The story of Hummie

This little chicken wasn’t born at Easter. When I think of Easter I think of eggs, young birds and spring. And so I remembered this beautiful little creature. Eric & I haven’t got children and raising this little one made us feel like parents.

Two years ago two of our hens, Clara & Grijs, laid three eggs each. With excitement we waited till the little ones were born. Five eggs hatched short after each other. Clara left the nest with her three babies and one moment Grijs also had enough of waiting till the last egg hatched and left the nest. We checked the last egg with a torchlight and discovered movement inside.

“We checked the egg with a torchlight”

We couldn’t leave this last egg be and built our own ‘nest’ assuming it wouldn’t take long to hatch. It took a whole week and on the day we wanted to give up there was Hummie.

The plan was to put the little one back with Grijs as soon as it was up and running. Unfortunately it was already too late and Grijs didn’t accept Hummie as her baby. So Eric and I had to take care of her ourselves. That is how it happened that we slept with a little baby chicken in our bedroom for almost two months.

We built Hummie a closed home inside the henhouse so she could get used to her other family. It wasn’t safe for her to be out there without a safe place because she was still too small to defend herself against the big chickens. With pain in our hearts we decided after a while that Hummie had to be more with her own family and that she also had to sleep in the henhouse at night.

The first day that I dared to leave Hummie alone with the other chickens she must have left the henhouse in a panic. When I came home Hummie was gone. I searched everywhere in our neighborhood, asked around at the school, hung up flyers, but nobody had seen her.

Hummie never came back.

We believe that Hummie was taken by schoolchildren at the playground behind our garden. She was so used to people that she probably was attracted by the sounds of children. And she was such a sweet little one.

The disappearance of Hummie broke my heart. I felt so bad about leaving her alone that day. She was only a chicken, but she was my little one. I should have taken better care of her. I held her when she was just outside the egg. She loved to sleep on my shoulder with her head tucked away in my hair. She followed me everywhere in the garden and we used to go out on spider hunt together.

As a tribute I use the photo with Hummie as a little chicken on top of my head as my profile picture in Facebook and Twitter.

I haven’t forgotten her and I never will. She has a place in my heart forever.