Her story
Rosa came to us in a cardboard box that said BANANAS on the side, which she seemed to take personally for about a fortnight.
She was eleven weeks old, a scruffy rust colour, and the smallest of the three. By the end of the first month the other two ate when she had finished. Nobody taught her that. She simply decided it, the way she decided most things.
Rosa laid her first egg on 9 September 2019, behind the water butt rather than in the nest box we had built, sanded and lined with straw. It was small and slightly pointed and we kept it on the windowsill until it went off and had to be dealt with outside. After that she laid in the nest box, on her own terms, usually around nine in the morning, and always with an enormous amount of announcement. You could hear her from the road. Two rising notes and then a long one, over and over, until somebody came out and told her it was a very good egg.
It was a very good egg. Deep brown, freckled at the wide end, and heavy for her size. Over seven years she laid 1,412 of them. She went off the lay for six weeks in the winter of 2022 and sat in the doorway of the coop looking put out about the weather, then started again in February as though nothing had happened. The last one came on 28 August 2026. It is in the fridge. We have not worked out what to do with it.
She liked: the compost heap, warm rain, the sound of the back door, tomatoes, sitting on the arm of the garden chair while the radio was on. She did not like: the recycling lorry, hats, the neighbour's cat Baxter, being picked up in front of the other hens.
Rosa died on Thursday 10 September 2026, in the afternoon, in the dust patch under the hedge where she liked to lie with one wing out. She was seven. The run is quieter than it should be and the two young ones keep looking towards the water butt.
Thank you for visiting her page.