Part 1 -The story of Henny Chesney

We have too many chickens to count. Seriously, I refuse to count because I don’t want to know. If you’ve ever heard of ‘chicken math’ this is part of it.

We do keep track of them so we don’t have any missing, but it’s more like, “Where’s Goliath?” I saw Alfred and Frankenstein (he had a head injury as a chick and the scar is weird) already,” “Have you seen the 3 witches (3 evil Barred Rock hens)?” and making sure there are still four members of the Funky Bunch free-ranging in the pasture.

Since we have so many, there are always issues coming up. And by issues I mean my son frequently finds reasons to sprint from the barn up to the house (a good distance), into the house and find me in my office, all the while holding the chicken in a football position. He does this when he thinks one may be sick or hurt. Most of the time, it’s nothing, but occasionally it’s called for.

Recently he came running into the house with a hen. A Calico Princess who has never liked us. I don’t take it personally, she just doesn’t appreciate humans. But here he is standing in my bedroom with this rude hen. He found her inside one of the horse stalls, laying on her side with other chickens pecking on her. Chickens are savage and will beat you while you’re down until they maim or kill, and then they’ll have a feast (I always tell myself I’d better not fall down and hit my head while alone with the chickens).

So this obnoxious hen is sitting quietly in my son’s arms, in shock from being stepped on by a 16-hand, 1300lb horse, attacked by her former flock mates, and footballed into a house she’d never been inside before. I take a look at her leg and it’s bad. The leg is no longer straight – it’s got a definite bend right in the middle of the lower leg bone, about 2 inches above her foot. There is a small amount of blood, but I can’t be sure it the bone broke through or if it’s from the other chickens pecking at her when she couldn’t move.

Okay, at this point, I know a lot of people would put the chicken down. It’s a chicken, she was free, I have no money in her at this point, she obviously can’t survive with the others now. They’d kill her or she’d get eaten by a predator since he can’t walk. So in the farm world, she’s basically useless other than dinner.

Only I can’t. We’ve had to put chickens down before, some because of illness or injury, that couldn’t be fixed, or for eating purposes. But looking at this hen, seeing there’s nothing wrong with her other than a broken leg, I just can’t.

A lot of it probably stems from the loss of a horse a few months ago. I’ve owned horses for almost 4 decades. I’ve lost one to old age and recently had to make the horrible decision to put one down because of a bad case of colic. It sucked. The worst thing I’ve ever had to experience. He was an awesome horse and I was just getting started on a plan with him. Easy to love, sweet, smart, silly and such a character. He was in perfect health one day and in great pain the next. Being the one responsible for putting one down is tough. I couldn’t give up on this chicken just yet.

Again, it’s January. It’s cold. It’s also now dark and I have no extra pens to put her in. Let’s back this up, I had small pens/cages to put her in, but they’re full of baby chicks that recently hatched. You can’t mix an older hen with little chicks that are new to her because she’ll peck them to death. I know I want to keep her warm and comfortable until I can better assess the leg situation. So into the only safe enclosure I can think of – my glass-enclosed master bathroom shower.

I put a towel under her so she isn’t cold, put food and water so she can easily reach them, because she cannot walk at all.

To my surprise, she laid an egg the next day. If chickens are stressed, they usually won’t lay an egg. I took that as a good sign and got busy on her leg.

I used a metal finger splint to splint her leg. The splint is made of metal with a good foam cushion inside and uses two Velcro straps to keep it together. I had my husband cut the splint a little shorter with a Dremel tool and round the ends so it fit her leg better.

I clean the small wounds with lots of running water (experience with cold-hosing horses for years), some mild soap and a triple antibiotic. I use a piece of gauze for more cushion, got the splint in place and wrap the whole thing in vet wrap to protect her from the metal edges of the finger splint. All she can do it lay down, so I didn’t want the splint digging into her sides.

Since it’s January, the weather decided to finally get cold here in SW Louisiana. By cold, I mean below freezing, which is catastrophic for us down here. It got down to 24 degrees. There’s no way I’m making this hen go outside with this type of injury. So in the shower she stays. Until I or my husband needs to shower, which is daily. My shower preparation isn’t usually a big deal, but now it consists of talking when I walk into the bathroom so I don’t startle her, carefully open the shower door so she doesn’t try to jump up and hurt herself, move her food and water out of the shower, carefully pick her and her towel up and gently place her on the floor of the bathroom. I shower, dry the shower walls and floor, and place her back in along with her food and water.

This goes on for a week. After a week of talking to her every time I walk into the bathroom, she gets a name. I’ve just called her Hen, which evolved into Henny after the 37^th time I walk into the bathroom. Henny Chesney just seems to fit. I think she likes it, but I can’t tell because she barely tolerates attention.

A few days into this ordeal, I find a wire dog kennel that we aren’t using. Much better for Henny and for us. But I keep her in the bathroom because it’s quiet, she’s warm and I can easily change her splint and monitor her leg.

I figure since she can’t balance herself to move the hurt leg, she may be sore. I start giving her a little PT by putting my hand underneath her and supporting all of her weight. This allows her legs to both hang down and stretch. The first time I did this, she immediately gave a nice, good stretch to each leg. She looks at me with that sideways look chickens give, like she was saying, “Thanks, human. I needed that.”

She gets her bandage changed every other day and gets to stretch her legs out for several minutes at least 4-5 times each day.

I think I’m growing on her.