So, "normal" is a quality to which I have never aspired. However, this time I may have gone too far.
I have given a chicken a bath.
*sigh*
We keep chickens. We like chickens. We started a couple of years ago with a dozen Rhode Island Reds, kept one rooster and all the hens, and put the extra roosters in the freezer. They lay enough eggs to keep us (and most of Madman's relatives) well-supplied.
Last spring we got almost 2 dozen something-or-other-crosses for meat, raised them up all fat & sassy, and put most of them in the freezer by the end of summer. But between chickens & garden produce, the freezer got full. So the last six meat birds got a reprieve. We moved them in with the Reds, and after a little staring-down and adjustments in the pecking-order, everyone was getting along fine.
Until one day last week, that is. I'd noticed one of the meatbirds was looking pretty bedraggled and was always off sitting in a corner by herself. I tried to keep an eye out for her each time I went out to tend them, but it took me a couple of days to realize that she was sitting because she couldn't stand. And since the spots she was sitting were usually under the roosts, she was getting pretty crappy-looking - both literally and figuratively. (Little known fact: chickens poop in their sleep...)
I finally rescued her when I saw that she had been pushed out of the coop into the snow in the chickenyard, and had that hopeless this-is-the-end look in her eye.
So there I was, carrying a cold, wet, covered-in-chickenpoop hen into the house. Of course, the fact that she didn't want to be carried just added to the fun - she was actually a cold, wet, flapping, squawking, extremely slippery, covered-in-chickenpoop hen being carried at arm's-length by a small woman who was starting to regret the rescuing. And the poop.
Let's just say the bath was a real treat... Once she settled down some and stopped the wild oh-my-god!!! flapping (whether because she was exhausted or if she just decided that even if it was the end of the world, at least it was a warm end of the world), things went a little smoother. But I still had to break out a big bottle of disinfectant afterward... And even after two showers (mine, not hers) I still wanted to boil myself.
Here's the after-shot:
Sorry, no before shots - no way was I going to go grab the camera with what I had on my hands...And here she is all dried off. Not quite as pissed-off looking.
One of her problems was a big gash in her side - our rooster is quite... ummm.... vigorous in his attentions to the ladies, and his spurs occasionally cause damage. She's now healing quite nicely, though still pretty unsteady on her feet.Now if we could only do something about the smell.
Housechickens. Don't do it.
