Monday, April 4, 2011

I count to five, third installment

As the chicks got bigger they needed more space than what they had in the coop, but we couldn’t always let them out in the yard. By now we’d given up on keeping them in the garden and let them have the run of the yard when we could. Jan decided to build a chicken run, we call it the back forty, behind the coop. It is bordered on two sides by privacy fence and two sides are palate planks and chicken wire. The area has lots of tree cover so we don’t worry about hawks when they are out in the back forty. We kept a closer eye on them when they are in the yard until we realized they have pretty good instincts. When there’s a hawk nearby we’ve seen them stand completely still so the hawk won’t see them. Sometimes they head for the nearest stand of trees or into the safety of the coop. We used to enjoy watching the hawks fly over the neighborhood. Now it makes us leery.



I decided to take a few days off for myself before the warm weather ended and rented a cottage at the beach. Dax, my dog, and I took off for a few days of quiet. The last day of my trip Dax and I were walking on a peaceful island road when my cell phone rang for the first time in days. Joan and I had exchanged lots of text messages, but no phone calls. The first thing Joan said was “don’t worry, everybody’s okay.” I said “okay, what happened?”

She told me that one of the bantams had been attacked by a raccoon that had gotten inside the coop. It happened the first day I was gone, but she didn’t want to spoil my trip by telling me right away. It was a breezy, warm evening and Jan had her windows open. She heard the chickens start up a loud racket and ran out to the coop. When she opened the door the girls rushed out in all directions and the raccoon took off. Her dogs had followed her out the door so she and Colleen had to get them back in the house quickly to let the chickens settle down. When the dust settled, Jan found Xena on the floor of the coop with a gash in her side. She sent Colleen to get Joan and a flashlight. Jan and Joan took Xena into our kitchen/surgical chamber. Joan used our surgical experience to clean the wound and stitch up the six week old chick. She brought the wounded bird into the house to keep her on the screened porch, which we were now thinking of as the chicken infirmary.

I wasn’t there, but Joan tells me that, sitting in her chair watching TV, she could hear Xena “throwing herself” against the porch door because she didn’t want to be alone. I know my wife, so I know that, whatever Xena might have been doing, my wife was worried about her and wanted her close. So Joan brought the chick inside and held the bird in her lap for a while. That night Xena slept in a cat carrier on the bed with Joan and Tucker, the dog who stayed home. It is becoming increasingly obvious that none of these chickens are farm animals. They are all pets.

When I got home Xena was back in the coop hopping around as if she’d always had only one leg. The other leg was there, but the raccoon had gashed her across the belly and apparently injured a muscle connected to her leg. That weekend stronger security measures were taken in the coop construction. Xena recovered well and hopped around, keeping up with the others easily, and making it clear that she was still at the top of the pecking order. We’ve never clipped their wings and the bantams all fly very well. We’ve worried about them flying over the fence, and indeed, one of them has once, but we haven’t lost any that way yet. She hopped around with the others and after a couple of weeks her leg was starting to look better. I saw it move very slightly as if she were trying to scratch the ground with it. I was beginning to hope she might be able to use it again.