Post Your Chicken Survival Stories....

[hiddenflock]

One day, we were outside in the chicken run doing chicken care, while the chickens were engaging in chickeny activities. We had thrown a large hunk of grass into the run to distract them, so that they wouldn't run out the door as soon as we opened it.

The chickens then engaged in arguing over the grass. Then, a little bit later, I turn around....and one of our orpingtons has a blank expression on her face, and is sort of swaying. Little starnds of grass were hanging out of her mouth. I called to my companion "I think Buffie is choking!"

I held Buffie while my companion slowly pulled the strands out of her mouth. It seemed as if the wad of grass was wrapping around her tongue. It seemed as if it were so long, that we would never completely pull it out.

Then, finally, it came out, and I chucked it over the fence to avoid a similar occurence.

She was a little dazed, but alive!!!

Post your own chicken survival stories on this thread!

 

[sumi]

Some of my chickens had a similar experience, choking like that. It's scary!
My most amazing survivor story happened a few weeks ago. My son, he's 5 and quite tall and heavy for his age, was standing on a upturned bucket. One of my young roosters (I think he was about a month old at the time) was next to the bucket and as my son stepped off the bucket he put his foot and his full weight on the little roo. It was still alive when I picked it up and it had blood coming out it's beak and it's eyes and I just sat and held it, waiting for it to die and I was terribly upset... but it didn't die. It was a bit dazed and confused, but after about an hour it was walking around and by the end of the day it was fine again. Unbelievable! Needless to say it's called "Lucky".

 

[hiddenflock]

Wow! That's really amazing. It's simply shocking what chickens can live through. One of our old chicks walked off the back of a hand, fell on the floor, and was acting like nothing ever happened!

 

[Chic_girl]

Hmm, This isn't much of a 'survival story', because my chickens didn't really end up hurt...

Last fall, I was out working in the poultry corner- filling waters and cleaning the duck house. My chickens were running around in the garden, scratching and dust-bathing. I turned my back for a minute to fill the duck waterer, when I heard one of my chickens screeching.

I turned around, expecting to have to seperate both of my cockerels, but instead, there was a giant hawk with it's talons around one of my polish! I don't think it registered in my brain for a moment, but I turned and ran at the hawk, not sure what I was going to do. Thankfully, it dropped my polish and flew off, looking haughty, like "Phhf, there are easier meals elsewhere!"
My polish bird just shook herself off, then went back to dust- bathing, while my (smarter) chickens crept out from under the woodpile. Like the crazy animal-freak I am, I went to watch the hawk fly off and attempt to identify it!

 

[hiddenflock]

Wow! Great story! We always used to worry about hawks, but now our chickens' run is netted. I can't count how many times we've heard the screeching of our chickens, only to see a horrid monster by the name of absolutely nothing.

 

[StarLover21]

I have WAY too many survival stories for a particular pullet, Sage, my White Leghorn. She is my baby, a very spoiled chicken. I have thought she were going to die so many times, I never thought she would live to lay her first egg- she finally did, at 33 weeks. In fact, her whole story is a survival story, in my opinion.

I guess her ultimate survival story is when all of her siblings were killed by a raccon. We were still sort of newbies back then, and didn't really understand the whole predator thing. Besides, we didn't think that there would be predators in the middle of the city. We had four little white leghorn chicks, well, they were about four or five weeks old. We also had a few hens, so we kept them seperate in a large dog kennel. One morning I came out to check on them. There were white feathers scattered everywhere around the run. One of the chicks was half pulled through the dog kennel with her head bitten off In the middle of the blood, mess, and dead chickens, was Sage. A little scrawny chicken, pacing her run in distress. I remember she had a orange leg band to tell her apart. I held her for about two hours after that. It took off her leg band- she didn't need it anymore I have no idea how she survived. She had a little scratch on her face, but other than that, was perfectly fine. R.I.P Ava, Hedwig, and Sprite

And so, from then on, I brought her inside the house each night to sleep. We then built a nice safe coop, and her next 'survival' journey began. She stayed in her dog kennel for several more weeks. It was hot in Texas in July, and she had a little bird bath she would always stand in. Each day I would catch her grasshoppers and bring them to her. She would snatch them quickly from my fingers, and dart quickly to the corner of the cage. But she soon was waiting for me every day, although she still was rather tramautized and definitally not a freindly chicken. Soon she outgrew her little dog kennel, and we kept her in a pen. I would bring her treats everyday. Her sixteen week birthday passed, and soon she began to get little trips out to the yard. I had to clip her wings SO short. One time I clipped them so short on feather began to bleed. Now I am very careful NEVER to do that again. For her blood feathers I cannot clip, I just cut off the little feathers that come off the shafts, so only the shafts are left. It may not be pretty, but it was neccesarry. If I didn't clip her wings she would be in Jamaica by now.

I began to try to integrate her with my other hens. She was small, a little white shadow flickering around the yard. In fact, I think she may have been small for her age. Against two big fat hens, a giant red star and production red who had been together by themselves for over three years. I think we put her in the coop too young, and she was picked on until bloody. And so she was seperated again, at least when she was in our little coop. By now she was with two other chicks, three black stars who were considerably younger than her. She sort of adopted them, protecting them from all harm.

At one point, after she was let out sometimes to roam the yard, I was trying to catch her- I don't remember the reason now. Our coop is a rabbit hutch raised up on 'stilts'. She tried to escape to the coop, going up the ramp. However I had though she would do this, and had closed the door. She then hopped up on top of the coop- and, flew into our neighbors yard. It was easy, any of my chickens could of done it from way up there, they just had to hop down, just they never would jump up on top of the coop. Now in this yard, lived a very vicious killer of small animals and humans dog. Luckily, the dog was inside. I HAD to get my chicken. I loved that chicken! And so I....hopped the fence, cornered Sage, and took her back. I put her back in the pen and she lived there for several months.

As she and her buddies, the black stars, Onyx, Asha, and Buckbeak, grew, I expanded their pen, and put it in the corner of the yard. One day, something awful happened. I stood up, and walked outside to check on the chickens. There, perched on the edge of the pen, was a small hawk. I saw him jump down, and grab on of the chickens. I couldn't see it very well, and the pen is some distance from the house, so by the time I ran out there he had already lethaly killed her with a swift bite to the neck. I picked her up. She was still warm, and she peeped, and died in my arms. Sage was in the pen with her, FREAKING out. The hawk could of easily killed her. Asha and Buckbeak were nowhere to be seen. Finally I heard the peeping frantically. Buckbeak was in the very corner of the hard...and Asha, was in the neigbors yard, trying to get through the fence to her freind! Yes, the same neighbor that had the dog! Thank god my luck stretched out and again the dog was not in the yard. I quickly retreived Asha, and put them all in the dog kennel for the rest of the day. Then, their pen was hawk proofed. R.I.P Onyx...

Another time, when she was 100% full grown, I looked outside and her head was COVERED in blood. Sombody had torn her giant mowhawk- I mean comb, and it had bled all over her read. I washed and bandaged it, and it soon healed.
Ever since then, there have been more close calls, some of which I dont' fully remember. But Sage certaintly had a hard childhood. I know some of it was my newbie fault, although now I know a ton about chickens. She layed her first egg, and is still alive and happily settled in with her remaining buddies. There's a bad pictue of her as a pullet.

 

[albert w]

Back when I still had old English games, I had a big rooster named Biscuit. I came home and found him in his pen swaying and looking dazed. No injuries but definitely in bad color and shape. I asked my brother if anything had happened. My brother said Biscuit had gotten out into the yard when mom threw kitchen scraps in and was there until he got home to catch Buscuit. Turns out Biscuit had found the ant poison that dad put down that morning. Pumped him full of activated charcoal because that was all I knew to do. Old Biscuit got worse and worse but I decided to give him until morning... Next morning he was flapping and crowing!

 

[a123andpoof]

So this happened in December and was the first of our problems. So I was inside while the hens were out freeranging. I didn't think much of it as we had no problems up until that day. I was due to leave for a thing at our church when I heard a weird noise. i checked out the window, but didn't really see anything out of the ordinary. So before I left I went and locked up the hens. 6 were missing. Me and mom started checking around the yard and then headed towards the street. A guy who lives just a couple houses down came by and asked if we were missing some hens. So we went and looked around and managed to find 3 of the six. The other 3 were never found. Those 3 were lucky though as it was by this time fully dark and they made it home safetly.

In Jan or Feb the hens were again out freeranging, and I was sitting inside near the window so I could keep an eye out for the fox. We had lost another 1 due to him. Well I heard the screams and looked outside and there was my red hen about to get cornered under the deck by the fox! I rushed to the deck screaming at the thing, but that was not working, so I looked around for something I could throw at him and saw the screen for the door. I picked that up and threw it down at him. It didn't scare him much, but it was enough to send him on his way. I ran down and picked up my hen who was shaking. I rounded up the rest of the girls and put them away. The fox is now dead.

 

[mondotomhead]

This happened last Fall. My little band of 9 bantams were free ranging in the yard. My DH had just walked out of the garage when he saw a hawk pounce on my Mille Fleur Roo. DH ran (which in inself is a miracle-bad knees) and managed to grab just the tip of the hawk's wing just enough for the hawk to let go. The Roo ran right into DH's big, boot-clad foot and was inadvertantly kicked. The Roo tumbled around, got up, shook out his feathers and ran off to join the others without any injuries. He was very, very lucky.

Now I'm with them all the time when they are free-ranging.

 

[Razor1616]

Last fall, I came home on a Friday and saw that 4 of my BRs were outside their pen. I didn't think anything of it until i go to put them up and found i was missing one. It was a bummer, so i made sure to watch them the next morning to see where they were getting out from and i put out bated live traps to try to catch the predator. They ended up flying up to the top of the gate and jumping out that way. So, we cut their wings so they could no longer do that... it worked... For Sunday. I come home from work Monday, and find 2 of them outside the pen again... Where's the 3rd I'm thinking... She is inside one of the live traps surrounded in feathers... She ran in there to escape being eaten by the fox that I ended up shooting the next morning. I don't have any idea how long she was in the cage, but she had almost all of her longer feathers plucked from the fox trying to get her through the cage.

~Nathan