Remember the old [2yrs.] rooster I told you about? He was ganged up on by two younger roosters and beat up pretty badly. Anyway, I took him out of the chicken coop and put him in the barn, in an area where I raise broilers. This area is fenced in with chicken wire and safe from predators.
He was petty badly beat up and was quite bloodied, he could hardly walk. In a few days he perked up. It didn't look like there was any permanent damage. Since the broiler area is lit only by a single window [when I use it as a broiler cage I have artificial light] I let him out to roam the barn during the day and shooed him in at night.
Last Wednesday, when I went out in late afternoon, he was standing in the barn door [animal door] looking out. I would of had to walk around the barn in the deep snow to shoo him in. I thought, "He'll be okay in the barn. I 'll leave him out" I knew there was some risk from predators, but I thought if I was the rooster I would take the risk and there are a lot of structures he could fly up on, to be out of reach of Brer fox.
You guessed it. The next morning he was gone, I searched the barn. No blood stains or feathers in the snow; but it snowed during the night and that may have covered up any evidence. Likewise no fox or other predator tracks. I figured I would know the answer when the snow melted.
I felt mournful. It was my fault because I didn't want to walk in the deep snow. Also, what was I going to do with one lonely rooster? He needed to be with his ladies but I couldn't put him back with the others. Keeping water out for one lone rooster in this weather was another chore. He only had a little while to drink everyday before his little dish of water was ice. So I was mournful; then relieved and vaguely guilty about feeling relieved.
Friday I searched the barn for him, again. Saturday I searched. Sunday I searched. Although, I now "knew" he was gone for good, I searched the barn again on Monday. There was no place a rooster could hide. That was my last search.
Yesterday morning, when I went into the barn, I heard a thud like tapping. I listened and I thought it must be coming from the loft. I was standing in front of the broiler cage and I heard it again. I looked in and there he was, as big as you please, pecking corn out of a rubber pan I had for him. He looked none the worse for wear. He seemed healthy. His comb was frozen further, which would happen in the cold barn. The chicken coop gets cold, e.g. the water freezes when it is in the single digits, but the barn gets much colder. I don't have animals in it right now. When it is loaded with sheep it stays pretty cozy.
So what is that all about? I will go to my grave believing he could not have been in the barn. He is a large chicken, he weighs close to twelve pounds. He could not have scrunched himself up into a small space. Yet there was no evidence of him being outside the barn. No tracks in the snow.
I will probably never know the answer to this mystery. However, our world is a classroom; all experience teaches. What did this experience teach me. For one: don't hold conclusions. You don't have to have the final answer to anything. We learn even when we don't know we are learning or what we are learning. The only thing I know is that all we can do is love. Life comes to us. All we have to do is put one foot in front of another and love every moment.
Love and Peace, Gregg
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