RIP El Negrito

Alas, El Negrito is no more. He still walked with a limp from being hit with the rock, and after the Nock incident he was having trouble using his wings. He seemed to find it too difficult to keep up with the big chickens while he was recovering from his ride in Nock’s mouth, so he’d come out of the chicken cage after the other chickens, and peck around on his own. Friday morning, he was pecking around at the edge of the yard, and I didn’t see him and let Mel out when Mel asked. Mel did his business, and then spied El Negrito. Despite charging the big chickens occasionally, Mel hasn’t been fast or strong enough to catch them, but El Negrito wasn’t able to get himself out of Mel’s way fast enough, and Mel picked him up in Mel’s signature scoop-double-chomp. Like Nock, Mel dropped him when I yelled, but unlike Nock, Mel’s jaws are a little bigger and were enough to be the end of El Negrito in his weakened state. He breathed his last breath just as I picked him up, so instead of taking him to the coop to recover, he went to the chicken graveyard in the back field. Rest in peace, El Negrito.

Nock is not adjusting well to wearing a muzzle when she’s in the house with the rest of the dogs. She mopes around and looks at us like she’s been severely injured, and crawls under the shelves in the kitchen. We’re hoping she gets used to it, but if not there’s not much we can do about it since even with the muzzle, she’s in Beli’s face as soon as she realizes Beli is in the same room with her. Between Nock and the boys next door, we’ve been doing a lot of soothing of hurt feelings lately.