24/08/2026
Once upon a time, there was a chicken who would jump over many fences and walk many hundreds of metres every single day just to lay her egg in our laundry. 🐔
This is actually how I managed to collect and weigh her egg for 30 days straight to show how a young hen’s eggs grow over time.
At first, I wasn’t entirely convinced it was the same chicken making the trek every day, so I put a green tag on her leg. Sure enough, every day, there she was.
And from then on, she was simply known around the farm as Green Tag.
I was told many times that this chicken (who had clearly decided she was more house dog than livestock) deserved a proper name. But anyone with livestock knows the rule: the minute you name them, they become the next one to die. It just seems to work like that. 😅
So she was never formally named. Green Tag was enough. No need to tempt fate.
Anyone who has ever spent any time at our farm will surely have met her. Out of the hundreds of chickens we’ve had, she decided from day one that she belonged with the humans.
She laid every egg at the house.
She sat in the dog crate with Luna.
She drank from the dog bowls.
She laid eggs in the washing basket, in the dryer itself, and, if Isabell was particularly lucky, in her bedroom. 😏
She’d come wandering in through the doggie door each day just to say g’day, and if for some reason she couldn’t find a way into the house, she’d make her way around to my office window and peck at the glass until I acknowledged her.
But despite spending her days convinced she belonged at the house with us, when the day was done she somehow knew exactly where she was supposed to be. Every evening she’d make the long trek back across the farm to the chicken caravan and put herself to bed with all her friends.
When we moved farms, I thought surely that would be the end of her daily house visits. New farm, new surroundings, surely she’d finally decide to be a chicken.
Nope.
From day one, she was straight back up at the house to greet us. Apparently the address had changed, but her job description hadn’t.
Today, on her daily commute to the house, Green Tag was scooped up and taken by an eagle.
We got there, but we were too late.
Thanks for the laughs, the companionship, and for only ever once pooping on my deck.
We’ve lost birds before to all sorts of things (I swear chickens wake up every morning looking for a new way to die) but this one hit differently. 💔
She was just one chicken out of hundreds, but somehow she made herself part of the family.
May the dryers always be full of clothes so there’s a soft bed for your eggs. May the grass be long and green and the sun always be shining for you.
And say g’day to Luna for us up there, hopefully she’s still happy to share that crate with you. 🐔🐾🌈
