Big Black the Chicken

It was one of those days.

A crazy, you could never imagine it kind of days.

A frantic phone call, a goat baby is unwell, buy medication on the way home.

Arrive home before the goat arrives. Poor baby. Tetnus - we do all we can.

Struggling for life on the kitchen floor with my husband as doctor. 

I take the kids, mine and theirs, outside to see the animals, lead the horse around, ride bareback. Kid fun on the farm.

My son comes to tell me a chicken is stuck in a watering bowl.

I check a few bowls, I do not see her, then I enter the chicken coop.

There she is, frozen into the water bowl.

She was still alive. Amazing.

I bring her into the house, "As if this day could not be any odder".

I take her upstairs to the shower, while my husband continues to struggle in the kitchen.

Not only were her feathers stuck to the ice - something that had happened to one of our ducks earlier this winter - her feet and legs up to the knees were buried in the ice.

Because my bathtub is out of commission, she had the joy of an extended shower. I tried to aim the water at the bowl only, but she did get quite soggy.

I had to completely melt all the ice to finally get her free.

As those last few bits are melting, I get the news that baby goat has not made it.

I care

fully wrapped Big Black up in a towel, even ran the blow drier on her a bit,  and finally planted her is a box near the space heater.

She survived. She seems to keep up just fine with the rest of my basement chickens. We are hoping to release her and the other adults to the back yard in the next few weeks.