Today we lost Princess, aka Louie’s Chicken. We called her
Louie’s Chicken because every evening she would make her way to Louie’s stall
and roost in the corner feed bucket, spending the night there as he looked after
her. Sometimes, before she settled into the corner bucket, she would perch on
its rim and begin clucking and squawking at poor old Lou, as if she wasn’t
happy with him for some reason. Louie would just lower his big old head and
tilt it so that he could see her with his one good eye, then look at her
sympathetically as if he was saying he was sorry for whatever it was that upset
her.
I don’t understand everything about how animals connect, but
I know that there was a strong, special bond between the two. It is very unusual
for a chicken to leave its flock to roost alone, and especially on cold, below
freezing nights, when they are known to huddle for warmth. Yet Princess would
go off alone to be with Lou. There was something
intuitive that only they could know, and that we could only observe. I think somehow,
they comforted each other, and in ways I will never begin to understand, they looked
after each other. In the end, it was just two good souls that understood each
other.
When Louie passed, Princess integrated herself back into the
flock. I never saw her again in Louie’s stall- neither to roost nor to scratch
around looking for bugs. I never even saw her passing through. I don’t think
she could go back because she never did.
Through last summer Princess had bouts when we thought that
we would lose her, but she seemed to bounce back. Unfortunately, this time she
didn’t. We did our best when she fell ill again, but it was her time, and none
of us had a say.
I can’t help to think that tonight, she is perched on the
rim of some cloud beside Lou, and she is giving him a piece of her mind. I bet
they both sleep well tonight, and sleep happily as two good souls do.
