Do Chickens Go To Heaven?

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Thursday was a hard day on the farm.

As one whose theological curiousity is shaped much by observing nature, Thursday was a difficult day of questions. Upon arriving home from work, the chicken coop door was open but the chickens were not to be seen. Instead of the group happily scratching about in the pasture with the old rooster keeping watch as is usual, there was only one small red hen visible near the wood pile. She seemed afraid.

I quickly got inside the house and changed out of my work shoes into something more pasture appropriate and ran out toward the horse paddocks. Behind the garage I saw the only remaining feathers of what had been one of the gold hens. My stomach dropped at the thought of what had happened.

I ran faster and lifted the heavy corral gate to unlatch it. The horses were watching me expectedly but it wasn’t their usual look of hoping for treats. They were uncertain. Dashing around the stable I saw what I thought was the old rooster out of the corner of my eye headed for the coop. Whatever it was, it was black. Just as I reached the corner a coyote the size of a German Shepherd bolted across my path. I yelled and clapped and chased after it and it skittered across the arena and waited on the other side of the fence.

There was Molly, the favorite hen of my landlord’s eleven year old daughter, the only one who had been named. She had just been killed and still laid there as if asleep except for a little blood around her broken neck. My fears were confirmed. I knelt down and petted her and told her I was sorry — what if I had gone straight out instead of changing my shoes?

The little banty rooster poked his head out from beside the barn and crowed. Molly was the only hen who had been nice to him. I coaxed him toward the coop reassuringly. Two hens followed suit and I shut the three of them safe inside. I called for the others and searched the pasture for any other signs of life. The coyote was still waiting near the woods and I yelled at him to take off.

My landlord arrived shortly after, thankfully without her daughter. She knew what had happened as soon as she saw my face. We carefully lifted Molly’s body into a feed bag and placed her on the hood of the truck. We spent the next hour and a half shaking the grain buckets and calling for anymore surviving chickens. The big, old rooster came tentatively out of a tree after twenty minutes or so. He had puncture wounds on his head and his tail was gone. He approached cautiously, checking from one side to the other all the way across the field. Four more hens showed up before dark as we continued to call. They all came carefully out of the woods. Those were all that remained. We accounted for the other ten by the clusters of their feathers in various spots around the yard. Even the little poofy one who could fly a bit had been taken.

Friday I found the little grave pictured above near the chicken coop. The landlord’s daughter had wanted to bury Molly and create this memorial. The cross seemed like an appropriate burial marker.

Do chickens go to heaven?

Today, I sure hope so.

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