We’re sad to report that our Silver-Laced Wyandotte has shed her mortal coil. Poor Lady Mary had, by some absurd feat, entangled her leg between a couple of roosting branches. She must have hung upside down until she lost consciousness and eventually expired. What kind of peculiar circumstance led to the silly thing trapping herself like that? Just an unfortunate slip, I guess. We’ll be making sure none of the branches cross over each other in the coop from now on. Don’t want a repeat.

Lady Mary, you were a proud bird, pretty and regal, somewhere in the middle of the pecking order. You were an excellent layer, and your eggs were large and delicious.

You had a good life, however short, with unlimited access to food and a truly free-range lifestyle in which you could scratch up leaf litter, eat grubs to your heart’s content, and warm your feathers out in the sun.

You were friendly enough to eat from our hands and wise enough to keep off our deck (unlike a couple of Hamburgs which shan’t be named). We’re sorry that the configuration of the roosting branches we put up in your coop led to your demise. Your eggs and your ornamental presence in the yard will be missed.

Farewell, Lady Mary. May your body feed the grass upon which you once fed, and may that grass feed your farm-fellows for a long time to come.