I’m writing this post while sitting next to an empty cage. The bedding is fresh and clean, the food and water bowls topped up, yet there’s nobody here to enjoy it. Yesterday there was. Yesterday I woke up to the sound of a very loved yet unwell chicken called Carla who learned how to bark to get attention. She was asking for strawberries, which she was given and enjoyed. Today the room is silent and I’m heartbroken, again.
Two days ago, a different, equally loved chicken passed away. As the chickens that I keep are all ex-commercial layers, rescued instead of being slaughtered as “low grade meat” at 18 months, they’re all more likely to die of tumours than old age. This is what happened to Roz, a chicken that knew she was descended from dinosaurs. She was a raptor and she enjoyed that fact every second of every day.
On average, a rescued chicken will live another one to three years after being rescued, which means they won’t hit the barest minimum of their natural five-to-eight-year lifespan. It means that my heart will break again and again and again and I’ll keep coming back for more. A common internet question is “what radicalised you?”. For me, it was watching an 18-month-old creature see the sun for the first time, instead of being killed. Changes you, moments like that.
Anyway, three days ago we sold our home of ten years. Podcast listeners will know that this has been a long nightmare, one that has exhausted Rebecca and I immensely. To make our house “more appealing” we had to pack everything away that made it unique. No Dalek, no Lego town, no hobbies. That was in November 2024. We’ve not really had a home since then. Actually, we’ve not really had a home since the neighbour began work on a still unfinished extension a couple of years before that. It’s quite hard to record YouTube videos and concentrate on writing books when there are diggers and power tools screaming into the street from 9am – 6pm, six days a week. It’s especially impossible to create when you have diagnosed severe sound sensitivity like Rebecca does.
However, that time is now over. We’re looking forwards now. All goes well, we’ll be moving into a new home in August/September, far away from power tools and assholes. Better times and recovery look to be on the horizon. First we’ll catch up on art prints, then we’ll start making some cool new projects like books, comics, and games. We’ll rescue some more chickens, and maybe buy a second coop so we can double the number of rescues we have. I know they’re all future heartbreakers, but when you finally step into the sun again, it’s good to share that as much as you can.
I’m going to take a few more days off, take some breaths, then return next week with Planet Coaster. Thank you all so much for your support, especially over the past few years. We literally couldn’t do any of this without you.
Have a fantastic day.
Daniel xx