About 4 months ago, I was given some Buckeye eggs of which 5 chicks survived. One became a victim of "fowl" play. When they were 3 months old, they were foraging between my house and my mom's house. At dusk, I noticed one rooster was missing. I searched high and low that evening and into the next day. I figured the dog had come back to claim another victim. The following day, I wandered around my mom's yard hoping to find signs of the rooster. I noticed our border collie mix, Max, had stopped and was staring at an old overturned 4 quart stainless steel pot sitting in the yard. I was thinking.... could it be a mouse?....a rat...a sparrow?... There was no sound coming from under the pot, but Max was listening and looking intently... I decided I had to find out what was he had found...II used my foot to flip the pot over... I was concerned that a mouse would try to run up my arm or bite me... this large, reddish mound appeared... I jumped... for a split second I had no clue what it was...Well, to my surprise, it was the missing rooster! He stood up calmly, unfurled is body which had been trapped for at least 24 hours and stumbled off. The question that remained was... How in the world did the rooster get trapped under the pot? All we could figure out was that he must have stepped on the edge of the pot and as it flipped he froze and got trapped. As he struggled he must have gotten completely tucked under. Well, the rooster survived, became the tallest and most handsome of his brothers. All of the Buckeyes have recently moved to Arkansas to start a new life.
I had a similar thing happen the other day!! Last week we got 5 new chickens and I went out to check that they hadn't escaped & become victims of the dog. I saw 4 happy chooks scratching around and was missing just one. My initial thought was that she had 'flown the coop' and was possibly hiding in my paddock in some long grass.. I hadn't seen the dog with any chooks so I went on a hunt. A few hours later, disappointed that I had not found her, I went to tidy up the coop... flipped over the 1/2 chemical bucket that we have cut down as a feeder... and bless the poor chook! she was hiding ever so silently under there and hadn't even though just to 'stand up' which would have set her free!
