Our New Life in the Country: RIP Nutmeg

Friday, 12 March 2010

RIP Nutmeg

Born 20th June 2009 - Died 11 March 2010

The farm is a quiet place today. Nutmeg, the chicken that thought she was a cockerel and strutted around crowing proudly to the world, especially after laying an egg, died yesterday.

I don't know what caused it, it could just have been heart failure, there is not a mark on her lovely body, but she was lying on the grass stretched out and dead to the world.

When I went out to put the girls to bed, Coco came running out of one house up the ramp into the other and then ran over to me in the rapidly fading light (when she would usually have been tucked up safe and sound), as though to tell me her sister was nowhere to be found. I gently scooped her up and popped her in the henhouse with her other two sisters and left them quietly chunnering away to themselves.

Who says chickens have no sense and no feeling. These birds knew their loss.

Sue xx

10 comments:

resewn sally12 March 2010 at 10:10
That's so sad, they do all have their own personalities, and you cant help but get attached. I hope it was painless for the little lady.
Sal. X
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Charlotte12 March 2010 at 11:14
I am so sorry Sue, for you and for her hen sisters...
xxx
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Em12 March 2010 at 12:40
Ahh poor Nutmeg, I feel for you, she sounded quite a character x
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Helen12 March 2010 at 17:06
Oh my goodness ... I am sincerely sorry for the loss of Nutmeg.
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Country Cottage Chic12 March 2010 at 17:42
That is sad. We lost one of ours, Wendy, a few months ago - she was just lying dead in her house one morning. They don't always live long but it's comforting to know that they have had good chickeny lives & have always been free range.

We have a Nutmeg too - she lays pretty blue eggs.

Jayne
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Sue @ Smiffy's Blog12 March 2010 at 18:33
Ah, so sorry to hear that Sue. Hope the others are not too distressed by her passing. Sue x
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Manchester Lass, Now and Then12 March 2010 at 23:08
So sorry to hear of Nutmeg's passing Sue. She was indeed such a beautiful looking chicken.
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Sandies' Patch13 March 2010 at 00:30
Oh Sue, so sorry to hear about Nutmeg, she was indeed a fine lookin' chicken.Who say chickens are stupid, dumb animals? Poor Coco too.
Sandie xx
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landcuckoo14 March 2010 at 19:00
So sorry Sue, not often you feel like giving a chicken a hug but thats what I want for Coco.
Sarah x
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Compostwoman27 March 2010 at 22:43
As so sorry....

I missed this when you posted it as I have been very ill and off line...but have caught up now and wanted to say how sorry I was about Nutmeg.

RIP to a very lovely looking hen
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This was my Blog, just me writing about our day to day life learning all about and then living the smallholding life. First we started on a farm in Oxfordshire, then we moved to a smaller place in Berkshire (both in England) and then we found a place of our very own at the bottom of a hillside in North Wales. Along for the ride were all our various animals, and we ended up with just our dogs, Suky and Mavis, our cat Ginger .... who secretly thinks he's one of the canine gang, a sheep called Ethel who wandered in off the road and stayed... and a roving band of egg laying chickens that live cheek by jowl with the local wildlife.

We grow our own fruit and vegetables, selling surplus plants and edibles at the gate. We sell the eggs the chickens lay, we reuse, recycle and rethink ... and life ticks over at a pace that suits us.

It was simply the wild and wacky ramblings of a 50 something townie turned country girl called Sue, who lost her heart to a sailor and started a new life in the country .... many years ago. On a path that took us from Cumbria to Oxfordshire, to Berkshire and then we found our home at the bottom of a wet and windy Welsh hillside by a busy main road.

Pull up a chair, grab a coffee and relax into a world of dogs, cats, chickens, polytunnels and veggies with the occasional grass munching sheep thrown in for good measure.

Sue xx

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Our New Life in the Country is my blog.

I use it to chart the day by day, week by week, year by year goings on in mine and Lovely Hubby's life. In it I also express my views and opinions, and say what I do and occasionally how I do it. I am hoping that this will prove to be a useful reminder for myself of how we did things, as we continue in our learning process.

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