Thursday, March 8, 2018

Wing


 It's a simple title for a simple post.



This is Wing. A diminutive rooster born and raised on The Poor Farm. For whatever reason he came directly out of his shell with a broken right ring. See how it hangs low, in the above photo. His siblings denied rough housing and his mother denied taking any drugs or abusing alcohol during his incubation.

The father has never been clearly identified.

We certainly considered a euthanasia approach to this little guy but his spirit was astonishing. he kept up with his family, stayed close to his mother and thrived. As he aged though we noticed his tendency to end up on his back; a balance issue we decided.



Once a larger animal, like one of our massive dogs, brushed against him, he'd get flipped over and be unable to right himself. Again, we considered sending him to the big free-range pasture in the sky. Instead we'd gently use the tip of our boot and "right" him. He'd take off to find his buddies. Perhaps embarrassed that he needed help.




Over time he has become a loner, choosing to hang closer to our two dogs than to his own kind. Chickens are not always so considerate of the handicapped. At times another rooster will pick on him and he ends up on his back again. Oddly the bullying rooster then backs off, not wanting to be the jerk who picks on another rooster when he's down I suppose.

Now, into Wing's third year, it's become routine to have to "right" him once or twice a day. I worry that if he wanders too far and gets himself flipped over where we don't see him,  he'll simply succumb over a few days, but he seems to know to stick close.

He knows the dogs have the best food and prefers to eat with them, so why wander?

12 comments:

  1. Oh, poor thing... Yeah.. If it was getting to be that often that he needed assistance I would consider putting him down, if only that it would be far more humane then all of the other things I would worry could happen. He would be helpless to defend himself. It's tough though, the nice ones do grow on you. Right now my "pet" rooster has some kind of respiratory thing going on (slight bubbly discharge from his eye) and I really am not looking forward to making that call if I have to. Have you had experience with this? When I first got chickens years ago I had a hen come down with (whatever), put the ehole flock on antibiotics for 2 weeks and ended up culling her anyway. Ugh. Here's hoping Nigel just has a bit of dust in his eye.

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    1. No, sorry, can't say I've witnessed the eye issues before. Most of our birds live many years and then we find them just gone. Very few linger I'm happy to say.

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  2. Animal life reflects human life; there are allsorts. Today he might fall over again after the Fat Boy/Trump news!

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    1. Oh how I wish we could train him to fall over dramatically at specific news stories. He'd be the hit of the barn yard.

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  3. this is such a cute story! hang in there wing!

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    1. Tonight while feeding the dogs (and wing) I noticed he was getting a bit chubby. All that extra dog food seems to be working its magic.

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  4. Have you considered trimming back the left wing - reduce some weight? Maybe help w/balance issues?

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  5. He's a handsome boy !
    Thank you for giving him a chance to strut his stuff, he's deserving :)
    He reminds me of Chanticleer.
    ~Jo

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    1. We are attached to him and the dogs are protective of him as well.

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  6. Oh, what a nice post. He is a beauty.

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    Replies
    1. I'll pass that on Rain. His self esteem gets a bit low some days.

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