February 15, 2020

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.