Bye Bye Betty

Betty was named by our grandma Sprinkles. What a cute and sweet name – it's a name that stuck with our sweet tan Minorca. She has a really nice personality, and she is the most social of all our birds. She is teaching the other birds that they can trust us. She is always the first to step up and interact with us. We have had our chickens for 2 seasons, we are just approaching the 3rd Fall season with all 3 of our birds- Betty, Rocky Road a.k.a. Red, and Killer.

The favorite of our 3 chickens (Betty) died last night. We were wondering why our chickens weren't laying eggs for the last few days. Then, Angie discovered why yesterday. The door that allows them to go outside (where their water is) had been knocked shut. One chicken was trapped outside and starving while the other two were trapped inside and thirsting! We kept checking on them and never noticed until Angie got curious about only noticing one of them outside all the time. I wondered if burying Betty in the back yard might be overkill, so I put her in a garbage bag and placed her in the garbage can outside. Once inside, Sam said to Angie "If I die, my Dad will probably put me in the garbage can". We realized we had some teaching to do, which led to a proper burial in the back yard. Bye Bye Betty...

We couldn't enjoy our chicken's like we did while Betty was a part of the flock. We cared for our chickens Red and Killer for another month but we couldn't bear  the sadness any more. We listed our remaining chickens on KSL for 5 bucks. In a couple of days and new proud owner came to claim them., and claimed that she wanted them for the eggs.
Angie tried to stay un-emotional about it, and was doing a pretty good job until the new owner said, "Do you have some rope that I can tie their legs with?" Oh the thought of such torture really tortured Angie inside. We placed the chickens in nice little boxes and told the lady what their names were and talked about how nice we were to them and about what nice pets they were to us. What's done is done! We choose to believe the lady when she says she just wants them for eggs. We hope they have a nice new home.

Our sweet neighbor Catherine can't help but call us the chicken murderers. It's so sad, but really funny when she says it too.  I am glad she likes our chickens. Every once in while Catherine hears a phantom chicken sound and she is reminded of our sweet Betty. She is sad she cannot hear the chickens in the backyard anymore. But we assure her that in the Spring we are going to get baby chicks. Her son Zye loves our chickens, he is a great baby sitter when we go out of town. It sure is nice to have great friendly neighbors, especially ones who love our chickens too!