We got Naomi in a big box with nine other chicks. Her name, before her feathers grew in, could have been Spark or Plug, or any number of the other silly nicknames we gave the whitish chicks. After 'Naomi' was solidified (with, of course, a Ruth to go with her), she also answered to Nom-nom and Nomi.

A couple weeks after we brought them home, she took a hard fall off the top of the waterer and sprained her foot. We put her in a separate brooder right next to the others so they could still hear each other. Mom ended up staying nearby overnight, to make sure there were no complications and to take her out every little bit to give her attention. The next day, her ankle was better and we put her back in with the others.

She wasn't always a sweetheart. We almost had to rehome her in the first year because she loathed Joan with a passion, and terrorized her at every opportunity. Joanie was too submissive to defend herself. But then Mom got an idea. From then forward, every time we saw Naomi go after Joanie, we'd reassure Joanie but then pick up Naomi and hold her firmly and lovingly. We'd tell Naomi that she is not allowed to be a bully. We told her she wasn't born to be mean. We told her we expected her to be kind and gentle. And before we put her back down, we'd give her a kiss and tell her we loved her and God loved her. We did that for maybe two weeks and then guess what? Naomi did a complete 180, and became the sweetest hen. She stopped going after Joanie - I'm not even joking. Naomi never did make it anywhere near the top of the pecking order while her sisters were alive, but she no longer was a bully ever again.

She lived fast and hard, scratching so vigorously she'd kick herself backward. She liked roaming to high places and finding out what was at the top of stairs. She was an incredibly smart cookie, knowing treat math, and how to navigate around an open door, and that to get to the others behind the coop she needed to take the long way around and not somehow phase through the screen. She was always first in line for treats, and always underfoot if she thought you have something edible. Her favorite foods were grubs, applesauce, raw egg, and whatever you wouldn't let her have off your plate.

In my We Got Chickens comic, she was the one who crashed headlong into the screening, finding out the hard way that shavings on linoleum are slippery. She's the hen my brother liked taking on sled rides. Honestly, she's in a lot of the comics. She was funny.

After Big Twin died, we knew we had to get more chickens. Sally was Big Twin's bestie, and Eve's health was failing, it was only a matter of time. So, we got five little ones, at around 5 weeks old. Naomi didn't know what to make of them, but we shoved them together in free ranges as much as possible. After a few weeks of that, Eve passed, and Naomi was left alone in the coop.

The littles were half her size, which is typically a no-no when integrating chickens, but we had no choice. We took Naomi out of the run, put in the littles, and Naomi proceeded to pace outside the screen as the littles tore the run apart in their exuberance. There was close supervision constantly. For a week we stayed in the coop until it was too dark for Naomi to keep them off the roost.

But she acclimated and learned how to be an alpha. We worried about training the littles, but Naomi proved to be a good big sister. She taught them that any noise at the backdoor meant possible treats or free range, and they all need to screech at the top of their lungs for attention. She taught them that the back door opening meant treats and to run up to whoever was coming outside for treats. She taught them to come when called. She taught them her word is law and half the feeder is hers and no one comes close to stealing her food or place on the roost, no sirree.

Then we suprised her with the four babies, who were about 5 weeks old. We could practically see the exasperated resignation in her eyes. Unlike with the littles, she left the babies alone for the most part unless they intruded her personal bubble, and made sure they knew that while Lulu and Edel have bigger combs, SHE'S the one with the power.

We thought she'd live forever. Only one instance of bumblefoot two years ago. She was healthy as a horse with a stubborn streak.

In early summer of 2021, we were free ranging. She suddenly stopped scratching and pecking, stood like a statue for a few minutes, and then went to sit under a bush. It wasn't a predator; something was wrong. She didn't move for a very long time. We did an inspection but couldn't find anything going on. We figured she ate a bad bug, but my Mom was worried.

A week later, her belly felt a little squishy. We feared ascites, and cut back on treats for everyone. A few weeks more after a lot of observation, we thought she was on the rebound, because she maintained great visual health. But, over the summer, her abdomen apparently continued to fill and displace her center of gravity to her behind. It started getting harder for her to jump or run, but she did it all anyway, even if she had to flap more. We brought her into the vet, and was told that it was a reproductive issue, and they could do surgery on her, but it may or may not work. The vet said she had a soft tissue mass that was starting to compress her organs. She went on to say that while it was operable, Naomi had already exceeded a puppy mill chicken's lifespan of two years by double. We asked the vet what she would do if she was Naomi's mom. Her recommendation was to do nothing but love on her and let Naomi live her best life. But even then, we wrestled with taking a chance on the surgery. Unfortunately, our scheduling couldn't fit Naomi in, so we brought Naomi back home, released her in the run and her "best life," and talked at length about options and prayed for time.

The remaining last weeks did not feel like the beginning of the end, since she was acting so normally. It just shows how much Naomi was a fighter, and had a real tenacity in her to live. We'll always wonder if she could have been saved. Always.

Naomi was fine up until December 26. She was slow, sat in shadowed corners, and did not eat. At nightfall, she looked up at the roost, then opted to bed down in the shavings beneath it. At that point, we took her into the house and made her the most comforable accommodations we could in her big cage. We left the door open and kept it near us while we worked, knowing she wasn't going to try to get out. We slept next to her at night.

Her crop wasn't emptying quickly, so we eventually cut all grains and sugars to prevent sour crop from developing, and fed her raw egg, puree'd veggies, and water, with herbs and electrolytes and probiotics. What would normally take her three bites in five seconds would take her ages, and she would refuse to eat more until her crop eeked out enough room for her to get hungry again. Her entire body heaved with her breaths. Since she wasn't eating, she started getting thinner; She was athletic, there wasn't much on her in the first place.

But her comb was hight, red, and bright, with only the slightest discoloration. Her tail never ever went below half mast. She chirped when you passed her in the hall and responded when you spoke to her.

We talked. We agreed that there were four options:
1. Do nothing. Tend to her until she wastes away and dies.
2. Take her to the vet. The vet says it's operable, so she gets the surgery right then and there.
3. Take her to the vet. The vet says it's operable, but can't fit Naomi in in the next day or two. So we'd have to euthanize.
4. Take her to the vet. The vet says it's hopeless, so we euthanize.

There was no way we were doing Option 1. On December 29, we took her to the vet again, in desperation and hope that we'd get a miracle.

The vet took her in for an x-ray. Since the last appointment a month before, the mass had grown drastically. The vet said that, along with the mass, either her liver or heart was sheddlng fluid and the fluid was filling up whatever room in the abdominal cavity was left. The operation was doable, but optimistically put at 60% survival chances. We wanted to do the operation. The vet checked her schedule, and confessed that the earliest possible opening was January 5. We practically begged to be fit in. But there just wasn't any availability, and we respected that.

While we were waiting in the room for the x-ray, Naomi was roaming the floor, pecking at the seams in concrete and stray sand particles. She chirped at us when we spoke to her. Her coloring was still great, and her tail was almost completely up. Breathing was a struggle, though. I wish I knew what she was thinking at that visit. Was she believing she would be ok, or was she giving us her best efforts, so we had that final memory? She was a chicken after all; but she was smart. Really smart. I think she had some kind of reasoning skills and understood on some level what she was facing.

But January 5? Naomi was barely eating, and she was panting. Fluid fills fast, and we knew that if we waited, her chances of survival would dwindle to nothing, from how thin she would become, how hard it was for her to breathe, and the backlog from her digestion track unable to pass through the mass.

The vet left the room so Mom and I could talk. It felt like forever. In the end, we chose humane euthanization. It was so hard to say.

We held her while we waited for the paperwork. Everything happened so quickly afterwards. We petted her, we stroked her, we told her all the best things about her. Mom and I cried. We asked her to say hello to the others for us. Told her not to beat up Joan and listen to Big Twin. Mom paced the room praying and telling Nomi how much she loved her while I held her as she was injected with the heavy sedation agent. It took only a minute, but I was the last face she saw before her eyes completely shut. It was painless and quick. We sat in silence in the truck while the vet techs inside administered the final medication before bringing her out to us in the cage, wrapped under a blue blanket. Mom uncovered Nomi's face and stroked her softly. Her feathers were moist, and her tender spirit was somewhere far away on her ongoing journey. That's what I choose to think.

We buried her with her nine sisters, and marked her grave with a stone.

Naomi, Nom-nom, Nomi, my bestest girl, my smartest girl, bestest big sissy, we'll miss you so so hard. If there is an afterlife pet Heaven, I know you're there.