This morning I observed a female cardinal methodically shredding the leaves off one of my tomato plants. I've always liked cardinals, with thier fierce parenting and beautiful colors, and distinctive territorial yelling, but an encounter couple weeks ago has left me sour. I came across a male cardinal lying in the sand on the road in front of the Sanctuary. He seemed to have an injured wing, but when I reached for him he glared so balefully I almost chickened out. It's just a little bird, I coached myself, and picked him up, trying to hold him securely without squeezing his injury. I figured I would try to take him to the wildlife care folks in the morning. Then he bit me. That beak, that pretty, stubby orange beak? It's a wicked, sharp, steely pincer, and it was clamped deep in the web between my thumb and forefinger. I wasn't able to pull free--I had to literally pry him off me.
I took another two steps before he struck again, this time unerringly grabbing hold of a scar on my thumb. When I was 15, I reached for a paintbrush and instead impaled my thumb through and through on an Exact-o blade; somehow, when the resulting wound was stitched up, some bit of nerve or tendon was sewn right into the scar. It's a bit sensitive. Mr. Bitey McRedbird smacked down on that scar like an Inquistion priest with pliers. When I got him off--and it was not easy to do that calmly--I dropped him. He scarpered into the brush, where I tried, but couldn't nab him again.
So I have a new respect for cardinals, and their pretty, wicked orange beaks, and this one was going to town with savage precision on my tomato vines. So on my morning scrounge for something edible in the yard (9 marble sized potatoes, a handful of sweet potato greens, some basil, 6 hot peppers, and two eggs--breakfast!) I checked it out. there was nothing but bare stem where the bird had been, but on the leaves below, I found the tell-tale bug apples, the amazingly large scat of the tomato hornworm. One might even say fewmets: when those caterpillars get going they get gigantic. Some of those poops were bigger than my sadly stunted potato harvest. I picked off a few more, all I could find, and fed them to the chickens. Audrey, second generation Sanctuary survivor chicken, is the only one who gets the concept of me throwing her bugs, and she was busy laying my breakfast egg at the time, so I had to coach Ghostface and Port; Binky just watched me with his steely orange gaze, but I'm not fooled: I remember when he was a poop-bound little runt, built like a bundle of twigs, that I had to secretly handfeed so he'd get anything to eat at all. I think this is why he still loves me.)
Over the weekend, we got the news that one of the eggs we traded for the two Black Stars is hatching. It was Audrey's egg, so it will be the third generation Survivor chicken. I just really, really hope it's a hen....
Yesterday the smaller of the new hens refused to stand up and leave the coop. When I went in to get her, her buddy aggressively defended her: it's no good, getting seriously attacked by a big chicken. She took a couple divots out of my calf. Jordan says it's my own fault for chicken wrangling with no clothes on, but it was early in the morning. Too early to get dressed. Anyway, now I know how I got that oddly square black bruise behind my knee last week, since Yang freshened it up for me. I'm so grateful for Jordan's animal training now. He was able to determine that though the leg seemed injured, it wasn't fractured. Her foot was properly warm, and had good strong grip. We theorize that she fell off the perch in a scuffle--these two haven't integrated yet, and no small wonder if this is how Yang treats friendly overtures, like rescues--and maybe banged herself on the rebar the feeder hangs from. We set her up in one of the cages for a little R&R, and when I put some food down she got pretty excited about it, always a good sign--a chicken that won't eat is at death's door. Last night we put Yang in with her for company, and when I checked on them this morning, they were chumbling comfortably to each other and moving about. Ying stood up on both feet and hobbled a few steps.
I know people who would have rushed the bird to a vet and sunk whatever funds were necessary into x-rays, drugs, even surgery. I know a woman whose chicken was savaged by a dog; she spent $600, and the bird died anyway. And this was not a rich woman, by any means. I know someone who is unemployed and near eviction, with no savings, who spent more than her month's rent (borrowed money) on an 8-year old rat with cancer. Frankly, Jordan and I won't do that. We will of course take common sense, good husbandry steps to diagnose and treat anything we can, with whatever means are at our disposal. Not unlike we do for ourselves! We love our chickens, and take good care of them, but our resources are limited, and honestly, I've had a lot of chickens come and go in my life. They don't live forever. Accidents happen, illness happens--though very rarely, if the animal is well cared for. There are possums, foxes, hawks, stray dogs, hurricanes. Once a board fell on a hen (Jade, a black sex-link) breaking her neck and pinning her to the ground. It took me most of a day to find her, and she was still alive until I lifted the board and she moved her head--very sad.
On the other hand, chickens are tough. I've seen them recover from dog attacks, being savaged by a rooster, and bronchitis. Given a chance to rest, eat, and drink, protected from infection, they can pull through pretty sever injuries. At any rate, Ying is looking much improved today and I think she will make a full recovery...and we still have enough money in the bank to pay the mortgage, so the rest of our residents will not become homeless. Win/win.
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