Call me cray cray, but for years I have wanted chickens. I pictured a beautiful coop – well, a grandiose and stately coop over by the barn filled with chickens that lay light blue eggs, just like Martha’s. How fun for the Easter bunny to bring chickens, I thought. Yet Easters come and go and no chickens. But this year is different. This year, with kids in tow, we headed up to our local mom and pop farm and picked up a half dozen chickens. A couple days later, I decided that just 6 weren’t enough so in come another 6. All hens, of course, because our town has an ordinance against roosters. Cock-a-doodle-don’t.
What. The. Heck. Was. I. Thinking. A dozen chicks……
Each little hen chick is more caddy than the next, and they all seem to fight over one specific corner of their “stately” rubbermaid bin of a coop. With a heat lamp situated above, this bin will be their home for the next 6-8 weeks. And who knew that one corner would be such valuable real estate for said chicks.
We enlisted the Little Miss to name the flock, and with a tween in charge of names, we now have a Taylor Swift, a Selena Gomez, and a Dove Cameron, who by the way, is Little Miss’s favorite Disney actress. Turns out, Dove isn’t fairing too well, and not a favorite with the rest. A quiet and rather meek chick, she took to that corner first and being that the grass is always greener even with chicks, the rest wanted that corner, too. Long story short, Dove is minus all feathers on her bottom and was the victim of chick bullying.
I came home from work last evening, went in to check on “the girls”, and saw that Dove Cameron was painfully pecked and a little bloody, and immediately went into Mother Hen mode. Cock-a-doodle don’t be pecking on the defenseless. So I’ve taken this little chick under my wing, so to speak, and made a make shift and Jerry-rigged home for her. A tall sided plastic take out container with shavings, food, water, and a heating pad over half the top for her heat source. Placed on the Little Miss’s night stand, I went in every hour last night to check on DC. As I type, I have a towel over my lap and she is cozied up and resting.
So here I am. A semi-proud owner of a dozen chicks, letting one in particular keep me up at night. A chick whisperer, I am not. Well, not officially. But for this one little one, we’ve got to hope for the best. I’m heading out shortly to get another heat lamp and feeding containers for a private bin for DC and two others that are possibly just as meek.
Also, as I type, a beautiful fox just ran in front of our house. This is going to be a wild ride…..
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