This Aged Hen is a Real Coop Marvel.
“Eusapia Palladino,” the oldest hen in the town of Killingly, Conn., and perhaps in the entire world, is to have a birthday party on the occasion of her twenty-seventh birthday, which will come in a few days. All the old hens in Killingly are looking forward to the event, and it is probable that a few young chickens will be asked, just to give the party a metropolitan flavor.
Eusapia, though of Spanish origin, lays her eggs in English and began the work when but five months old. Her first egg, which her owner, Mr. James Blanchard still has, was laid in November, 1888, and since then she has laid an average of 144 a year. She has just laid another egg as this story is being written, and only the greatest haste can prevent her laying another before it is completed. She just lays around all day, as might be expected at her great age. Unlike the Madagascar Bingle Hen, which lays square eggs with a monogram, Eusapia lays but one egg at a time.
Eusapia, it will be readily reckoned, was hatched from[Pg 56] a black Spanish egg ten years before the Spanish-American War, when shells burst less frequently. She has seen a very active life, and greatly deplores the dissipation, irregular hours, and loss of sleep incident to the poultry shows which have become popular of late years. She does not smoke, has never on any occasion partaken of alcoholic liquors, and can now read without glasses if she cared to.
Mr. Blanchard has had several disputes lately with persons who, having dined at the Killingly Commercial Inn, questioned that Eusapia was the oldest chicken in the world.
Of late years Eusapia has been given to fits of depression, and the admittance of eggs as parcel-post mail left her on the verge of a nervous breakdown for days.
A thousand chicks have been hatched by Eusapia in her long and useful life. She has always shown a great interest in them, has personally supervised their early education, and has invariably responded, even in late years, to their slightest cluck.