Always

Saturday, April 06, 2024

My “house hen” is just turning fifteen years old. Yes, my Wellsummer (her call name, and also her breed) still lives; not inside my house but in the adjacent garage. Her special pen has an overhead heat lamp, and this is her third year as my most special hen.

She’s very old for a domestic chicken. She began her life as a sickly two-day-old chick. I saw her in a “sick tank” at what then was the Big R Store. In that tank also were a couple of sickly infant Bantams. I paid fifty cents for each and bought home the tiny and weak trio.

I set a ten-gallon aquarium on a table in my living room and filled the container bottom with a little chick litter. After rigging a heat lamp overhead, I set the chicks into the aquarium. Wellsummer was tiny, and the Bantams teenier. Immediately, each Bantam sought and snuggled under a Wellsummer wing, and she didn’t mind. All slept, the Bantams under Wellsummer’s spread-out wings. Her kindness touched my heart.

Eventually, those youngsters joined my flock, which was my first flock and had ten chickens. Over time, I learned to expect hens to remain healthy and lay best before turning five to eight years old. That first flock was mostly gone before I brought home new baby chicks; they needed housing in my garage under a heat lamp for weeks before becoming strong enough for a coop. During those weeks, my coop lost every mature hen, except for Wellsummer.

Wellsummer, then ten years old, disliked and threatened the chicks. When the babies became bigger and stronger, they retaliated. Wellsummer was their common target and not strong enough to withstand the young pack. It was time to transfer her.

Over the next months, she occasionally laid an egg, but none with a strong shell, and before long, stopped laying altogether. For these three years, she’s been healthy, strong, and satisfied in my garage. She has spent winter nights under a couple of heat lamps and sunny summer days in an outside pen. Sometimes, she’s temporarily had garage mates, some coop hens that seemed weak and needed special attention.

This spring, Wellsummer seems slightly different. She is still alert but noticeably has less appetite and eats only bits of her favorite foods. Maybe her system is signaling failure—and that possibility is impacting me beyond anticipation.

I am highly fond of this hen. She’s now very old and still special. I can’t forget that once-tiny and sleeping infant, with wings widespread, protecting, and nurturing.

Dear Friends: Who’a’thought, that even chickens may become very special pets. Diana