WERE about to eat another roast chicken. The difference between this and the countless, truly countless, roast chickens weve consumed over the summer is that, 48 hours ago, it was running around our garden as one of three much-loved silver-laced Wyandottes.
Despite the cockerel doing his very best, neither hen became broody, so the Three Musketeers have remained just three—until Saturday, when some friends came to lunch, bringing their Jack Russell and two-year-old daughter.
I’m standing in the kitchen, prodding undercooked lamb and overcooked beans, when two things happen: the daughter is found climbing out of a first-floor window and a commotion leads us to our hen, dead on the ground with the terrier standing nearby, jaunty, fired up, mouth full of feathers.
The two year old is calmly rescued by her mother and Zam returns to the crime scene, where the cockerel is now lying next to the hen, minus his tail feathers. However, when Zam picks him up, expecting a corpse, the bird shakes himself and runs for cover.
What had he been doing? Playing dead? Lying next to his friend saying ‘Oi, get up’ or stupefied with fear and slumped in a terrified trance? I have no idea—and I’ve also no idea how polite I need to be when a visiting dog has killed my favourite hen.
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