One Powerful Pipsqueak

My son was ruled by dread until a Silkie hen set him on the path to healing

- Christen Shepherd

MY 18-YEAR-OLD SON, Zach, trudged quietly to the graveside, clutching a red geranium. I walked alongside him, and his brother and three sisters followed close behind. The dim November light and the fallow brown fields provided a sombre backdrop for the funeral of a beloved member of our family: Pipsqueak the chicken.

Our family lives on a farm in southern Ontario, and we’ve had hundreds of chickens through the years, most of whom ended up being composted in the manure pile after their death. But Pipsqueak required a proper burial because she was no ordinary chicken. She was my son’s therapy pet.

Zach and Pipsqueak both joined our family eight years ago, just a month apart. Zach was an emaciated kid with undiagnosed special needs, twitching with anxiety after years in foster care. He was delayed at school and needed to attend a speech and language camp, but he refused to go. I begged and begged, then finally bartered. “I’ll do it for a pet chicken,” he decided. That’s when Pipsqueak, a Silkie hen with downy feathers, entered our lives.