Ellie Mae Left Us Today.

For those who have been following my blog, you may remember Ellie Mae. He was a chick I raised in a cookie jar,.Thinking he was a she,I named him Ellie Mae,only to find out later, She was a He.Nevertheless we raised him to a full grown rooster, then turned him in with the hens. He became very mean, and attacked anyone who came into the pen. We have since gotten many more roosters, not by choice, but when you raise your own chickens from eggs, you tend to get lots more roosters than you'd hoped for. Our goal was to get more laying hens.Needless to say, there was a lot of feuding going on in the chicken pen.We will never know exactly why Ellie had such a short and sickly life, but he got quite poorly several times in his short life.The constant feuding amongst the flock was likely a big part of the cause. 

When he was agitated for whatever reason, his comb would turn a deep purple. For several days lately, his comb was purple. I figure it was when he was stressed. He got really mopey lately, as he had done a few times in the past, but this morning,Pop ask me to check to see if I could find him. He had roosted in Pop's garage,but Pop was not able to locate him this morning,when he went out to do the feeding. He asked me to check on him, which I did,and found his cold body ,where he had passed away in his sleep.We loved Ellie. Lately, he would come to the door, wanting his daily treat, like he had done as a youngster.It seemed, some times, he would forget that he had been so mean and flogged the daylights out of my legs the day before.He would come,expecting me to give him, the same loving treatment I had given him as a chick,which I always did. I miss those days when he was an adorable little chick,but all I need do, is to look at the scars on my legs, and it all comes back to me, the mean grown up rooster he grew to become.We'll never know what made him turn out to be so mean, or why he had such a short life.We'll miss him.