Just thought I should let those of you who still check in on this sub from time to time know :(

He had a good life, and was probably one of the most beloved chickens on earth, right?

Sadly chickens do not live forever, especially not as long as domestic pets.. But at least Steve made a difference and bought joy to millions in his short time on this world...

We'll miss you Steve, you glorious bastard

Sorry about this wall of text, but one of our brothers has fallen :( I thought he deserved a nice eulogy.

So I've had a lot of fun doing this sub, and it has drawn me closer to all of our chickens. Even I myself get sucked into the world and personified versions of them that have been created.

I hope some of you also like it as much as me, and have identified with some of the characters

As some of you may know, but most probably don't- Brian, our old rooster (who was exiled from the coop by the other chickens and lived in our back garden), ran away last night. I mentioned it in a comment here, on a gif that I made of him and our dog that I posted yesterday.

At the time, I thought he had just jumped over the fence and wandered off to a nearby field to get some better grass, and that he would either return today, or we would find him alive somewhere..

Anyway, I went looking for him this morning, and after 10 minutes or so searching in the neighboring field, I found him under a low hanging tree, and sadly he had passed away.

I'm not going to lie, I was devastated, and I sat there for quite a while next to him just wishing that he wasn't gone and partly blaming myself for not securing the gate properly yesterday

Some of you might think "wow, this guy got upset over a chicken?", and yeah, you can think that if you want, but I see these guys just as much pets as any other animal, and especially Brian, since he was always hanging out in the back garden pecking the grass and avoiding any trouble with our cat and dogs, and he was probably the tamest of all since he was so used to people and animals being around him, and picking him up. He was also the one that I co-named with my dad.

I think the most likely cause to his death is that the other chickens got to him and started harassing him (mostly foghorn), and he jumped over the fence to escape, and then maybe couldn't handle the trauma in his old age. He didn't seem to have any bad visible injuries.

I'm happy that he has had a better life over the past few months, after we separated him from the other chickens and gave him the whole back garden to wander about in, he seemed much happier.

Chickens don't last for very long, so I hope you all know this can't last forever (unless we get new ones, and name one of them Steve) and I knew Brian would be the first to go since he was quite old, just not within just over a week of making this sub :(

We buried him this morning next to our other chickens that have passed away over the years.

But in the words of Dr. Seuss - Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

We'll miss you buddy!

TL;DR: RIP One-eyed Brian.

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I've put together an album with a few images in memory of Brian, if you would like to see them:

http://imgur.com/a/2GDsP/

Also, don't worry, I will continue making gifs and other funny things with Steve and the gang, I finished making one last night and was going to post it today, but I'm going to leave it until tomorrow out of respect for Brian.

I'm also going to leave his flair on here, so those of you who were on team Brian can keep using it, or choose another if you like.

I leave you with this

• Come away, come away, death,

And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath: I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, Oh, prepare it! My part of death no one so true Did share it.

^Shakespeare, ^twelfth ^night

• Feel free to pay your respects to Brian in the comments

I've seen a lot of suggestions in other threads, please post any suggestions you have for future gifs or anything in particular, and upvote ones you like!

I'm off to bed soon but I'll check tomorrow before I go and hang out with Steve, I had to disable public submitting since some people were posting some silly things

Thanks for subbing guys! (also, almost at 1k in just over 2 hours? this is crazy)

ALSO!

Thought I may as well use this thread to answer some questions people asked me-

• Steve is one of many chickens we have, also in the family are Uncle Buck (the other hen in the gif, Steves lesbian lover), Foghorn (Cockerel), Star and EFFY (F.E- Feathered Explorer). We also have another cockerel named Brian, but he was getting bullied by the others so we moved him to the back garden

• We also have some other pets, including 2 dogs, Chocolate and Daphne, and a cat named Sir Meowingtons Purralot, would anyone want to see some gifs from them too?

• I'm sorry about the vertical video, the clip I used is actually quite old and I just found it on my phone recently and had the idea of adding the text, it was originally filmed because the chicks had been recently born and I had come back from uni for a few days to see them and my family, and filmed the clip so that I could watch it back when I was feeling lonely and needed to do some awwww-ing, would people prefer me film in horizontal?

• Sorry that the subtitles are quite fast, I'm no expert at editing but I'll try and make them better in future

• I'm probably forgetting some things but I'm tired and really need to go to bed

I've posted up a cute pic I found on my phone of one of Steves kids (damn, I have to admit that sounded pretty weird)

Apart from that I don't have much other stuff, but I'll go see him tomorrow and hope he's not in a shitty mood, and get some more things to post :)