Jasmine

Since I've been documenting my chicken drama here since March, I thought I'd take a minute to talk about how it all came to an end today. I don't like how it happen, though, but I guess that's not my call.  

If you're new here, the just of it is this: I had a sick chicken in my flock in March. After some TLC, a vet visit, and some medication, she mostly recovered, but my flock wouldn't accept her back. During this time, four random chickens — two roosters and two hens — randomly showed up in my yard. (How does that even happen?) The roosters quickly disappeared, and after trying to find a home for the hens, I decided to keep them. Why? They weren't mean to my sick chicken like my other gals were. They actually kind of loved her. So, after a couple of months of trying to deal with this mess, I built a brand new coop, and I had my old crew in one coop, and the sick chicken and the two newbies in the other. I can't express how stressful things had been up until that point. I'd almost lost all interest in raising these birds, something I'd been really passionate about before.  

Just when I thought the stress was over, it wasn't. Sick chicken, Marigold, died about a week after I finished the coop. She wasn't expected to live long anyway as she had some internal issues with her egg-laying parts. Shortly after Marigold died, one of the two strays, Tulip, got super depressed. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't walk around much. I believe she mourned herself to death, because a few weeks later, she took her last breaths in the garage. 

That left Jasmine. Oh, Jasmine. She was small, but she made up for her size with plenty of attitude. She hated being alone in the coop and eventually stopped sleeping in it and moved to the garage. She'd greet any cars that drove up. She went broody once, and I briefly considered ordering her some babies so she'd eventually have her own flock, but I don't think I could have handled it if she'd eaten them or something. So, I finally decided to let her join my flock. They didn't get along at first, naturally. She remained pretty low on the pecking order, but eventually they let her pal around with them. Mean Myrtle still pecked her when she tried to eat with them, but she followed them around the yard and slept with them in the bushes. 

She just wouldn't sleep in the coop. Either coop. She slept in the garage for a while, but eventually, she even stopped doing that. I searched the yard over, but I couldn't figure out where she was spending her nights until one evening, I was in the kitchen, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye in the cedar tree that towers over the back patio. "What kind of bird is that?" I said to no one in particular. It took me a few minutes to realize it was Jasmine. She would climb up the patio steps, fly up on the railing, jump into the tree, and walk the flimsy branches until she was in a safe spot. 

What could I do? I let her sleep there until temperatures dropped into the 20s last week, and we experienced an unprecedented snow. My dad helped me get her into the garage where she stayed for about four days. As I said, she's a feisty little thing, and I am personally afraid to mess with her. She's pecked and clawed the hell out of him multiple times, especially when he had to break her from her broody spell. Once the snow melted, Jasmine tried to return to the tree every night, and every night we had to coral her back into the garage. 

Until last night. We had her schedule figured out. She always got into the tree around 5:20, right before my chickens went into the coop for the night. Just before dark. My dad was working out. I was charging my phone. We met on the back patio at the same time we always did, but that damn chicken was already in the tree. I think she tried to outsmart us by going to bed early. At this point, there wasn't much we could do. She wanted to be in that tree. She thought she was safe there. We thought she was safe there. Until she wasn't. 

This morning, my mom and I were working on our antique booth, and my dad called. He'd discovered feathers all over the backyard when he went out to work on cutting up all the trees that fell during last week's snow, and Jasmine was nowhere to be found. When he let my chickens out, they were spooked. They spent the day hiding in the bushes, only coming out when I took them some sunflower seeds. My first thought was a coyote was still out early this morning, waiting when she got down out of the tree. After all, they've been hanging around lately. But that didn't really make sense.  

Long story slightly shorter, my dad thinks something got her in the night. A big limb from the cedar tree she slept in had fallen, creating something of a ladder to the top of the tree. There were little scratch marks up and down it as if something big had climbed it. A raccoon maybe? I can't be sure, but whatever it was must have grabbed her while she slept. I just hope that whatever it was, it killed her quickly. She more than likely would have put up a fight at any other time of day, but chickens can't see what's coming in the dark. 

Believe it or not, my parents were attached to her. I think they took it pretty hard. I'm sad, but I learned a long time ago that when raising animals like this, you can do the best you can, but there is no right way to both keep them 100 percent safe and let them live a free and happy life. I mean, a coyote snatched my little Rose right out from under me back in February. There was literally nothing else I could have done for her, and I've gone to great lengths to protect these girls. You have to detach yourself a little, especially if you believe as I do that animals just don't belong in cages 24/7. 

But I'm glad that Jasmine had a home for the last 9 months of her life, and she didn't have to be a "street chicken," though she still had that instinct. I'm glad she got to pal around with my chickens, even if Myrtle pecked her. I'm glad she had a yard where she was happy to dig and run and explore and nap in the sunshine and the dust-bathe in the bushes. I'm glad she enjoyed treats like biscuits, sunflower seeds, kale, corn, noodles, and yogurt. And if there's a little chicken heaven out there somewhere, I hope she's reunited with Marigold and Tulip, and they are living the high life.