Juliette...

...has left us. Peacefully and quietly in J.'s arms this morning. She was very old and we had known that it was going to happen soon, as she was getting slower and weaker. We've had her in the house every night for the last two weeks because we didn't want her to have to push and shove for a roosting spot with the other chickens. She had gotten more and more weak and frail.

Juliette came from a 'Chicken Hell' feed store back in 2002, and she was at least 1-2 years old then--so that would have made her somewhere between 8-10 years old--not bad for a tiny bantam. She was terrified of people and very wild for several years, screaming horribly whenever we had to catch her for anything or would attempt to touch her. Then in the last year she had suddenly mellowed, and had begun hanging out with us, even coming into the house on her own, accepting goodies from our hands and allowing us to pet her and pick her up. She even decided that 'This is GREAT' and would come in and hang out with us as we sat at our computers, sitting in our lap and being petted for long periods of time. It was quite rewarding seeing an abused animal forgive and find peace like that.

I hope we at least gave her a good life and maybe attoned for what she had suffered to make her hate and fear people so. Juliette was the tiniest chicken I'd ever seen and was a special girl.

A lot of our hens are getting quite old, so this year and next I expect we'll have another round of the aging girls passing away.