Yesterday I woke up at 6am and prepared breakfast for the roosters, the dog, and myself. At 7am I begun work, deeply focused, until hunger got the best of me at 2pm. As I passed the rooster pen I saw the red rooster lying on the ground, eyes closed feet sticking straight and its comb dark purple. It was obviously dead.
The day before my sister had asked me about the roosters, "I'd rather get rid of them" I said, yet I was looking at the dead rooster and I wasn't glad. I was sad. Death is never a pleasant situation.
The cause of death would only be speculation. I observed no strange behavior other than that their water had run out pretty quickly. Googling I found out that in case of a fever chicken tend to drink a lot of water. It is possible that it caught an infection.
I grabbed a shovel and buried it in the land behind the house. When I came back I saw the black rooster and I felt a desire to sacrifice it. As a duo they were pleasant because they complemented each other. The red rooster was curious and exploratory, yet ran away in the face of threat. When this would happen, the black one would puff up and defend his companion. On the other side of this arrangement the red rooster would always be willing to eat new food and explore new areas, the black one timidly following behind. In psychological terms the red rooster had more openness to experience while the black rooster was less agreeable and physically stronger, so as a pair they complemented each other.
Despite my inclinations to sacrifice the black rooster, I sensed via intuition: this rooster will also die soon. Then I thought "this could be intuition via cowardice". Since sacrificing it is complicated (this is a really aggressive and big rooster), the ego makes excuses as to not acknowledge fear.
Is it fear or is it intuition? Now I'm curious. I will wait 60 days before settling on the answer. But even if I get an answer, I'm not positive I'm brave enough to sacrifice it. I may have more in common with the red rooster than the black one, and the fact that the red one died makes me desire the same fate for the black one.
Again, I will postpone the decision of sacrifice.