Unfortunately Flipper the rooster died this week. We believe it was old age, more than the cold (which he was handling well with the help of his larger feathered-friends), that caused his death.

The kids were doing their morning chicken chores when they found Flipper dead in one of the nesting boxes. Unfortunately for me, this happened on a morning when Fino was at work. I couldn't leave the dead chicken in the coop all day so that left me with the task of finding a resting place for him.

I didn't want to pick up the dead rooster in my hands - I was already queazy enough just looking at his dead body - so I found a shovel to use instead (I guess the upside of losing a chicken in the winter is that the body was frozen solid so he wasn't too hard to scoop up).

But then there was the issue of what to do with the body because in all the years we've had chickens (almost 6 years), Fino has always been the one take care of this part.

So there I was walking out of the coop with the dead rooster in my shovel and two upset children still trying to figure out what to do. I had the girls say a quick prayer and then sent them into the house. I then proceeded to walk into the woods several hundred yards behind my house and put Flipper under a big pine tree. I knew the wild animals in the backyard would 'take care' of him and told the girls what I had done and said it was probably better that way so those animals would have some food.

The girls didn't want to talk much about Flipper dying but the next day L. wondered what would happen to "Chickenland" now that "the king was dead." It seems that now Napoleon, our only remaining rooster has been dubbed the new king.

I guess he was aptly named for his new role.

Napoleon the rooster is tiny, even by bantam standards (he's on the left next to his sister). He looks like a 6-week old Rhode Island Red breed chick. But he makes up for his size in other ways by making a lot of noise and intimidating the hens by pecking at them. Little did we know that he would so completely be living up to his name.

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