool-looking. They have this poof on the top of their heads that, in a way, looks like a chicken form of Don King, the infamous boxing promoter from the 80’s. But as cool as they look, they simply don’t see well, and Rockout’s poof (her hair if you will) was white and bobbed around as she walked, making her a really easy target. 

It’s hard to know for sure, but it looks like she got noticed in the open area of their new playground. This was my call, and it still weighs on me. 

Just as we are as parents, pet owners, siblings, or any steward of another living thing, we want to give them as much space and room as possible to be happy. But we also want to keep them safe from the dangers of getting out a little too far. I’m realizing that the biggest struggle I’m having isn’t missing Rockout, which I do, but more about questioning my decision to create an area a little too big. I’ll never know the answer to that question, but I welcome the perspective I get from that grief.

Was there a big epiphany from my decision? I’m not sure, as the next day my kids helped me close off access to the open area and create new barriers to keep the hawks out. I’m still not quite sure who the winners or the losers are in this whole situation. Part of living on a farm allows you ample opportunities to love your animals and, yes, grieve them. 

Grief is something that apparently you have to practice to get good at getting over it. As bad as that sounds, maybe joy has the same requirement.