Nugget

Five years ago when the farm was just a wish, a hope, a dream, my fiance decided to buy six chicks.  All in an effort to live more the way we wanted to be.  I had a little experience with hatching chicks but raising them to full grown layers was a bit different. We were successful, all six made it into adult henhood.  Right  from the start there was one chicken that had attitude and she was literally top of the pecking order.  We named all our first chickens after food.  Chicken Cordon Bleu was named Blue. Chicken Patty was shortened to Patty, Chicken Rosemary was Rose, Chicken BBQ was named Barbie and Chicken Marsala became Marcie.  Chicken Nugget became Nugget and she was the queen of the henhouse.  She ruled the roost.(pardon all the puns, but I couldn't resist)  This Rhode Island Red was not fearful of anything.  She would walk right up to our three golden retrievers and not back down.  One day she hopped up on my lap as we were sipping wine in our Adirondack chairs.  She would greet us in the morning at feeding and pick out bugs while we were gardening.  Nugget passed on to the great henhouse in the sky.  Her personality and attitude will be missed.  We no longer name our chickens, it makes it all the harder when they do pass on.  We raise our chickens for their eggs not their meat.  We let them live out their lives in relative ease, realizing that as they age they give us less eggs and just eat our feed. We live in a co-existence together. The chickens give us eggs and we give them a place to live with freedom to be chickens and enjoy what they may find on the farm.