I've had to employ my chicken first aid skills twice in the last week, thanks to attacks on the babies by their aunties. The first one happened last Sunday, when Shawn let all 4 out to roam around. They had been fine with each other over the last couple weeks, so we gave it a shot. Several hours later, he found the babies hiding in their coop, with Pearl's comb all torn up. Since we weren't able to see what happened, we were hoping that maybe she just ripped it on something like Abby did a while back. I cleaned it up with some hydrogen peroxide, slapped on some Neosporin, and she was healing nicely.
Until yesterday.
I decided to give playtime another shot yesterday, since I would be outside with them as I watered the garden and stuff. Things we going fine for a while, and they were all ignoring each other. What got my attention was Frannie standing in the middle of the lawn, by herself, doing her agitated growling noise. I looked up to find no one around. When I went around to where the chicken coops were, I found Abby in the babies' chicken run, and the babies in their coop, Pearl's comb re-torn, but with about twice as much blood dripping down her face. (sigh.) You can tell that Abby cornered Pearl in the corner of the run because it looks like a murder scene with blood in the ground and the posts.
I put Abby in timeout, rescued the babies and cleaned up the wound the same way, but it doesn't look as good as it did last time. I hope she's ok.
Nonetheless, the big ladies are in a timeout today, and the babies get free range of the yard. We're mad at Abby.
And here's Nikolai enjoying our 78 minutes of summer.
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| What. A. Stud. |
that is some serious chicken drama!!
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