Diary of a Mad Chicken

Diary of a mad chicken:

Due to Dixie's continuing vertigo and impaired depth perception, you'll have to settle for my version of events.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Out of quarantine but still in protective custody. Dixie is allowed free time on the patio to interact with the other chickens with minimal supervision. That means we check on her occasionally to make sure she isn't being pecked to death. After about an hour, Chuck looks outside and screams, "(Expletive)! We have a chicken in the pool!"

Sure enough, Dixie is doing the chicken paddle in the middle of the pool. Chuck runs to the edge, squats down, and starts calling her. "Here Dixie...Follow the sound of my voice...That's right...Keep coming...Follow my voice." I'll be damned if she doesn't follow the sound of his voice all the way to the edge of the pool to be scooped out. She spends the next hour wrapped in a towel shivering and crying but comes out of it okay. No harm, no fowl death.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Continues with more heavily supervised visits with other chickens. These encounters require diligent human supervision with frequent intervention, as the others chickens will threaten and peck causing Dixie to squawk and spin around in circles.

I'm sitting out on Bette's bench drinking a beer and watching the chickens. I notice that three of the new teenagers are starting to get little buds on their legs. Crap. Three more roosters. Double crap, Dixie has the same buds.

Apparently Jim was onto something when he suggested the name Lowell.

Thursday, October 2. 2008

Dixie (hard to think of her/him as anything but now) is rapidly outgrowing and more rapidly beginning to resent the rabbit cage. At about 10:00 a.m., Vic decides that she (he, dammit) will be happier hanging out under the bench and tree while all the other chickens are in the back four. When she goes to check on Dixie about an hour later, he is gone. Gone without a trace. Not one feather left behind.

Being terribly upset, Vic calls Chuck who rushes home from work to try and figure out what happened to Dixie. They search the property. They try to get Small to track her (him, dammit). They stand very still and listen very carefully trying to hear a faint cheep. Nothing.

Chuck spends the afternoon composing a fairy tale to tell me when I get home. That happens at 4:00 and we have this exchange:

Chuck: Dixie went to lunch and fell in with a bad crowd and hasn't come back.
Me: What do you mean? Where is she?
Chuck: Well...We don't know?
Me: Did someone EAT her for lunch?
Chuck: Maybe.
Me: Who? Was it one of the dogs?
Chuck: No. We looked everywhere. There's no sign. No feathers or anything.
Me: (Looking out into the pasture at something distant and white) Did you look over there? Is that her?
Chuck: No. That's a rock.

So, I go into the house and Vic and I are talking about it when she looks up and sees Chuck walking across the pasture holding Dixie.

He found him calmly standing in the shade under a tree.

Holy crap.

Love from Spring Branch,

Robin