A fox took my chickens – weeks later I still find feathers and my heart is heavy with grief | Emma Beddington
A fox took my chickens last month. “All my pretty chickens…all at once,” as Macduff says in Macbeth, though of course Macduff is talking about his real children, not the bantams. They were really pretty, my girls.
Weeks later, I'm still finding feathers. I got rid of most of the stained the next day with a heart of lead: five piles marking the demise of each of my five beloved ones. The tiny speckled girls gang leader Eris and Faustina, shiny gothic black Josephine, brooding, petrol iridescent Stella, and stoic tan-bearded Daphne, the sentinel of the herd, are usually alert to any threat. Was she caught off guard by a mild early evening, distracted by a worm, or a fight with a magpie? I try to stop speculating, imagining, blaming myself for going out, for not protecting them. But their fluffy, impossibly soft underfeathers have persisted: I find them clinging to bushes, tumbling across the straw-dry grass, gathering in little streaks on the hairs of the doormat. They keep ambushing me.
I stuff them in my pocket, then add them to the little handful I put on the shelf of my office: a small sanctuary for such a small sorrow. I mourn what would barely make up the contents of a KFC family party bucket and with the near endless amount of suffering out there, it seems forgiving to feel so sad. But as any hen sitter, hamster owner, or budgie lover will tell you, those little bodies can be receptacles for a huge amount of love. I can still feel the weight and the warmth and the particular shape of each of my hens, all that down, their quick bird hearts beating against mine. spacefinder-role="richLink" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement" class="dcr-1mfia18"/>
I shouldn't have more chickens; it does not mean anything. The fox knows where the all-you-can-eat buffet is now, so I'm going to have to be infinitely more vigilant. Avian flu is devastating and has taken the fun out of backyard chicken farming for much of the year. It's also hard to walk away when you're tied to feathered tyrants. But the dumb, aching heart wants what it wants: six more are coming next week.
Emma Beddington is a freelance writer
A fox took my chickens last month. “All my pretty chickens…all at once,” as Macduff says in Macbeth, though of course Macduff is talking about his real children, not the bantams. They were really pretty, my girls.
Weeks later, I'm still finding feathers. I got rid of most of the stained the next day with a heart of lead: five piles marking the demise of each of my five beloved ones. The tiny speckled girls gang leader Eris and Faustina, shiny gothic black Josephine, brooding, petrol iridescent Stella, and stoic tan-bearded Daphne, the sentinel of the herd, are usually alert to any threat. Was she caught off guard by a mild early evening, distracted by a worm, or a fight with a magpie? I try to stop speculating, imagining, blaming myself for going out, for not protecting them. But their fluffy, impossibly soft underfeathers have persisted: I find them clinging to bushes, tumbling across the straw-dry grass, gathering in little streaks on the hairs of the doormat. They keep ambushing me.
I stuff them in my pocket, then add them to the little handful I put on the shelf of my office: a small sanctuary for such a small sorrow. I mourn what would barely make up the contents of a KFC family party bucket and with the near endless amount of suffering out there, it seems forgiving to feel so sad. But as any hen sitter, hamster owner, or budgie lover will tell you, those little bodies can be receptacles for a huge amount of love. I can still feel the weight and the warmth and the particular shape of each of my hens, all that down, their quick bird hearts beating against mine. spacefinder-role="richLink" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement" class="dcr-1mfia18"/>
I shouldn't have more chickens; it does not mean anything. The fox knows where the all-you-can-eat buffet is now, so I'm going to have to be infinitely more vigilant. Avian flu is devastating and has taken the fun out of backyard chicken farming for much of the year. It's also hard to walk away when you're tied to feathered tyrants. But the dumb, aching heart wants what it wants: six more are coming next week.
Emma Beddington is a freelance writer
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