Funny/sad/happy chicken stories

[Clubber1234]

Has anyone got any chicken stories to share.

 

[chuckachucka]

I have a story. A couple of years ago, when I first started keeping chickens, I had a hen with three older chicks. They were almost four months old but she is an Aseel game breed and she mothered her first chicks almost five months. Two of the chicks were littLe pullets I intended to keep. The third was a male I intended to sell.

All had been going well with the chicks until, around a month earlier, the little cockerel started walking funny. He would sit on his hocks and stay behind in the coop while the others free ranged. He could walk, but it seemed painful for him. He developed a hunched stance and his condition worsened until, at four months, he spent most of every day sitting down. He would shuffle out after his sisters and then sit down in a quiet spot while they roamed my spacious unmoved lawn. I thought the worst - he was crippled, or it was Marek's, that awful chicken disease I had heard of. Selling him was imposSible; I wasn't even sure he would survive into adulthood.

By this point, the chicks were big enough that I decided to leAve them for short periods while they free ranged. It had been supervised garden time only before then but I was home all day and I could hear from inside the house if there was any commotion. This went well for a few days and I became complacent about it. This was my suburban English semi, after all, not a farm in the boondocks or a sprawling ranch in more exotic predator territories. They would be fine for a while alone, surely...

So I got to work cleaning the house with my earphones on, music blaring. It was mid song that I thought I heard something other than music. I hesitated a few seconds, uncertain if I was imagining it. But the external noise persisted. So I stopped the music and there is was: the unmistakable cacophony of chickens shrieking in terror.

I didn't really think. I just moved. Flung open the back door. There it was - I saw it before I saw any of my chickens, before I registered the damage - a fox. There was something in its mouth, a clump of dark feathers, but it turned and ran before I could understand what I was seeing. And then all I could see was my little cockerel dragging himself across the tiles, blood leaving a trail behind him. I stood in shock as he disappeared into the coop. And then I sprung into action.

Rake in hand I charged afree the fox, chasing it to the end of the garden where it slunk through a hole in the fence into my neighbours garden. What of the clump of feathers in its mouth? I tried to get over the fence but it was gone. Was it one of them? Had there been a chick in its mouth?

I was sure of it. I became hysterical with the thougt of it carrying one of my birds off and dumping its mangled body somewhere to die in agony. I searched the neighbours garden but couldnt see a trace. So I returned to my coop. Did a head count. One up on a neighbours first floor window ledge like a pigeon. The rest in the coop...except...

The little cockerel had tucked himself away in the back where it was hard to reach him and all I could see was the blood.

I couldn't face what I might find if I dragged him out into the light. So I called my husband, frantic, to come home. Then I strated looking for the one chicken who I wasn't in the coop or on the window ledge. The mother hen.

She was the first chicken I ever had. She was my favourite. Treacle the black aseel. She knew her name and raced to the back door for treats when called. She was the head hen, the biggest and the most beautiful. And that was what the fox had been carrying in its mouth, I decided. It must have been.

But maybe she wasn't dead. The fox must have dropped her. She could be alive. I snuck into the neighbours garden and looked around. I checked the alleys between the houses and searched the surrounding areas through the upstairs windows. Nothing.

My husband came home. I was inconsolable. He brought the cockerel in the house. It turned out the wounds weren't that bad. His tail was gone but the wounds would heal as long as we kept infection at bay. We made a space for him in a crate in the downstairs bathroom and hoped he would make a recovery. And then we went out to collect our daughter from school.

What would we say to her about Treacle? I was in shock myself, bleary eyed from crying and barely noticing what I was doing as we got in the car on the driveway. but just as we started to reverse off the drive I saw something.

There, in the corner of the garden, crouched low against the side of the house, was a black shape. It was Treacle. I rushed to her, expecting to find her gravely wounded. She was so still. I will never forget that moment of dread when I called her and thought she would stand up to reval her stomach ripped out or something equally horrific.

But she didn't move. So I tried to cajole her into moving. She was alive but in a trance. I went into the house to get some bread to tempt her with and she finally looked at me. She stood up. And she looked fine. No blood. No missing feathers. Nothing.

We eventually worked out that she must have flown right over the house via the roof to escape the fox, and that it must have been the cockerels tail feathers I had seen in the fox's mouth. It was like a miracle - my Treacle had come back.

All that was left was the poor cockerl to nurse back to health. He stayed in his crate for weeks. The little man was already a cripple. How unfair that it was he who had been wounded. And then again, a part of me wondered if it wouldn't have been better for him if he hadn't survived the fox attack...he had already bèen so sad sitying on his hocks all day, his condition ever worsening...

But then something amazing happened. Every day his feathers grew back a bit more and then he was strong enough to stand and then to walk. Only he didn't walk hunched over anymore. He stood up proud and tall and his tail grew back longer and prettier than before. And when his wounds were finally healed enough for him to leave his crate, he did not sit on his hocks. He strutted around the garden without a trace of weakness.

I ended up selling him after all, when he was fully grown and crowing and needed his own flock to look after. But to this day I'm thankful that the fox went away hungry.

 

[Clubber1234]

That's a lovely story.
He's a beautiful cockerel.
One of my hens has just died she had a twisted neck.
Is treacle ok?

 

[Clubber1234]

Where abouts do you live?

 

[LittleCheepers]

That's a lovely story.
He's a beautiful cockerel.
One of my hens has just died she had a twisted neck.
Is treacle ok?

I am so sorry about your hen!

 

[drumstick diva]

Beautiful story - made me cry. So glad the roo survived and thrived after all that.

 

[chuckachucka]

That's a lovely story.
He's a beautiful cockerel.
One of my hens has just died she had a twisted neck.
Is treacle ok?

Oh no, that's terrible about your hen.
Treacle is just fine and has gone on to raise another three batches of chicks since then.

I live in Birmingham, UK.

 

[chuckachucka]

Beautiful story - made me cry. So glad the roo survived and thrived after all that.

Thanks. Yes it was a very unlikely happy ending. I've since built a six foot fence to keep the foxes out and haven't had any trouble since, thankfully.

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Here's a story about one of my chickens. It has a good ending.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...haystack-weird-injury-for-a-baby-chick.73687/

 

[AuntJamie]

This year I wanted to diversify my flock. I basically did this by choosing 7 assorted bantams and a few standards I've never had before. Out of the bantams I got 2 golden sebrights, 1 silver sebright, a bearded mille fleur d'uccle, a white silky, an OEGB and a silver duckwing. The duckwing turned out to be a cockerel. I named him Jean Claude because his attitude is far bigger than he is and he's so quick and agile. He's beautiful.
When he crows he cranes his neck dramatically and it's a perfect crow, only like he sucks helium prior. He dances. He drops one wing and twitches it, jiggety jigging with his little feet moving around in a semi circle in front of whichever hen he's romancing. I haven't seen him mate yet, though.
He tidbits so cute, too! Little squeeky toy noises until he attracts a girl. And he's adamant in what he's doing, whatever he's doing. He commits.
He has really come into his own as a rooster and he's such a good boy. He doesn't go after my daughter like the other roosters did.
Also, I have to mention what's going on with the silkie. She calmly lets me trim her head poof. AND she's bigger than 14 inches tall, which is supposed to be as big as they get. She's nearly as big as the standards. Her name is Condie.
I'm so pleased with the birds I got! It's been an adventure.