Oh, gosh, I'm so sad to hear about Sebastian the Turkey. I thought he was doing great. The poor guy.
I'm going to start making a chicken sling, but modified. I'd like to be able to lift weight off of Henry's legs, while at the same time give him the opportunity to stretch them out and experiment with some gentle touch downs with his feet. So I'm thinking something marionette puppet style, and just short sessions, really, really short.
Some of these 'Drop the chicken into a full body diaper' slings would freak him out. I can't risk any movement around his wounds.
Henry is perkier this morning. He beaks his food more aggressively, as he used to when he was operating as a full fledged rooster. I no longer have to feed him small, torn pieces of greens; he can handle bigger pieces himself. Chickens actually do quite a bit of movement with their heads and bodies when they're wrangling a piece of lettuce.
And have you seen them eat a lizard? Definitely no lizards for Henry for a good while. Thank goodness we don't have free roaming lizards in the house.
For now I'm treating the two reddish bruises on his lame leg as bed sores. It's like when someone is bed bound and their care provider must turn them over and move them a couple times a day. Same theory. But it could be something worse.
I barely understand people; I know even less about creatures with feathers.
We need to throw ourselves into securing the chicken run fencing today. Everyone here eventually loses chickens to coyotes. They seem to accept it as normal. I intend to free range my flock, but not all day like I was doing. It's too risky. So today is all about rotating Henry upside down in my husband the chicken whisperer's lap and doing chicken leg calisthenics, and coyote proofing the run.
I walked around with the hens while they free ranged this morning, and suddenly they froze and then took some careful steps toward a suspicious clump of shrubbery. The clump had big ears and cute noses and took a few steps toward the hens. For reasons I don't understand chickens and cats and deer get along swimmingly well.
The deer clump was as curious about the chickens as the chickens were about them. But it all ended in a flurry of action when heads turned and we saw a coyote cruising through the woods. I'm certain this is our lady coyote (or boy, no time to examine the undercarriage for dangly parts) who snatched Henry and took him deep into the woods. I also suspect she's the one who took our darling cat Kuma and disappeared him forever a few weeks ago.
So the deer and chicken friendship meetup ended quickly as the eared shrubbery headed across our land and into the woods opposite the coyote.
And now Henry's head is dipped and his eyes closed for a quick nap. This seems to happen every time I mention the coyote, even when I'm writing about it.
I keep imagining Henry with a turban and a wand, sitting behind a table like Lucy from the Peanuts with her "The doctor is in" sign. Henry's sign would say: "Swami can help."
I think I best get going. Clearly I'm in better spirits today.
Until next time, folks.
