Chicken 911

Chickens are pretty amazing. They don't have much going on - lay egg, eat food, drink water, poop, sleep for 12 hours a night, peck irreverently, act like you're important, hop, wake up neighbors. Surprisingly, though, they have two-bit memories and are sometimes inherently cannibalistic, without ever remembering that they are. My opinion is that this is mostly due to temptation and opportunity, rather than lack of food or desire to actually eat their kin. It happens irregularly in our little flock. A hen might be shooting for a piece of corn on the ground, but mistakenly pecks on another hen’s talon, draws blood, and Eureka! Blood! Where the hell did that come from! Yesss!! I love it! Must peck more after my celebratory hop! Then, of course, the hen that's getting pecked might not know what's going on, she might think it’s another hen’s talon, and she starts picking at herself. Basically, chickens are attracted to blood, regardless of where it's coming from. It's like Hannibal Lecter meets Patty Hearst.

The girls could very much eat each other alive, with no real perception of what they're doing. It makes me sad, but they’re farm animals after all. They’re not too worried about it. For all they care, blood is better than the expensive feed we throw their way. Farm fresh refreshments. Regardless of what those bird brains want, Steve and I don't like it. We've researched this and it's perfectly normal for hens to pick at each other sometimes, so we're not worried about having unstable or idiot chickens. Our saving grace is that, again, they're dim (albeit lovable). They don't remember much beyond what they just put in their mouth. So we try to prevent the hens from picking at each other further by removing the evidence. We take the hurt hen aside, clean out her wound with iodine, apply neosporin with a swab, and bandage it up with sticky, self-adhesive athletic wrap. The wrap works best as it's breathable, looks like chicken skin, and sticks well so the hens can't pick it off. Plus, it covers up the blood and the hens don't remember that they've ever tasted blood in the first place.

Only Murtha and Sid really start the picking, usually Pearl and Tayler. It started with Tayler, but she started sticking up for herself, so they moved on to Pearl. Pearl is the kindest, and somewhat of a nurturer, so it might be that she puts up with it as long as the others are happy. She was wounded again this morning. I spent 30 minutes cleaning her wounds and bandaging both of her feet. It's difficult to hold a chicken under your arm and clean, treat and bandage her. Not impossible though. The trickiest part is bandaging her talons while allowing enough space between the "toes" for them to spread apart and provide balance. I'm convinced that they have few, if any, feeling or nerves down there, so she stays relatively calm while I hold her and clean her wound. M. Poncelet, Chicken Talon Wrapper. It's all good now.

I took some pictures of the hens, and their bachelorette pad. Steve spent many a weekend and weeknight perfecting the pad as to provide for maximum space, warmth, dryness, dry food, water, a nest and perches (for sleeping). I think they're happy there. They even have a window. Some people spend 40 hours a week with no window. They also have an outside run (about 48 square feet under the deck) where they run around, get all sorts of sunlight and fresh air, and eat dirt. (And a chicken tractor, a moveable house on the grass – mostly for summer.) I love those little hens! They're just so funny. Despite the gore.