Henrietta the Hen "retires" at 100
Henri has decided she's done!
Here they all are having a retirement party for Henrietta. Top left: Dot. Top right: Rookie. Bottom left: Bob. Bottom right: Henri.
At 10 years old- about equivalent to 100 years for chickens- Henrietta Hen decided to retire. She has slowed down and doesn’t navigate the coop politics as well as she used to. The hens move so much faster than she does…and get all the evening treats before she even gets a chance. Poor Henri was getting rather overwhelmed by the shenanigans of the young chickens. Mid-February, she decided it’s time to take life slow. She left the coop one day, saying goodbye to her sister “Bob”, best friend “Dot”, and rooster friend “Rookie”, and headed off in search of a retirement home. And she decided on… our garage?
She thought that the step in the garage right next to the house was a perfect place to sleep. We flatter ourselves of course, and assume she just wants to be as close to us as she can get! Well, at first we welcomed her in. She would pace back and forth at the garage door at sunset until we noticed and let her in. Then we’d let her out after breakfast eggs and treats in the morning. She has taken mini vacations to our garage in the past, so we assumed this was temporary, but she made herself at home! This has, of course, lead to an unacceptable level of clean-up duties in the garage! We soon realized that she was planning to stay and would certainly need more suitable arrangements! Thanks to a generous donation, we were able to obtain a nice, modern, black and white, open concept bungalow on sale at Tractor Supply and picked it up on Monday.
It’s complete with a fancy front door, nesting room door, high roosts and a sliding window. We have it situated right next to the garage door. It’ll offer a nice, quiet place for Henri to sleep at night, a secluded space to enjoy a pampered breakfast in peace, and then she gets to come out and play with her pals during the day…a perfect retirement home!
So what about Bob, Dot and Rookie? Well, Bob isn’t quite ready to retire. Bob is quite a social figure at the coop, showing up to all the meetings and dust baths, so much so that she’s earned the nicknames “Mayor Bob” and even “Queen Bob”. She’s still going strong, even though she’s 100 too! Dot is still on the fence about retirement, not sure if she wants to or not, she’s not sure if she’s ready, but at the same time kind of wants to join her friend Henri. Rookie doesn’t really want to retire, being the alpha rooster of the coop, he takes it as his job to keep everyone in line. In fact, he is known as the “sheriff” of the coop, so as of now, he’s going to keep up his duties of keeping the young ones in line, but he’s always the first to come see Henri in the morning.