The $2,600 stew hen

Ya, you read it right, a two thousand six hundred dollar stew hen.  How might you ask can an old barn yard hen cost almost 3K?  Well you know I do put a big value on the girls and they do produce the very best eggs, but I will admit that I even won't put that much worth on one of my gal's, not even my favorites.  So why did this hen have so much value?.......no...... she did not lay golden eggs.
  She was just a regular ole back-yard, barn-yard hen.

You see it all began when I got a call asking if I would like a purebred registered Golden Lab.  Her name was Annie.  A beautiful dog and she immediately fit right in with the family.  We then were given a Chocolate Lab male,  had a batch of puppies and not one chocolate among the bunch, a couple of black and a couple of golden.  Well time passed and the puppies were all given away. The chocolate male disappeared.  Annie had full run of the farm and never thought about eating chickens or other livestock until  a few years later, the neighbor's dog began getting through the fence and killing the hens.   Annie being observant then realized that dogs liked to chase, kill and eat chickens.

A few weeks prior to her killing her first hen someone who had gotten a male black lab (now grown) from us just unexpectedly dropped it off back at our house.......bad timing, puppies were inevitable.

So one morning I hear this awful squawking and run out to find Annie with a half dead hen clasped in her jaws.  I pried it out and assessing it, realized that it could not be saved so I did what had to be done and put it in the stew pot.  I had a talk with Annie and told her I could not have a dog on the farm that killed the livestock and that she would be going to a new home. ( I know this sounds heartless, but once they start killing they never stop).   Friends of friends wanted a Golden Lab and didn't care if she was expecting.  So off we sent her to her new home, a place in the country with plenty of room and kids to love her.  Several weeks later we got a call, 15 puppies, 13 chocolate and two golden, well they sold the chocolate puppies for $200.00 dollars each.

 If I would have known that blasted hen was going to cost me $2,600.00 I would have at least made a fancy dessert to add to the meal.