Another chick attack - 2017

A young lady with a flock nearby was having trouble with her Black Australorp, Mel. She was being relentlessly picked on by the rest of her flock. I agreed to take her in. Indeed, she was in rough shape. Her back was missing quite a few feathers and had a big bald spot; same with the back of her neck.

This seems REALLY stupid now but I put her in with Barb and Donna in their introduction to the rest of the flock home.

Once again, when I got home from work, it was chaos. Barb and Donna were bleeding on the top of their heads and Donna looked like she was going to lose an eye. Mel was still in the enclosure. So, did Barb and Donna get out, then something got them? Or was Mel picking on them? I'll never know.

In any event, I cleaned Barb and Donna's wounds and slathered them with antibiotic ointment. They've healed up nicely, though Donna will probably never grow feathers on the top of her head.

Mel, in the meantime, is a very nice hen who runs out to greet me.

So I don't get it? Is Mel the perpetrator? Or the nice hen she appears to be?

A Saturday to detox

The day after Stretchie attacked the chicks, it rained all day. I sat by the window, with the chicks in the aquarium, and taught myself to knit. I was leaving an intense writing gig and the day felt like a wrap down of sorts.

We cleaned all the blood and tissue off the chicks under water then slathered them with neosporin - so much neosporin that Wink didn't have any down on her neck at all. Jim came in and in a really alarmed way asked, "Why doesn't that chicken have a neck?" I told him she has a head and there's got to be a neck there somewhere.

But he was right. The neck bone was thinner than a pencil. Thinner than an old thermometer. More like a few threads. It just showed how these little things are 90% fluff. No wonder you have to keep them at 95 degrees that first week.

The chicks nodded off most of the day. Squirt would lean against Wink and Wink would lean against the aquarium wall or a paper towel I wadded up as a kind of pillow. They did not eat or drink. That's normal for day two but I was a little concerned.