Chicken rescue

Just as I was uploading photos to post yesterday something outside the window caught my eye…

Yep that’s one of my chickens way up on the fence…and she was stuck. I was worried how I’d get her back if she went over the fence (and having to go get the girls from school) I decided to entice her with some food. She spotted me and the food and tried to come down… but as feared she went to the wrong the side of the fence….to the yard with two little dogs. There was was lots of squarking, and then silence. In a bit of a panic I remembered I could see that yard from our toilet window upstairs. When I looked out she was lying on her side with the little white dog at her. I thought she was dead and was trying to work out what to do when I heard her again. When I looked out the white dog was holding onto her wing.

 

In a panic now I grabbed my bag (was thankful to flylady that I was wearing my shoes) and raced (and I mean raced) down to Mums to see if she could go get the girls while I got the chicken. In the end she drove me around the house. There was no-one home and the side access was blocked. But Mum and I went over their junk and moved their temporary fence to get through to the back yard. The dogs didn’t care  but there were feathers everywhere. Thankfully the chook had managed to fall down between the fence and retaining wall. Which meant she was safe. Unless she went under the fence where there is another small dog. I had to lie down on the ground and grab her tail feathers and haul her up.

There was a bit of blood and lots of missing feathers but she seemed surprising okay.  I had to be sure though so after collecting the girls and dropping Christy at singing, Mum dropped me back home where I put her in a carrier and took her the vets.

The vet inspected her and found a few puncture wounds but luckily nothing too serious. Two injections – pain relief and an anti-biotic, and a bill for $80, and we were on our way home. We were going to keep her inside overnight but she was really missing her sisters, so we put her straight to bed with them and she seemed much happier. To make sure we can tell her apart easily I painted her nails. We’ll need to seperate her in the morning as we can’t eat her eggs for 4 weeks due to the antibiotics.

So it was a rather eventful afternoon, after a quiet day, and the reason I didn’t get to blogging yesterday.