In memory of Beep ( and my mom too)

by Val
(Indiana, PA)

This has been over a year, but since I'm new to this site, I'll post because i still feel badly about what happened.

I bought 3 Rhode Island Red peeps last April. Right off the bat, i knew these girls were really not like the three other hens that I inherited from someone else (my husband calls our house the, "Chicken Retirement Home.")

Anyway, as these peeps were growing up, they loved people. They all would jump on the swing and climb all over everyone. As a Civil War re-enactor, we had many events in the summer that we attend on weekends, so my parents would babysit my peeps while we were gone.

This was a good thing because my mom had just been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer and was still trying chemo to see if she could make it. She loved those three little peeps and sat in the yard swing with them when she was here.

As the peeps grew up, they continued to prefer the company of people over the other chickens. They came in the house for daily bread and lettuce and two, Beep and Tim, became very tame. like two cats actually.

On Christmas Eve, a dog came into the yard. Not a stray, mind you. A dog that someone was letting run loose on a nearby walking track. The dog (a husky) killed Beep outright and was mauling Rusty by the time I made it outside with a bat. Armed with the bat, I managed to save Rusty and was confronted by the man, in my own yard, why I had hit his dog with the bat. I replied that I was defending my pets and he said, "They're just a bunch of stupid chickens."

Like because they were chickens, it was fine for his pet to kill them. Lucky for him, I had dropped the bat otherwise, I may have gotten myself in trouble.

The man and his dog left and I sought restitution for Beep and Rusty's medical costs. I got both. But, it still didn't make things right.

When I called my parents to tell them what happened, my mom just cried. She loved those chickens, maybe more than I did.

After she passed three months later, my neighbors went together and bought me four new peeps because they said, of all the bad luck that I'd been having.

All the new chickens are now grown and I have six "cats" now that come in the house, beg for bread, sit on the porch swing (and my lap), and basically serve the same purpose of companionship that a dog or cat would only I get six eggs a day.

I still miss Beep though (and the other hens that have passed on from old age), but maybe it happened so my mom had a pet chicken to play with wherever she is?

That's a nice thought for me.