The Song of Fred

This past Saturday – the Feast of Saint James – just after Prime, Francine and I walked out into the backyard. The hens over in our henhouse “Paradise Towers” were acting strange. Squawking and circling around. This was not the “I laid an egg” sound, or the “hey, hooman, where’s my feed and/or water” sound, or even the “danger” sound. This was something new.

And then we saw her. The still, hunched body of Frederica. Dead.

I buried her in our chicken graveyard, where she joined Vera and Violet. After the burial, I croaked out some version of the Salve Regina, as I had done for our other pet burials.

Fred was the alpha hen, an honour accorded to her without any dispute by her fellow hens, despite the fact that she was clearly disabled with a crooked back and a croaking voice. And why would this be? Normally, hens determine rank in the pecking order literally – by pecking. They beat each other up until one stands atop the heap.

But this was not the case at Paradise Towers. Why? Because Fred was a hero.

Years ago, before the construction of Paradise Towers, our hens lived in a smaller coop and had the free run of the yard. This wasn’t great for our garden, but at the time we had eight hens, so they needed room to roam. Sometimes a subset of them roamed (single file) through the alley, much to the amusement of our neighbours.

As evening fell, they would all return to the coop, and we’d shut the door for the night to keep out predators.

Late one afternoon, we heard this helacious screechy-growly noise coming from the back yard. We arrived to quite a sight. The hens were mostly already in the coop, and Fred was at the entrance, grievously wounded, having fought off an opossum.

When we arrived, Fred and the opossum were faced off with each other near the coop door, as the last of the other hens made it into the safety of the coop.

Obviously, we ran to Fred’s aid. Francine and I grabbed whatever was handy – a broom or a nearby shovel – and moved menacingly at the opossum until it retreated. We thought Fred was a goner. I was afraid that the opossum had broken Fred’s neck – it was crooked, bent almost in an “s” shape.

But she survived, and after that all of the other hens followed her in their daily jaunts. Even when they moved into Paradise Towers and no longer went walkabout, the other hens allowed her the best perch (though sometimes they shared it), and they always made room for her at the food trough.

In the photo above, taken in 2015, you can see the difference between Fred and her sister Georgette (“George”) pretty well. Fred, on the left, has a hunched, crooked back and a twisted neck. George, on the right, is a more typical chicken shape.

In recent months, Fred had been moving slower and slower, as well as sounding much wheezier. We knew her time was coming.

Fred, a Welsummer, is survived by her sister George, as well as the other three remaining denizens of Paradise Towers.