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A hen called Blue ~~ Klueger's nature w/o for AhlstromomyMar 29 '03 (Updated Mar 30 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Wishing you both lots of love.
I am a total nature freak, I am the sort of person who will happily stand and watch bees on flowers for 20 minutes and find it absolutely fascinating. My husband thinks I am a lost cause but I find the most precious things in life are the little miracles of nature. I have a few favourite memories of various animals I have known over the years so let me share one with you. Blue and the puppies. We inherited a lovely old hen named Blue, her owners were moving to the city and couldn’t bear the thought of turning Blue into roast chicken so they gave her to us. She was a lovely old girl and exceptionally friendly. We owned a few chooks but Blue was no mere old chook, she was a dear old hen that had a few habits that made her stand out from the pack. She was very sociable and where the other chooks would be busy scratching around looking for a treat, Blue would come and sit with the humans and enjoy being stroked and scratched, especially on the neck. Blue was constantly clucky and used to try to sit on the eggs all the time. One of our working dogs, Sheen, was due to whelp and had decided the chicken coop was the perfect place to have her babies. We found her one morning curled up in the corner with a pile of new born puppies looking like she was the happiest dog in the world. We decided to leave her there as the place we had set aside for her wasn’t half as nice as the chicken coop and she was so snug in the cold winter weather. The chooks seemed okay with having a dog in their house and all was well with the world. Over time Sheen started leaving the puppies for longer stretches of time and I started noticing Blue wasn’t around as much. I went down to the chicken coop to see if she was okay and there she was, in the corner sitting on the pile of puppies with her wings spread over them protectively. She would begrudgingly move aside when Sheen came to feed her pups but the minute she left Blue moved back in and took over once more. As the puppies got bigger and started moving around we moved them from the chicken coop. Blue hunted them down as no way was she going to miss out on her babies. She stayed with them for weeks, wherever the puppies were there was Blue keeping a watchful eye. She was always finding grubs and bugs, snails and worms and calling to the pup-chicks to come and eat. She would try to coax them into eating her tidbits but once the puppies had discovered her offering of a tasteless grub, they would gambol off only to have the disappointed hen follow with the grub in her mouth. I used to give her the pleasure of feeding her brood by putting a plate of food in front of her and letting her call her puppies to come and eat. Never mind the fact that they used to smother her in their rush to the food, she thought it was fantastic. As the puppies got bigger Blue started to get pushed around a bit too much, the pups thought she was fun to play with and I noticed they were starting to get too rough, playing tug of war with her wings and lets drag Blue around by the neck was becoming a favourite game. It had to be done and I felt so mean but I took Blue down to the chicken coop and locked her in. I felt so bad but what could I do, Blue missed the pups, the pups missed Blue and I was the meanest person in the whole wide world. After a week or so most of the pups had been given away and we opened the chicken coop up once more. Blue tried to get close to the pups but by now their boisterous antics were more then she could take and she left them to themselves while she came and rejoined the humans for a scratch and a bit of peace and quiet. Blue is no longer with us, she died of old age and no, we did not eat her... just in case you were wondering. =================== Check out klueger for the other participants.  |
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