Principesa Pink

[Ella (left) and Pink (right). Why “Principesa”? Well Pink has always been a little Princess, and I love Pavarotti singing Nesun Dorma, and the lyrics refer to principesa – I have since realised it’s principessa in Italian, principesa in Spanish, but hey ho, the link has been shared!]

I love writing but it can be painful. I think about the stories I want to tell and it becomes almost obsessive, like a narration in my head, and whilst I really don’t want to dig around in my emotions right now, this story insists on being told. I’m still not sure how it will end: will my writing end before a resolution? Dangling on the edge of a precipice, flapping like a discarded plastic carrier bag?

I’m trying really hard not to focus on the physical right now. But this is Pink’s final/not final lesson to me. I can’t fix this. I can’t work it out in the physical. There is no resolution. Every time I think I may have a solution, something else crops up, some other nugget of information or realisation that scuppers my solution. I know she’s hanging on until I surrender.

If I had a pound for every time I have Googled “what is surrender” I wouldn’t need to work again. Desperately hoping someone can put it in words that I can act on. I think get the principle, it flutters around the periphery of my understanding, like that pesky plastic bag, but how do you execute it?

Over a month ago Pink stopped eating. Everyday in the afternoon they get birdseed and mealworms. I throw a handful into the compost bin for Humphrey the Pheasant, though he’s been gone for well over a year. I always hope one day he’ll come back and take his position in his command post. The pigeons eat it. It keeps the chickens away – they are perfectly capable of jumping into the compost bin but they don’t seem to try. The rest I scatter on the grass and Pink and Ella scuttle over to peck and scratch. I love watching their fluffy bums in the air, their tails like a rudder, pointing the direction they’ll move to next, their strange 3 step moonwalk scratching. Pink didn’t come over. Didn’t even look up. She’s far more obsessed with food than Ella so this is unusual. Worried, I got some of Sally’s raw feed, minced meat, the biggest prize after eggs, and took some over. She ate that so I wasn’t too worried. But the next day she wouldn’t eat that either. I don’t really know what they eat during the day unless I happen to see them at the feeder.

The chickens hate the vet. They hate being caught, being handled, being restrained, being in the car, the whole works. It’s stressful for all of us. They get injected with hormone implants 3 times a year so they know it’s going to hurt. Nothing good comes out of vet visits. I do Reiki on all of us in preparation. I will avoid it as much as possible, but by day 3 I felt I had to take her. The vet said it may be her liver and suggested painkillers, and some other drugs but Pink’s an old lady and I knew where this was heading. The average life span of an ex-battery hen is 4 years, my girls are 8 and a half. There wasn’t really an answer, an unspoken shrug. I didn’t want to give her any drugs since it’s horrible way to destroy the trust just before they die, but if she wasn’t eating because she was in pain, I thought I’d try the painkillers at least. If I was giving her them I may as well give her the other drugs. We did 3 and a half  days of battle morning and night. I silently thanked the Universe for it being this time of year where I could grab her out of the coop in the morning, and then do it on her way to bed 12 hours later. Poor Niala had weeks of being hauled out of the coop in darkness to get her 12 hour dose in – and that’s not a nice way to end your days.

Pink has always been the most vocal about being caught and handled. She’ll scream like a banshee before you even touch her. She would rather garrotte herself on the chicken fencing than let you pick her up, hurling herself, shrieking, at the fencing as I corner her. Thanks Pink, I thought, 7 years of nothing but love for you and this is how much you trust me. Surprisingly she recovered a lot quicker than the others though, after 4 tablets shoved down her throat one by one, having wailed and screamed she would stop fussing as soon as I stopped man-handling her, not seeming to hold a grudge. However the final squirt of some vile liver bile down her throat proved too much and she really started fighting me, squirming like the cat, making it impossible to administer. She still hadn’t eaten and nothing changed. On day 4 I decided to stop the drugs since they weren’t helping.

That was 5 weeks ago. I saw her drinking for a few days but then rarely saw that. Ella wouldn’t leave her side. I’ve been round and round in my head – wondering if I should force feed her. Everyone has an opinion but then I read never, ever force feed any animal if you don’t know what’s wrong and that felt right to me. The least I could do was let her die in peace.

There is so much controversy about letting animals die. If she was obviously in distress of course I’d take her to the vet but now I had an even bigger worry. Ella. It was hard enough to lose Niala, but Pink dying leaves only Ella. Chickens are social animal, they don’t naturally live alone. People are quick to tell me of stories how some “devoted” cat or dog turns into a different character when their sibling dies, asserting their true personality implying they’d been smothered by their partner and were now coming into a life of their own. I can’t hope that that’s true for chickens… Apparently chickens on the edge of the perch sleep with the outside eye open for predators. And turn around in the night to close the other eye. Is that true? Pinky was bottom of the pecking order, her eyes would always be open. Ella, on the other hand, has always been the boss, she got a good night’s sleep. How would she fare alone without her minions? If she’s going to be left alone, I want her to witness Pink’s passing or she’ll be forever waiting for Pink to come home. That breaks my heart. And I know I’m an animal communicator, and I know that animals are in constant communication with each other, but this scenario fills me with horror. I can’t take the risk of me being the messenger: I want Ella to be a part of what happens.

Chickens have a complicated and delicate social structure and introducing new chickens isn’t something I want to take on right now. The timing is all wrong. We may be downsizing, moving, it’s just not a good time and I secretly dread any flock issues since Pink was bullied by Niala. That was such a painful experience it led to my learning to heal, in sheer desperation of how to calm it all down. It worked, so I have them to thank for my healing skills and ultimately the animal communication, but I wouldn’t revisit that scenario lightly. And it’s not necessarily a solution. Ella might not want a pile of younger chickens. They might bully her or reject her. I can’t bear that thought either. Ella, the smallest and feistiest of all the chickens was boss from day 1. Much smaller than the others, she ruled with a rod of iron,  I can’t believe she wouldn’t still be boss, but you never know what might happen with stronger, bolshy youngsters. There would be no point in adopting another single elderly companion as then I’m just putting off the problem. And introducing more than one requires that none of them know each other so you’re not introducing to an existing flock. Everywhere I turn is issues to overcome. What if she’s unhappy alone. Do I rehome her? I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t. I simply don’t trust anyone else to care for her as I do, unless I know them, and even then I’d have no control over what happened to her. She could moulder away, bullied and scared. I know I have control issues, but I’m not going to compromise on this point. Besides all that, she’s on hugely expensive hormones to stop her laying. Our biggest bill after oil and electric is the chickens…. Who’s going to take on an old hen who doesn’t lay, who costs £500 and plus the cost of 3 vet visits a year at a minimum? If they stop the hormones, she’ll likely die from a stuck egg. I didn’t realise it was a lifetime commitment when I put them on hormones, and money wasn’t an issue at the time, but apparently they put on so much muscle and weight not laying that they’re too chunky internally to lay now.

Would she be happy alone? Maybe. People do keep chickens alone, it seems to depend on their interaction with their owners. But whilst I pop out a few times a day to see where they are, I always check on them periodically, is that enough? It’s fine in summer when I can be in the garden, but through the dreary dark wet days of most of Scotland’s weather, it’s not realistic to suggest I’ll spend much time with her outside. What if I brought her in? Gary would have a fit. I’ve already started dropping hints… But they poop everywhere. Apparently you can get nappies. My heart lifted when I read that. Sorted I thought. If she can tolerate a nappy I can bring her in once a day to spend some time with me whilst I work. Then I read that you can’t have them in the heated home and then toss them out into the cold. They just can’t regulate their temperature like that. I don’t think she’d be happy inside all the time either, having been a free range chicken outside and likely we’d both be homeless: I’m pretty sure Gary wouldn’t tolerate that. Every path leads to a dead end. Or a divorce. I’ve made a nappy just in case though. Amazing what you find on YouTube.

Round and round and round I go. Moments of clarity and my heart lifts, then sinks. There’s an urgency to get on with this, to see what’s going to happen with Ella. But that requires Pink to die. Now is her living a good thing, or a bad thing? And round I go again. Heart-broken to think of losing Pink, terrified of what will happen to Ella. I’m stuck in a magnificent whirlpool of drama. I’m going to have to go through this at some point even if she lives through this. She can’t live through this, Google says she should be dead in a few days. Then I read about a lady who finds her hen trapped in an above ground swimming pool, who lives without food for 3 weeks. Pink’s a good weight, or was, could she last that long? Maybe Pink would be better on her own? Ella flaps her wings and does that flying run whenever Pink is out of sight, desperate to catch up. Pink is more inclined (or was) to wander off and potter around on her own. Bullied so harshly by Niala in the past she got used to her own company. That breaks my heart again, remembering that… What if Ella dies first – she’s been sneezing the last couple of days. What if they die together, that would be perfect. What am I saying? Wishing them both dead now? Should I take them to the vet and say I can’t cope with the enormity of what’s happening and I want to end it all here and now?

Stuck. Stuck. Wedged between hopelessness and fear. Smothered by a suffocating love for them. I’m teetering between sobbing and peace, sobbing and peace. In the peaceful moments Niala is there, gently reminding me what I know but can’t feel right now. If I believe the Universe is taking care of me, the only thing that’s making this hard is my fear. If I can keep my vibration high, everything will work out for me. That means the Universe will present any solution I need, in response to whatever problem there is. The reality is I don’t know what the problem is yet, beyond the fact that Pink isn’t eating. I don’t know if she’ll live or die. I don’t know if Ella will die first. I don’t know if a fox will kill them both tomorrow.

Three weeks ago she simply lay down in the path. This is it I thought and rushed around the house, literally going in to every room in the house, in a panic looking for things I hadn’t identified. Do I put her in a box to keep her warm? Fill it with hay? Use the litter tray? Where do I put the box? In the shed for shelter, or outside so she can see what’s going on? What if she crawls under the hedge and I have to drag her out by her back legs in her final moments? I emptied the litter tray and filled it with hay. Hovering in the doorway of rooms, unable to focus on what I was doing. What if she couldn’t climb out of the litter tray? A box then, a cardboard box. I can cut the sides down. As I staggered through the house with an armful of hay, a cardboard box and a litter tray I caught sight of her outside, she’d climbed up into the flower bed and was gently foraging with Ella like nothing had happened. The sheer ridiculousness of my panic and the blatant reminder that I was not in control was laughable.

That day, they seemed to explore every recess of the garden. Every corner that they had enjoyed, They pecked at the guesthouse, in the dark lush grass. They foraged around the oil tank, in the dandelions and dock leaves. They lay in the dirt with the foxgloves under the hedge halfway up the garden. They sunbathed in the top corner of the garden near the clematis. My heart sang thinking what a beautiful day Pink had had to end her days. But it was not the end.

And so the roller coaster continued. I had a time where I thought I was finally in acceptance. Everything felt a little brighter. Pink started eating for a couple of days, tiny amounts, but enough for me to notice. When she stopped again I realised it wasn’t acceptance. It was hope. Logically I know she can’t come back from this, but I was pathetically grabbing onto a ray of hope. That’s not acceptance. I need to be OK regardless of the conditions, because the conditions are unreliable. The conditions can change. The conditions can’t be controlled. Human suffering is all because we’re trying to control the conditions so we can feel good, when what we need to do is just feel good anyway.

So is acceptance merely a wearing down? As we navigate emotional roller coasters it just becomes too tiring to care. Is that acceptance?

Two weeks ago, I cried into my coffee at Loch Lubnaig. She hadn’t come out of the coop but at least by now I was able to go out for the day, comforted and strengthened by the presence of my sister. I expected her to be dead when I got home. As I unpacked my swimming stuff, deliberately not looking out of the windows, Stella came over with tears in her eyes. Pink and Ella were sunbathing at the hedge.

And so it went on. Goes on. There have been days when I’ve carried her into the shed, not wanting her to get too wet as she walks carefully around, her little crooked feet being placed oh so carefully down. By the evening she’s wandered out onto the grass and stands quietly at the hedge while Ella busies herself nearby. She stands motionless for hours in the flower bed.

I watch a crow in the tree squawking. His whole body moves with each caw, as if straining with the effort. That’s what Pink is like when she peeps. She’s the only one who ever peeped and her whole body moves gently as she peeps. I can’t hear her anymore, but I see her little body shake when she acknowledges me. Peep peep.

I know what’s going on. They have laid it all out like a beautiful story. As I learn how to manage death though, it’s also bringing up guilt about how I managed it before. But I try not to go there. Was I too late with Dora, subjecting her to one too many vet intrusions? Was I too keen to put Wambers down, afraid of a repeat situation? Too quick to condemn Niala when she finally wilted? I realise very clearly that in this situation, it’s me that wants relief, not Pink. Niala taught me the hands off approach, that it was OK not to do the endless drugs and manipulations that vets will have you try, that it’s OK to say “enough, I’d rather leave her be”. That quality of life and trust is more important than survival at any cost. She taught me that we can’t judge the quality of someone else’s life just because it doesn’t look how we think a “worthwhile” life should look. And Mum was there along with other people in the care home with dementia to show me that quality of life may take a very different form to how we expect. We all think we don’t want to be like that, God no, I’d rather die than live like that. Until you’re around people who very clearly do not want to die, who are perfectly happy to sit for hours on end gazing out of the widow, blankly watching TV. It only takes a wee smile, a wee acknowledgement, a catching of the eye to realise that they may still be happy, content in their new world. Not all of them obviously, but we simply don’t know how we would feel in a situation we have yet to encounter. I used to be so sure of what I knew and now if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I know very little, and I can’t be sure of that either.

Pink is teaching me I can’t control this. I can’t control how Ella will react, and I can’t make it OK. I can’t fix this in the physical. I can only make myself OK with whatever happens. And she won’t let go until I do. As I fret over whether I’m being selfish by not taking her to the vet, my sister tunes in to her and confirms this is exactly what she wants. Pink tells her that to be put to sleep would be like ripping off a band-aid. She wants to go gently. In little snatches. I know this happens, that the soul dips in and out before a pet passes. It’s probably true of people. It’s true of the baby before it’s born, the soul is not attached, it comes in and out. Pinky is preparing her way, gently and on her terms. As Pink is motionless in the flower bed, Ella starts moving further away: I actually saw her up at the compost bins. This is the first time she has started moving away. Pink is sheltering in the shed and Ella comes out to forage. I see her have a little hairy fit to herself and scuttle back to Pink. She’s scared, and she’s not used to being alone, but I know this will pass.

Yesterday Pinky did not come out to play. Ella spent most of the day alone, poking around. Pink is not only preparing herself, but she’s preparing Ella too.

Today Pink is out again, unmoving, but like the video of “ninja cat” that had me in hysterics on YouTube, every time I look out of the window she has moved, but is completely motionless, snap shots like a time-elapsed camera.

I am just an observer.

For two more days, Pinky stays in the coop. A tiny deflated bag of feathers. The irony is that her feathers are beautiful and glossy: she’s just come out of a long moult and her feathers are bursting with a deep, dark red sheen. She looks beautiful, my warrior princess. I start to fret, worried that I’m getting it wrong, as I watch her breathing deep, far deeper than I’ve ever seen, as she lies with her head tucked in like a swan, curled gracefully round the front. You never see chickens lie like this normally. Am I being selfish? What if she’s in pain? I can’t connect with her, I never can when I’m so emotionally involved. Unable to bear the questions I peep in the back of the coop. I’m trying hard not to fuss around her but I’m in agony. She has a tiny spec of wood shavings caught on her eyelid, though her eyes are tight shut. I brush it off ever so gently and she half opens her eyes and shakes her head as if nothing is wrong with her. From comatose to Pink in a microsecond. She barely opens her eyes before sinking back down, slowly, gracefully as if luxuriating in sleep. I know I’ve done the right thing. I gently close the back of the coop and another day slides by her.

I expected her to be stretched out in death, as I’ve read that they will spasm, a violent fit as they die, words assuring me that it’s painless as they are already dead. But there was none of that. Just a wee sleeping Pink. All curled up, just as I’d seen her yesterday. A soft, glossy cushion of feathers. Finally still and at peace.