diamondsilkies
Songster
Hi everyone! I used to have a buff orpington who went through a lot and I thought I'd share her unique story, and was wondering if anyone else would like to share some amazing stories of their chickens?
The chicken's name was Duchess. I got her from the feed store as a baby chick, with four others. They were actually my first group of chickens. She was very sweet and always loved to hang out with humans. As you can see, they made a pretty good impression on me, as I now have 15+ chickens and breed them! Anyways, several years after we got them, we decided to move to a new house. A friend offered to have them stay at her house during the move and until we could build a new coop for them at our new house.
We finished our coop, but our friend had fallen in love with them and they loved her house, so we decided to let her keep them and get a new flock. One day, the flock was free-ranging when my friend heard some commotion. She ran outside to see a coyote jumping over the wall with Duchess in his mouth. She chased after him down the alley, but she lost him. She knew Duchess was gone, and put the other girls away in their coop for the day. About 10 minutes later, she happened to look outside and saw Duchess standing outside the coop! Somehow, she had escaped from the coyote and found her way home, down an alley that she had never seen before that day. Not only that, but the coyote had taken her quite a ways away, since my friend had followed him for a long time before giving up. And my friend has very tall walls surrounding her house, so Duchess had to guess that this was her home and fly over.
After a thorough examination, Duchess was put back with her flock. Surprisingly, she had escaped with no cuts or scratches, probably due to her many layers of feathers. Not long after this, she fell to the bottom of the pecking order. The picking had gotten so bad that she had almost no feathers left on her head and had to be separated. Our new flock was almost full grown, so we decided to move Duchess back to our house and allow her to heal and give her a new chance to become top hen. She recovered quite well and became second in the pecking order, right behind our rooster.
It gets pretty hot where I live, and about a year later, during the summer, we found Duchess laying down panting. We quickly brought her inside, guessing that she had heat stroke. We gave her plenty of water and supplements, but she could not walk very well. She lived in our dining room on a towel with food and water for a couple days. About three days after her heat stroke, we were watching a chicken documentary in the next room. She heard the squawking from her place in the dining room and immediately perked up. She tried to walk for the first time in days! We moved her in front of the TV, and she watched the documentary with us. That night, she was well enough to go back to the coop. We would even get the rare egg from her, although it would always come out abnormally shaped.
She lived to be 9 years old and died of natural causes several years ago, despite all of what had happened during her life!
The chicken's name was Duchess. I got her from the feed store as a baby chick, with four others. They were actually my first group of chickens. She was very sweet and always loved to hang out with humans. As you can see, they made a pretty good impression on me, as I now have 15+ chickens and breed them! Anyways, several years after we got them, we decided to move to a new house. A friend offered to have them stay at her house during the move and until we could build a new coop for them at our new house.
We finished our coop, but our friend had fallen in love with them and they loved her house, so we decided to let her keep them and get a new flock. One day, the flock was free-ranging when my friend heard some commotion. She ran outside to see a coyote jumping over the wall with Duchess in his mouth. She chased after him down the alley, but she lost him. She knew Duchess was gone, and put the other girls away in their coop for the day. About 10 minutes later, she happened to look outside and saw Duchess standing outside the coop! Somehow, she had escaped from the coyote and found her way home, down an alley that she had never seen before that day. Not only that, but the coyote had taken her quite a ways away, since my friend had followed him for a long time before giving up. And my friend has very tall walls surrounding her house, so Duchess had to guess that this was her home and fly over.
After a thorough examination, Duchess was put back with her flock. Surprisingly, she had escaped with no cuts or scratches, probably due to her many layers of feathers. Not long after this, she fell to the bottom of the pecking order. The picking had gotten so bad that she had almost no feathers left on her head and had to be separated. Our new flock was almost full grown, so we decided to move Duchess back to our house and allow her to heal and give her a new chance to become top hen. She recovered quite well and became second in the pecking order, right behind our rooster.
It gets pretty hot where I live, and about a year later, during the summer, we found Duchess laying down panting. We quickly brought her inside, guessing that she had heat stroke. We gave her plenty of water and supplements, but she could not walk very well. She lived in our dining room on a towel with food and water for a couple days. About three days after her heat stroke, we were watching a chicken documentary in the next room. She heard the squawking from her place in the dining room and immediately perked up. She tried to walk for the first time in days! We moved her in front of the TV, and she watched the documentary with us. That night, she was well enough to go back to the coop. We would even get the rare egg from her, although it would always come out abnormally shaped.
She lived to be 9 years old and died of natural causes several years ago, despite all of what had happened during her life!
