Pearly, the disabled EE hen has a new job!

Here is my story about my 2 yo. disabled EE hen named Pearly. My Pearly came with a bad leg/ hip. She cannot walk very well but manages so I promised her that I would not end her suffering as long as she can convince me that she is ok and handling her injury fine. She has only laid about 6 eggs last year and they were all nice and green. Seems like good weather makes her feel better and she lays. She has been ok for a year now but last weekend, the unthinkable happened. She hopped out of the chicken house and for one reason or another, all the other big chickens attacked her. It was terrible. She was a bit bloodied up and shaking. I took her out of the run, cleaned her wounds and decided to put her in with my 5 wk old chicks. I figured she couldn’t do any harm to them and they wouldn’t do any harm to her. Interestingly enough, after initial inspection, the little chickens came over and snuggled up to Pearly as if she was their mom. The story would have been wonderful at that point but yesterday I actually even found an egg under her. My Pearly is finally feeling better and laying eggs again! I couldn’t be more excited! I will see how the next few weeks go, but it appears as though Pearly now has a permanent job being surrogate chick mommy and this weekend, I will begin incubating again and include her egg so that she will have a chick of her own!