We Will Miss You, Louie

We were so sad to find our rooster, Louie, graveyard dead out by the barn this morning. I had been out earlier in the morning to open the hen house door and I was welcomed with his 100-decibel cock-a-doodle-doo. Everyone went out and I dumped the corn and crumbles, fed the horses, the Paisley cat and the geese. All was well.

Don and I headed out to the barn about 11 am to put the mower on the JD tractor and Louie was at room temperature in front of the box stall. Not a mark on him. No sign of attack. Nor a sign of a struggle. The poor guy just gave up the ghost.

He has been our rooster in residence for the past three years and was a pretty healthy specimen. It was near impossible to get too close to him while he was vertical, but in this state I could appreciate his nearly three inch spurs, his full fluffy tail feathers and hackle. He was a cool rooster.

The only living bits left of Louie are now the fertilized eggs in the frig, and those that will be laid today. We were suddenly on a mission to get an incubator to bring those little calcium encrusted blobs of his DNA hatched to continue a generation of Louie's offspring. Out came the "chicken book" so I could find out what to do, and learned I have some time to line up an incubator and with a little luck we will have some little Louie's and Louisa's running around in a few weeks.

Louie had over 30 hens in his harem so there leaves little doubt that he died a happy rooster; probably doing what he liked best.