RIP Violet

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Last year I decided that I would finally bring my chicken-keeping to a close, after 11 years. It was getting more difficult to find someone to take care of them when we went away as our usual friends now have children in school and so need to take holidays at the same times that we do, and one family are about to move away to Scotland. The girls are not really bothered any more and the odd egg doesn’t make much of an impact (we get 30 free-range eggs delivered every two weeks anyway). So I decided I would just let them live out the rest of their lives and then call it a day. Early last year we had three chickens, Teasel, Violet and Bluebell. Bluebell was definitely the top of the pecking order and her entire reason for living was to dominate the other two. She even developed some male characteristics – growing sharp spurs on her legs like a cockerel and starting to crow, in spite of still laying eggs. I’m sure this must be where the saying ‘getting a bit cocky’ comes from. Well in due course Teasel died, and then in autumn Bluebell suddenly dropped dead, and Violet was left on her own. We were afraid she might be lonely without other chickens for company, but on the contrary, she blossomed without being constantly ‘under the thumb’ (or beak) so to speak and loved just mooching about in the garden, coming over to see what I was doing or, if I was sitting outside working, just coming to stand companionably nearby and preen her feathers for a while before wandering off again. Her only complaint was that she wasn’t allowed in the house, which she could never understand. She would fly up to perch precariously on the kitchen windowsill and gaze balefully at us inside. For the last week or two she didn’t seem quite like her normal self, a bit more subdued and not quite as lively, although she looked healthy enough and would still come running for food. Then yesterday afternoon I saw her go inside her little house – quite unusual for a chicken in the daytime unless she was going to lay an egg, but she stopped laying quite a while ago. I checked she was OK and she looked the same as usual and turned to look at me when I spoke to her. But this morning first thing I went to say hello and she wasn’t outside, and when I looked in there she was, dead. RIP Violet. I will miss seeing her in the garden and even though the decision makes sense there will be a bit less life around the place without her.