The Chicken With Nine Lives

This chicken, Bad Girl, is nothing but trouble . . but I still love her! She’s one of three of our original chickens who survived the dog attack. She’s the one who picks on all the other chickens. We’ve put her in every coop, with each batch of chickens, and she is mean to all of them. When they’re all out free ranging, she doesn’t bother them but at dusk, when all the other chickens go back into the coop, Bad Girl heads to a pile of lumber stacked just outside the shop. She sleeps under the pile and she lays her eggs under the pile . . or at least that’s where she lays them most of the time.

For a few nights, we’d chase her down, use the net, catch her and put her in one of the coops but finally we said . . heck with this! She’s mean to the other chickens, she’s going to cause one of us to get hurt trying to chase her down and catch her so . . if she wants to stay in an unsafe spot, so be it.

I get so blasted aggravated with her when she’s picking on the other chickens, but all day, she follows me around . . kinda like Miss Hattie did. If I go into the garden and close the gate behind me, she stands at the gate and squawks til I let her in with me. She won’t get real close to me, and I can’t pet her, but she’s never far from me when I’m outside. I take her scraps or some kind of treat almost every time I go out so when she hears the door open, no matter where she is, she comes running.

Sunday morning, Vince went out the back door to let the chickens out and I went out the front door with Speck. Vince came in and said “I didn’t see Bad Girl!” I knew that was a problem because she’s usually waiting for me at the back door when I go out. We both searched for her, called her, left treats in her special places and she was nowhere to be found.

Vince had just cut the grass so there were not many feathers in the yard but we did find a few of Bad Girl’s feathers. There weren’t massive amounts of feathers but there were enough that we were concerned. Every time we’d find another feather, Vince would think maybe something had dragged her in that direction so he’d go out searching again for her.

By the time it got to be about 5:00, we knew she was gone.

I cried a few tears . . I felt bad because I knew that eventually something was going to get her but I still let her sleep outside.

Sunday evening Vince was outside doing some chores. I was sitting in the living room. I looked out the window and there she was . . walking across the yard. I went running outside to Vince and said “She’s back!”.  We went around front and took her some grain. She was hungry and thirsty.

She didn’t look bad but she was missing a few feathers and had some wounds.

We think what happened was something . . either a fox, coyote, raccoon . . who knows what . . attacked her last night. She got away and hid out in the woods til she felt it was safe to return home. Once it got dark, we caught her and put her in the coop. She will be safe in there . . I’m so glad to have her home but I hope she’s learned her lesson and will go into the coop at night but somehow, I’m not hopeful. We haven’t let any of them loose since Sunday.  We figure whatever is out there that almost had chicken for dinner hasn’t forgotten and will be back.

It’s an ongoing struggle living in the country. Some folks have chickens who are just chickens . . they’re there for eggs and meat and that’s how farm life was probably intended to be. Some of us have them as pets, even though they really aren’t pets but it’s hard to lose one. We’re the ones who probably should have stuck with having a little inside dog and not try to raise chickens with all the bad critters out there wanting a chicken dinner!

One thing this proves:  When I’m scared to go outside at night, Vince always wants to know what I’m afraid of and I tell him “Someone might get me” and he always says “Don’t worry . . they’ll bring you back.” Maybe the chicken was so mean and tough that whatever caught her said . . fine . . go back! You’re way too difficult!  🙂