Drama in the high winds and an injury

HW brought in a chick in the morning with a lower body injury.  It didn’t have the use of its left leg, although I couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong.  I wrapped it up while HW held it (a little chicken cast), and then it stretched out and fell asleep.

Even with its head hanging off.

Later on discolouration and swelling let me know it was a broken foot/ankle, and I put a proper splint on it.  Hopefully in a tiny soft boned chick it will fully heal, even if I don’t have it lined up exactly right.

The chick mostly sleeps, rolled to the side with the injured leg up.  It must be in so much pain, but by afternoon it was perky and up on one leg.   It adjusted very rapidly, eating.  I gave it aspirin.    A couple of times a day it cheeps demandingly.  And loud!  I’m just a baby!  I need attention!

I can’t fathom how it hurt itself so bad, just in a cardboard box overnight.  Never had such a thing happen before.

Its siblings are at large in the world.

The wind blew the plywood lid off of Cream Puff’s chickery.  Cream Puff is turning out to be far from a cream puff.  She was always high strung, but with chicks, she’s a monster. She rises up into the air like a bat, attacking, if you reach in (feeding her is fraught), and when irritated (always), she puffs up like a puffer fish, fans out her tail like a turkey, flares her neck, and walks around like a thug.

She was outside her chickery  doing her turkey impression and the chicks were inside, shrieking.  Catching her was out of the question, so I got the bird catching net.  After a failed attempt with that, she was in high gear, extremely agitated and rushing around, as the chicks got louder.

Finally I scooped up all the chicks, popped them into the greenhouse, and left the door open.  She went right in. 

She had about two hours of daylight left to wreak havoc, I figured that would be ok, since she went straight into the tomatoes, and they are too big to kill.  The pepper plants already took a savaging in the morning, when HW accidentally let them in while tending the wounded (they’ll survive, but they got pruned).   

She’s still blimped up, but she had a good time scratching and dust bathing.

This is how you do it kids.

They ended up in a corner for sleep, and I put them back in a chickery at night.