By Jim Yount

Jim Yount is the Chief Operating Officer of the American Cryonics Society.

We have now nearly completed the freeze-drying of Bowser the chicken. She died about six months ago, after living 11 ½ years, which must be close to a record for chickens. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, our seven year old Buff Orpington, is the last of our flock, and we have pretty-much decided to get out of the chicken business once Buffy lives out her life. Both my wife Annie and I have some regret about the solitary life that Buffy must now lead. She only has visiting doves and squirrels to keep her company; and the way of her kind is to seek companionship. Still, some chicken had to be the last, and any chick lucky enough to find a home as a suburban pet, is a very fortunate fowl indeed, considering the fate of most poultry.

Our membership in the back-yard chicken club resulted from a visit to long-time cryonicist Mike Darwin at his Riverside California home. I had always assumed that folks in city suburbs live just too close together to allow for such pets, but Mike had a fair sized flock and served us eggs for breakfast, just laid by his hens. Mike would later acquire quite a menagerie of animals, short of a zoo, but not by much.Bowser was one of two of our first chickens. Her companion bird was a dainty little fowl we named Fido. We picked out dog names for our first chickens through pure whimsy. We were later to have Rover, Daisy, and a pair of pure black "Sex Link" chicks we named Gilbert and Sullivan. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, along with a white Leghorn named Angel, were the last of the chicks to join our flock. The pair were raised from week-old chicks by foster mother Bowser.

With only minor restrictions, we gave our flock the run of the back yard. Bowser and Fido were raised indoors, and were always quite tame. Bowser was a Rode Island Red, a breed known for lack of timidity. She was a "lap chicken" who learned several chicken tricks such as jumping up to grab a morsel of food from the hand of anyone who offered. As she got older and fatter her jumps were less energetic, but she always put her little heart into these athletic attempts.

Most of Bowser’s compatriots met more exciting deaths than growing old enough to die from the maladies of old age. Although we live well within the city proper, a creek that runs near our house serves as a pathway for wild animals to make their way down from the hills to stalk our flock.

Raccoons have been the bane of neighborhood pets. We lock our birds up at night but the resourceful Raccoons have, on a couple of occasions, found ways into the chicken yard that I would have thought impossible. Bowser always managed to escape these run-ins though other chickens were not so lucky.

Gilbert and Sullivan were the only chickens to get out of our yard alive. They were beautiful birds, bigger than most, with glossy black feathers. As Rode Island Red cross-breeds the pair had the same aggressive spirit as did Bowser. They were named Gilbert and Sullivan for very good reason, putting on a musical show every morning.

We had assumed that hens (all of our chickens were hens) would be less likely to disturbed the neighborhood than roosters, but when it came to vocal gymnastics, Gilbert and Sullivan could put many roosters to shame. The pair took their show on the road: we found a home for them with a survivalist who lives somewhere up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A condition of his accepting the vocal duo was that we not know exactly where he lives. He later reported that he is very happy with the hens. They are good layers and pretty good company for a lonely mountain man who probably actually enjoys their performances.

Should pets be given cryonic suspension? As most readers know, there have been a lot of dogs and cats frozen along with at least one rabbit (a "head only" bunny). Bowser was our favorite, and we considered cryonics for her. She and the other hens we have owned have frequently surprised me as to just how smart they are; still, they don’t match dogs or cats for intelligence. In the end we opted to preserve some DNA with several techniques other than freezing, and engaged in do-it-yourself freeze-drying.

We won’t keep Bowser on our mantle, as has sometimes been done with other freeze-dried companion animals. We have picked out a spot at our country place for a pet cemetery where we will place her. We’ll put aside some preserved human DNA samples from Annie and me in the same redwood box with our favorite chicken. I am a firm believer in preserving personal DNA in every imaginable way, and in spreading it around liberally.

It seems a bit incongruous that a cryonics family should have a pet cemetery. Yet continued respect for both humans and animals is very much a part of the cryonics belief system. Perhaps someday we will have a clone of Bowser, though the methods of DNA preservations we have chosen don’t lend themselves to any short-term hope.

I expect that even that the realization of that possibility will be sometime after our own reanimations.