The Chicken With The Velociraptor Claw
If you are friends with me, are on my social media, a family member, or live locally, you have probably heard of our girl Chick Norris. She became a bit famous on my Facebook in her short life. Like I said in my previous blog post, she is the reason I have my Chick Packs. I fell in love with a little yellow differently abled chick with a tiny velociraptor claw at my parents' house and knew I had to give her a good life. I didn't know that in giving her a good life in her short time on earth (most people would have culled her), she was also giving me a good life too.
Chick Norris, aka Chicky Bug, ChickaNorris, Badass, CN (as my momma called her), my A1 Egg Layer, our Garage Guard Chicken was a Cinnamon Queen who became the heart and soul of the Heishman Hen Farm. Who am I kidding...she was the QUEEN of our farm and I was her lowly servant. Even as a chick she was very sweet and personable. She loved to be cuddled and curl up in my lap or up by my neck. She even loved to have her bad foot held. Throughout her life you would often find me out holding her in my lap while I read, played on my phone, or drank my coffee. She became my sounding board and listened to me talk endlessly about my life. Not that she had much choice, but I like to think she enjoyed her second job as my therapist.
In early summer of 2020 we had moved the Chick Pack out to a special coop and run we had made by the fabulous Rick Young who went with my crazy idea of a zero entry coop and even added his own amazing touches like swinging doors and a cute little swing. Going off of an idea by a coop we saw at Orschelns but making it 100 times better and stronger that would last us for years. I highly recommend having a local woodworker build your coop instead of spending the money on a prefab coop at a farm store. Much stronger and will last much longer for about the same cost. Plus it helps out the local's business. I wish I had Ricky build me a few more coops, but unfortunately the world lost him a few years ago and he is very missed. We have used his coop constantly since the first Chick Pack. We quickly outgrew it as a main coop- ever heard of chicken math- but it has been used as our grow out coop and now as our duck coop for our Duck Nuggets.
Having only one good leg, our little CN never could fly so making her a pen in the garage was no issue. A little dog pen, some straw, food and water dishes and she was good to go. We set out to heal her bloody head and hopefully get her back with her sisters quickly. Chickens are social animals and do not like being alone. I hated the thought of Chick being alone in the garage. For small scrapes and cuts we use Hen Healer by Manna Pro on our farm. There is no egg withdrawal and the blue color helps with the pecking. The Hen Healer did a beautiful job of healing CN's head (even though it stained her red feathers a lovely shade of purple until her molt) but the damage was done. The Pecking Order was in place. The Chick Pack saw her as the weakest link and would pick on her as soon as she was placed back in the pen. So CN's career as our Garage Guard Chicken began.
During Chick Norris' almost two years in our garage, she became a bit spoiled. Fall and Winter time meant time in front of the fake fireplace heater we kept in the garage, getting first dibs on the pumpkin scraps as I cut up all the pumpkins our friends brought us after Halloween, and warm meals. Spring and Summer meant cooler temps in the shade of the garage, frequent visits by family members as they went in and out of the garage, and lots of time spent with the new baby chicks as they were raised in the brooder in the garage. We made sure CN never felt alone. Early mornings meant coffee with CN. Restless nights of insomnia for me meant cuddles for her. The dogs enjoyed stopping to visit with her as they went out to the yard. She had a mirror in her pen that she loved laying beside. Even our amazing UPS guy Jayce joked and laughed about her. God only knows the conversations he may have had with CN because she sure sassed him when he opened the garage door to leave our packages inside.
Somehow one summer, Chick Norris developed a respiratory virus that can be very deadly to chickens. I spent all night in the garage with her watching over her. I woke up the next day and put her in her backpack and headed to the vet. Yes, I had a backpack she rode around in. She didn't like it much but it is much easier to put a chicken in this backpack carrier than an actual cat carrier. We got lots of weird looks from the other patients in the vet lobby but we didn't care. All I could think about was making sure our little girl was ok. This particular vet clinic was one I had worked at straight out of college and the vets had to come heckle me about bringing a chicken, especially a one legged chicken, to the vet. I remember Todd asking if I was eating CN one leg at a time. Harland just laughed at me, gave her a big shot, told me to give her an antibiotic drench in her water for seven days, and sent me on my way. No charge. Guess I made quite the impression back in the day, and that day also. Thank goodness our little fighter perked up within a day or two and was back to normal by the time we were done with the meds.
How does a one legged chicken get around you ask? Well she hopped. She didn't stand around like chickens do. She would get up, hop to where she needed to go, then lay down. So as you can imagine, she had some hefty thigh muscles on one leg. We talked often of making her a wheelchair or trying to find someway of making her a prosthetic leg. However we held off too long, and that is a major regret for me. We did end up making her a wheelchair but at that point it was too late in life. After she passed, we took it apart and mailed it to a lady I had met in a chicken Facebook page who rehabilitates chickens in Texas and donated it in CN's honor.
We knew my girl's time was getting close when she didn't want to get up and beg for food or treats, greet us at the edge of her pen, or hop around as much. She spent most of her time laying on her side and only hopped around when she needed to. She still was a fantastic egg layer and laid almost every single day. We also knew from the very beginning of our time with her that she wouldn't live as long as most chickens but we were going to give her the very best life we could. Most people would have never even taken a second look at her.
Two years and three months. That was the time I had with my girl. Every day might not have been fantastic. Some were hard. Every single day with her was a gift. She taught me so many lessons- some about life, patience, and hard work, a lot about chicken keeping, and a little about myself.
We knew the day it was time to let go. I hadn't had to cull a chicken yet. There was no way Lloyd or I could do it. Not this one. We had grown way too close to her. A frantic call to my stepdad had him agreeing to put her down humanely if I was able to make the hour and a half drive to their house with her. However I didn't think I could do it. So my amazing brother in law Les saved the day again, which he has done so many times. As we drove back to our house to bury her, I held her little red lifeless body wrapped in a bag and just lost it. How could I ever repay her for helping me start my life with chickens? For helping me find the life I love? For helping me find happiness in such hard work caring for other living creatures? I buried her near our fence line under Lloyd's purple martin house. As I buried her the sweet smell of milkweed blew through the wind to me and I knew she was ok. That I would be ok. She was walking around on two good legs in heaven.
You never know who you will learn life lessons from. It could be a friend. It could be a stranger. Sometimes it's a differently abled chicken with a velociraptor claw named Chick Norris.
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