Shelter Chickens

Remember Penny the former house chicken?  We picked her up at the local shelter.  She was raised in someone's house and never saw other chickens before.  She knew only people.  Her owner couldn't keep her and dropped her off at the shelter, where we found and rescued her. The shelter calls us permanent foster parents.

Penny's doing great.  She immediately started laying eggs in the chicken coop and has laid an egg a day every day since.  She gets along great with all the other chickens.  I am surprised how well she fits in.  But she still prefers to be in the house rather than outside in the chicken pen. 

Whenever she sees me in the chicken pen she runs to me, hoping I will pick her up and take her inside the human house.  She tries to escape from the chicken pen whenever anyone opens the gate, which is really annoying.  I take her inside the house when I can and lock her in the kitchen.  I usually take her in when I'm cooking dinner so I can keep an eye on her.  She likes the TV to be on.  She is totally happy in the kitchen.  Silly bird.  She runs when I attempt to catch her in the kitchen to take her back outside again.  Poor hen thinks she's a human stuck in a chicken's body.

Penny loves to eat from the cat bowls and drink from the cat fountain.  She always spills the dry catfood all over the floor.  I'm very happy with her, she was totally healthy, is young and vibrant ~ less than a year old, has no medical problems or mite issues.  We told the shelter we were only going to accept healthy birds.  But I guess every bird that comes from the shelter is going to have a unique story and a unique personality.

 

And so, on Saturday we welcomed our next shelter hen.

I haven't named her yet.  She and a rooster were caught wandering the streets of Washington DC!  I didn't take the rooster, sadly, as I don't need any more roosters.  She's a huge bird - she must weigh approximately 20 pounds.  She's way overweight.  She hardly can walk she's so fat.  To me it looks like she was caged in a small area and was never allowed to walk around.  The rooster was caged with her, as she had evident signs of feather loss from mating with a rooster.  The rooster looked like a Rhode Island Red.  I don't know what she looks like.  Then her owners must have let the two chickens free for some reason.  Maybe they couldn't keep them anymore.  And so two chickens were found wandering the city streets.

 

So this poor hen and her rooster lived in a tiny pen in the city and were not able to walk around.  I 'm guessing someone got her for her eggs.  They fed her well, but who knows what they fed her.  I think she's over a year old.  But she was in the shelter for a week and didn't lay any eggs for that week.

She doesn't know how to sit on a roost, I think she's too heavy to balance herself.  She likes to sit on the floor.  She doesn't know how to drink from a chicken waterer and she hasn't eaten any chicken food, although she did eat some scratch grain.  I bet she was only fed table scraps.  They don't have many chicken feed stores in the city.  She's being kept in our infirmary coop for a few days and is being watched.  She has a window where she can look out and see the other birds; she really wants to be outside with the other birds.  She appears to be healthy, she doesn't have any mites and appears to be breathing fine.  I'm concerned that when we let her loose with the other chickens that they will pick on her and she will not be able to run away because she's too slow.  So she's on a diet.
 

I'll let you know what I name her... 

Every shelter chicken has a story, and this hen is quite different from the last one. 

They now have two roosters in my local shelter - one is this hen's mate, and the other is a lean black rooster.  The gal the works at the shelter told me they thought the black rooster was a fighting cock.  It was insinuated that he was going to be put down because he was a fighter.  I looked at him - he was young and scared to death, but he had no signs of ever fighting.  Maybe he was born to fight, but that rooster never fought.  People don't understand animals sometimes.  I entered his cage (the chicken cages are large pens in which a person can walk) and attempted to pick him up.  The girl looked at me like I was crazy.  The rooster was terrified of me, but he certainly didn't attempt to attack me.  I caught him and held him in my arms and pet his wattle and his head and within minutes he totally calmed down and fell asleep in my arms.  He was just scared to death before.  When he stopped being scared he was a great bird.  He woke up and nuzzled me.  I wondered if he was someone's pet at one time.  I showed the shelter employee that he was a lovebug.  If I needed a rooster I would take him in a heartbeat.  I bet he'd make a great flock leader.  But alas, I have 2 roosters already, which is perfect for my flock.  I kissed him on the head and put him down on the floor and he cuddled up and continued to sleep.  So sad that he is homeless.

As I left the shelter with the new chicken I purposely didn't even look at any of the other animals there.  If I saw them I'd probably fall in love with all of them.