BattyAngel
In the Brooder
- Mar 9, 2022
- 21
- 31
- 44
So the way I ended up a bird lover is unique... one that ended in heartbreak but a story worth sharing. Hippie Chick made me fall in love with her and I've loved them ever since...
This is the story of how I became best friends with a chicken and how we lost my sweet little Hippie Chick after only 9 short weeks.
I never would have dreamed I could love a chicken... until I met her... she was such a funny little thing. The story of how I met my Hippie Chick is a bit different... if any of you would like to know how I came to love a bird read on...
According to my friend Charity, who was out front supervising children, this white chicken was just walking down the road, and happened to be passing by my house. Charity has 3 daughters and my friend Leslie has a daughter and a son who are all very good friends and I enjoy having them and their children over so we can all visit.
The kids had been taking turns walking the dogs when my friend Leslie's dog Daisy, saw the chicken, got a wild idea and made a break for it and went and snatched that chicken up! I'm not really sure what the rest of Daisy's plan was, but I'm thinking that it probably would not have been a good experience for the chicken...
Well, my dog LuKai- who is a sweet and gentle soul and can't stand the suffering of any creature- saw what Daisy had done and went and took her from Daisy... luckily it did not become a game of tug of war!
By the time the kiddos saw what was going on, what they saw was my LuKai who was now standing there, looking very guilty, with a chicken in his mouth! So the kids start yelling, "Angee, Mom! LuKai has a chicken in his mouth!" Over and over and so Leslie and I, who were both in the garage at that time, looked at each other in shocked confusion... both said "What?!" and hurried to see what was going on...
So that's when my neighbors dog Millie- a formerly working ranch dog and protector of many animals- tried to take her from LuKai, who I believe was also trying to help the chicken but they both thought the other was up to no good.
Well... LuKai dropped the poor terrified chicken in order to fend off Millie, who I'm fairly certain thought Lukai was attacking the poor little chicken! By now my friend had gotten Daisy back on her leash and I finally got over to where Millie and LuKai were now scrapping over the bird...
Both immediately stopped fighting as soon as I told them "NO" and Millie ran off and went back across the property line to her own yard. Meanwhile the little chicken had quickly seized the golden opportunity to escape and skeedaddled and by the time I was sure the dogs were all behaving and could look for her, all I was able to find of her was a trail of feathers leading toward my front deck.
My other dog, Abby seemed to be pretty sure she had gone under there... but I couldn't see her... so trusting Abby's nose over my eyes, I informed Robert (Bob) of all that had occurred and where I believed the chicken might be located and he put water and food out for the little chicken and I guess Bob and I both just kind of assumed she would just eventually continue on her epic journey to wherever she had been headed in the first place.
We have been replacing all the windows, siding, and skirting on our trailer house thanks to some tennis ball sized hail this past summer, so there was open access to the space under the house, you know that yucky place with all the spiders and stuff?
Well, she was apparently quite happy under there gobbling up any bug that dared move and some that did not dare to move as well, I'm sure... but, after three days she had been getting used to Bob. He was out there working on the house all the time.
She also saw plenty of me since I was also busily working outside around the house and in the backyard and she must have eaten all of the insects under the house because she finally emerged and promptly began following me around the yard.
After a couple of weeks it was fairly obvious she had no plans on going anywhere other than following me around, so I built her a little house. She made it clear early on in our friendship that she was using me for my ability to move things and for her it seemed that ending up living in my backyard was Utopia...
I guess it was her version of heaven on earth... I've been building a pretty major water feature in my backyard... We're talking a lot of digging and dirt moving in order to build a zen space that has 3 ponds, a large waterfall a small waterfall and a little meandering stream.
That means I move things around quite a bit in the process. Clearly my Little Hippie Chick (who at that time I simply called "Little Chicken" and then "Little Chicken Nugget") liked it very much. She got so excited when I moved things for her to look under- rocks, boulders, buckets, etc. especially those things that had been in place for long enough that bugs had moved in underneath.
She loved to scratch around under them and slurp up all the icky creatures living there. As soon as I'd come out back, my Hippie Chick would hurry over to me, so interested to see what I was doing.
Over the past 9 weeks she has become my constant companion in the yard and although I have never thought of having a pet chicken, I can't really imagine not having her around now and I consider her another member of the family.
Who would have thought? I could become such goodvfriends with a chicken... It's really pretty cool.
After getting to know each other, Hippie Chick got along with both Abby and LuKai and even my cat Salem Rady seems to like her. I was so worried when I couldn't find her that day last week and my poor stomach was tying itself in knots with concern... because she had left her egg... and she never goes very far from her eggs.
So I'm grateful we got to continue enjoying our odd friendship... for a little bit... even if it does take four times longer to dig out my last pond, lol! That due to her constantly climbing on top of the shovel and kicking most of the dirt off in her quest for worms.
And 9 weeks later, I still don't have any idea why she was crossing the road on the day that Daisy snatched her up. ♡
So over the past couple of months Hippie Chick has followed me around the yard, every chance she gets and she is such an amusing companion with all her funny and adorable little noises that I find myself really looking forward to the time I get to spend helping her find worms by moving things around and digging out the lower pond in my backyard.
Such a difference from 3 months ago when there were many days that I struggled and some that i simply couldn't make myself step outside to walk from the house to the garage without feeling like I was inside a tunnel that would stretch and shrink and the blue of the sky was so heavy it was going to crush me. She somehow made it easier to forget to care about all the ugliness in the world beyond the fence in my backyard.
Now my heart is broken because my Hippy Chick was attacked last evening just at the time she usually heads to her coop. We think it was by an owl and I feel just awful because it was my fault.
You see, I got a phone call and I was distracted. I should have picked her up and put her safely in her house, but she was out there with both dogs on guard duty and I figured she would be ok for a few minutes.
About 15 minutes later I was heading back outside to check and make sure she had gone to bed and that she had water and food in her coop. When I got my backdoor I suddenly heard my dog Abby start whining and scratching the door and my other dog LuKai started this intense barking and wouldn't stop.
I though "What the hell...?" Abby and LuKai were acting really oddly, very hyped up and anxiously whining and LuKai who rarely barks at all, was staring at the neighbors house and just barking his head off nonstop. I began to panic and I frantically ran to look inside Hippie Chick's house and I was afraid to look, but I couldn't not look... so I screwed up my courage and looked inside... and my heart sank and then started beating faster when I saw my Hippie Chick wasn't there.
Abby was still at my heels all nervous energy and LuKai was still by the fence looking at my neighbors place and just barking. I hurriedly turned my phone flashlight on and then I ran to the lower pond where I had seen her last, my heart skipping and then sinking further upon realizing that she was not there either...
Now with my adrenaline really pumping I began searching and calling for her. I went to where LuKai was still barking and shined my flashlight that direction but couldn't see whatever he was barking at. I put my hand on LuKai and said "What is it Lu? What's over there? Where's our chicken?"
LuKai seemed to understand and went to a spot in the yard where there were a lot of feathers I hadn't noticed yet and put his nose to the ground and followed her scent. LuKai and I found her hiding under the back porch next to the lawn mower and I shined my light on her and saw so much blood... but she was alive!!
I scooped her up and took her inside to the bathroom and set her on the counter and started checking her wounds. They were bad. I could hardly believe she had lived through the attack with injuries so bad.
I grabbed a towel and wrapped her in it and called Bob but his phone went straight to voice-mail, so I called his mom... I can't even remember the conversation just knew that he was coming...
I've always been fairly competent when it comes to first aide and have rarely felt so helpless. There was no way to bandage her torn back. Her feathers had been ripped out so violently that chunks of flesh came off with them and she had at least one very deep puncture wound at least a half inch in diameter on her right shoulder. She was missing more feathers and skin on the upper left part of her back... and her chest was bleeding too.
I was frantically trying to think of something I could do to help her, knowing from her injuries that she probably wouldn't make it, but hoping I could save her anyway, I thought of my wonderful neighbors whose property runs along the western side of my backyard.
They really liked Hippy Chick and were always bringing her treats. I carried her to their house, they had a ranch until a few years ago and used to have chickens so I figured they were my best bet for immediate, level headed, and knowledgeable help.
So I carried my poor sweet bird to their house and knocked, the front door was open beyond the screen door and I started babbling the moment I saw Sheila. She immediately called out for her husband, Dan to come and look at Hippie Chick.
They were so kind and gently honest when they told me what I had thought myself once already... they didn't think she would survive, mainly because of the puncture wound but, "she's tough" they said... "you just never know, there's a chance she could pull through." I thanked them and took my sweet chicken home.
I went inside and did a google search, "How to fix my injured pet chicken after she was attacked by something" and I found the following post...
https://pethelpful.com/farm-pets/How-To-Care-For-An-Injured-Chicken
The woman described her hens injuries and they sounded eerily similar to Hippie Chick's, although not nearly as severe. The process of cleaning and bandaging wounds can be pretty painful, even when dealing with minor injuries, I know how hydrogen peroxide feels in a deep wound, and it hurts!
She was already in shock and since the bleeding appeared to have stopped and she was as calm and content as possible, especially considering that she must have been in horrible pain already, I figured I may as well just hold her and make sure she felt loved and give her as much soothing comfort as possible.
She was attacked around 6:30 pm and it was nearly 11:30 pm when Bob got home. She was still hanging in there.
What I didn't know was that she had broken something in her chest, probably a rib. She must have been having dreams about the attack though because she would occasionally jump and startle awake and I would pet her and sooth her and she would settle back into a restless sleep and I just held her and told myself that I should really clean those wounds and then I'd look at her again and it was pretty clear that doing so would likely kill her... I decided to just wait and see how things looked by morning and thought that maybe I should just take her to the vet anyway.
She seemed fairly peaceful and I didn't want to cause her additional pain. I held her all night and fell into a light sleep around 8 am when Bob went to shower.
The next thing I know Bob was waking me up and Hippy Chick had moved, probably had another moment of panic and without me awake to sooth her she tried to run, but really couldn't. That was when the bone the was broken inside her chest must have punctured her lung.
I could hear a wet sound and she was obviously in worse pain suddenly. I jumped up and gently gathered her up and went to the kitchen sink, setting her and the towel inside, thinking well she's already hurting again maybe I can see whats wrong if I rinse the wounds. Then she suddenly flexed like she was trying to breath, her eyes got big and then she went limp... and then, suddenly she was gone...
If one little chicken can make such an impact and touch so many hearts in just a few weeks without even trying... just imagine what we each could accomplish if we actually tried.
This is the story of how I became best friends with a chicken and how we lost my sweet little Hippie Chick after only 9 short weeks.
I never would have dreamed I could love a chicken... until I met her... she was such a funny little thing. The story of how I met my Hippie Chick is a bit different... if any of you would like to know how I came to love a bird read on...
According to my friend Charity, who was out front supervising children, this white chicken was just walking down the road, and happened to be passing by my house. Charity has 3 daughters and my friend Leslie has a daughter and a son who are all very good friends and I enjoy having them and their children over so we can all visit.
The kids had been taking turns walking the dogs when my friend Leslie's dog Daisy, saw the chicken, got a wild idea and made a break for it and went and snatched that chicken up! I'm not really sure what the rest of Daisy's plan was, but I'm thinking that it probably would not have been a good experience for the chicken...
Well, my dog LuKai- who is a sweet and gentle soul and can't stand the suffering of any creature- saw what Daisy had done and went and took her from Daisy... luckily it did not become a game of tug of war!
By the time the kiddos saw what was going on, what they saw was my LuKai who was now standing there, looking very guilty, with a chicken in his mouth! So the kids start yelling, "Angee, Mom! LuKai has a chicken in his mouth!" Over and over and so Leslie and I, who were both in the garage at that time, looked at each other in shocked confusion... both said "What?!" and hurried to see what was going on...
So that's when my neighbors dog Millie- a formerly working ranch dog and protector of many animals- tried to take her from LuKai, who I believe was also trying to help the chicken but they both thought the other was up to no good.
Well... LuKai dropped the poor terrified chicken in order to fend off Millie, who I'm fairly certain thought Lukai was attacking the poor little chicken! By now my friend had gotten Daisy back on her leash and I finally got over to where Millie and LuKai were now scrapping over the bird...
Both immediately stopped fighting as soon as I told them "NO" and Millie ran off and went back across the property line to her own yard. Meanwhile the little chicken had quickly seized the golden opportunity to escape and skeedaddled and by the time I was sure the dogs were all behaving and could look for her, all I was able to find of her was a trail of feathers leading toward my front deck.
My other dog, Abby seemed to be pretty sure she had gone under there... but I couldn't see her... so trusting Abby's nose over my eyes, I informed Robert (Bob) of all that had occurred and where I believed the chicken might be located and he put water and food out for the little chicken and I guess Bob and I both just kind of assumed she would just eventually continue on her epic journey to wherever she had been headed in the first place.
We have been replacing all the windows, siding, and skirting on our trailer house thanks to some tennis ball sized hail this past summer, so there was open access to the space under the house, you know that yucky place with all the spiders and stuff?
Well, she was apparently quite happy under there gobbling up any bug that dared move and some that did not dare to move as well, I'm sure... but, after three days she had been getting used to Bob. He was out there working on the house all the time.
She also saw plenty of me since I was also busily working outside around the house and in the backyard and she must have eaten all of the insects under the house because she finally emerged and promptly began following me around the yard.
After a couple of weeks it was fairly obvious she had no plans on going anywhere other than following me around, so I built her a little house. She made it clear early on in our friendship that she was using me for my ability to move things and for her it seemed that ending up living in my backyard was Utopia...
I guess it was her version of heaven on earth... I've been building a pretty major water feature in my backyard... We're talking a lot of digging and dirt moving in order to build a zen space that has 3 ponds, a large waterfall a small waterfall and a little meandering stream.
That means I move things around quite a bit in the process. Clearly my Little Hippie Chick (who at that time I simply called "Little Chicken" and then "Little Chicken Nugget") liked it very much. She got so excited when I moved things for her to look under- rocks, boulders, buckets, etc. especially those things that had been in place for long enough that bugs had moved in underneath.
She loved to scratch around under them and slurp up all the icky creatures living there. As soon as I'd come out back, my Hippie Chick would hurry over to me, so interested to see what I was doing.
Over the past 9 weeks she has become my constant companion in the yard and although I have never thought of having a pet chicken, I can't really imagine not having her around now and I consider her another member of the family.
Who would have thought? I could become such goodvfriends with a chicken... It's really pretty cool.
After getting to know each other, Hippie Chick got along with both Abby and LuKai and even my cat Salem Rady seems to like her. I was so worried when I couldn't find her that day last week and my poor stomach was tying itself in knots with concern... because she had left her egg... and she never goes very far from her eggs.
So I'm grateful we got to continue enjoying our odd friendship... for a little bit... even if it does take four times longer to dig out my last pond, lol! That due to her constantly climbing on top of the shovel and kicking most of the dirt off in her quest for worms.
And 9 weeks later, I still don't have any idea why she was crossing the road on the day that Daisy snatched her up. ♡
So over the past couple of months Hippie Chick has followed me around the yard, every chance she gets and she is such an amusing companion with all her funny and adorable little noises that I find myself really looking forward to the time I get to spend helping her find worms by moving things around and digging out the lower pond in my backyard.
Such a difference from 3 months ago when there were many days that I struggled and some that i simply couldn't make myself step outside to walk from the house to the garage without feeling like I was inside a tunnel that would stretch and shrink and the blue of the sky was so heavy it was going to crush me. She somehow made it easier to forget to care about all the ugliness in the world beyond the fence in my backyard.
Now my heart is broken because my Hippy Chick was attacked last evening just at the time she usually heads to her coop. We think it was by an owl and I feel just awful because it was my fault.
You see, I got a phone call and I was distracted. I should have picked her up and put her safely in her house, but she was out there with both dogs on guard duty and I figured she would be ok for a few minutes.
About 15 minutes later I was heading back outside to check and make sure she had gone to bed and that she had water and food in her coop. When I got my backdoor I suddenly heard my dog Abby start whining and scratching the door and my other dog LuKai started this intense barking and wouldn't stop.
I though "What the hell...?" Abby and LuKai were acting really oddly, very hyped up and anxiously whining and LuKai who rarely barks at all, was staring at the neighbors house and just barking his head off nonstop. I began to panic and I frantically ran to look inside Hippie Chick's house and I was afraid to look, but I couldn't not look... so I screwed up my courage and looked inside... and my heart sank and then started beating faster when I saw my Hippie Chick wasn't there.
Abby was still at my heels all nervous energy and LuKai was still by the fence looking at my neighbors place and just barking. I hurriedly turned my phone flashlight on and then I ran to the lower pond where I had seen her last, my heart skipping and then sinking further upon realizing that she was not there either...
Now with my adrenaline really pumping I began searching and calling for her. I went to where LuKai was still barking and shined my flashlight that direction but couldn't see whatever he was barking at. I put my hand on LuKai and said "What is it Lu? What's over there? Where's our chicken?"
LuKai seemed to understand and went to a spot in the yard where there were a lot of feathers I hadn't noticed yet and put his nose to the ground and followed her scent. LuKai and I found her hiding under the back porch next to the lawn mower and I shined my light on her and saw so much blood... but she was alive!!
I scooped her up and took her inside to the bathroom and set her on the counter and started checking her wounds. They were bad. I could hardly believe she had lived through the attack with injuries so bad.
I grabbed a towel and wrapped her in it and called Bob but his phone went straight to voice-mail, so I called his mom... I can't even remember the conversation just knew that he was coming...
I've always been fairly competent when it comes to first aide and have rarely felt so helpless. There was no way to bandage her torn back. Her feathers had been ripped out so violently that chunks of flesh came off with them and she had at least one very deep puncture wound at least a half inch in diameter on her right shoulder. She was missing more feathers and skin on the upper left part of her back... and her chest was bleeding too.
I was frantically trying to think of something I could do to help her, knowing from her injuries that she probably wouldn't make it, but hoping I could save her anyway, I thought of my wonderful neighbors whose property runs along the western side of my backyard.
They really liked Hippy Chick and were always bringing her treats. I carried her to their house, they had a ranch until a few years ago and used to have chickens so I figured they were my best bet for immediate, level headed, and knowledgeable help.
So I carried my poor sweet bird to their house and knocked, the front door was open beyond the screen door and I started babbling the moment I saw Sheila. She immediately called out for her husband, Dan to come and look at Hippie Chick.
They were so kind and gently honest when they told me what I had thought myself once already... they didn't think she would survive, mainly because of the puncture wound but, "she's tough" they said... "you just never know, there's a chance she could pull through." I thanked them and took my sweet chicken home.
I went inside and did a google search, "How to fix my injured pet chicken after she was attacked by something" and I found the following post...
https://pethelpful.com/farm-pets/How-To-Care-For-An-Injured-Chicken
The woman described her hens injuries and they sounded eerily similar to Hippie Chick's, although not nearly as severe. The process of cleaning and bandaging wounds can be pretty painful, even when dealing with minor injuries, I know how hydrogen peroxide feels in a deep wound, and it hurts!
She was already in shock and since the bleeding appeared to have stopped and she was as calm and content as possible, especially considering that she must have been in horrible pain already, I figured I may as well just hold her and make sure she felt loved and give her as much soothing comfort as possible.
She was attacked around 6:30 pm and it was nearly 11:30 pm when Bob got home. She was still hanging in there.
What I didn't know was that she had broken something in her chest, probably a rib. She must have been having dreams about the attack though because she would occasionally jump and startle awake and I would pet her and sooth her and she would settle back into a restless sleep and I just held her and told myself that I should really clean those wounds and then I'd look at her again and it was pretty clear that doing so would likely kill her... I decided to just wait and see how things looked by morning and thought that maybe I should just take her to the vet anyway.
She seemed fairly peaceful and I didn't want to cause her additional pain. I held her all night and fell into a light sleep around 8 am when Bob went to shower.
The next thing I know Bob was waking me up and Hippy Chick had moved, probably had another moment of panic and without me awake to sooth her she tried to run, but really couldn't. That was when the bone the was broken inside her chest must have punctured her lung.
I could hear a wet sound and she was obviously in worse pain suddenly. I jumped up and gently gathered her up and went to the kitchen sink, setting her and the towel inside, thinking well she's already hurting again maybe I can see whats wrong if I rinse the wounds. Then she suddenly flexed like she was trying to breath, her eyes got big and then she went limp... and then, suddenly she was gone...
If one little chicken can make such an impact and touch so many hearts in just a few weeks without even trying... just imagine what we each could accomplish if we actually tried.
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