Flossy's Gone

Flossy was a warrior mother at heart. She took guff from nothing or no one. She weighed about five pounds soaking wet, but she looked a lot bigger when she was mad.

She had seven baby peeps a few weeks ago and she was very protective of her younguns.

A dog that lives down the road and roams the neighborhood ran up in the yard last week. Flossy apparently commanded the peeps to stay put because they squatted in place and Flossy ran away from the peeps out into the open.

Normally she would simply have flown over the backyard fence with our other two adult chickens, but she would never have left the peeps to fend for themselves.

The dog started after her and she fluffed out her feathers and had this guttural clucking sound and she tried her best to peck the dog's eyes out.

Jilda saw the altercation, snagged up the BB gun and put a small piece of copper on the dogs be-hind. It got the message and left the yard post haste.

Fast forward to Thursday. I was drinking coffee and I heard the chickens sounding the alarm. I've had the birds long enough to recognize the difference between there normal clucking and the sound they make when they are frightened.

I walked out on the back and Bonnie & Clyde were under the deck. There were no dogs in the back yard, but I caught a glimpse of a hawk out of the corner of my eye.

I ran back inside and got the BB gun and started firing in the direction of the hawk to scare it off. Apparently I got close with one shot because it flew off down toward the barn.

We missed Flossy Thursday evening. The peeps were under the front porch but Flossy was no where to be found.

I thought she might be giving the youngun's some space, trying to get them to step out on their own. But she didn't return Friday.

When I walked down to the garden today, I found her remains. We didn't see what happened, but we think she did the same maneuver with the hawk that she did with the dog.

She ran away from the peeps and out into the open to keep the hawk from killing her babies.

She sacrificed her life for theirs. RIP Flossy