survival
3 stories filed under survival on Alektorophobia. The newest of them: “A hen's cluck-tastic fight for life proves motherly fowl play is no joke”, “Heatwave hen-xiety: New mama's nest traps chicks from food and water”, and “Cluck-tastic news? No, this is a feathery emergency: help needed now.”. I watched a hen use her last breath for her babies, and I'm not okay. Oh, the irony. Chickens. Everything there is to know about chickens and the fear of them. The list below is every survival story on Alektorophobia, newest first.
A hen's cluck-tastic fight for life proves motherly fowl play is no joke
I watched a hen use her last breath for her babies, and I'm not okay. A lost dog attacked a mother chicken and her chicks in someone's backyard. The dog bit her, she went down, and everyone assumed she was dead. But when they went to bury her, she was still breathing. They brought her inside, treated a single bite wound, gave her water, and she started making chicken noises again. She seemed to be recovering. Then her human decided she needed to see her chicks, so they brought her outside. She could barely stand, but she ran to them. She stayed one more night keeping them warm. She died the next morning. That's not weakness, that's pure, fowl-play-defying love.
Heatwave hen-xiety: New mama's nest traps chicks from food and water
Oh, the irony. A new mama hen, so dedicated to keeping her chicks safe that she's accidentally turned her nest into a heatwave prison. Talk about a cluck-tastic case of good intentions gone wrong. This poor mama is literally trapping her babies away from the food and water they desperately need, and in this heat, that's no joke. It's the kind of fowl play that makes you laugh nervously while your heart breaks a little. We've seen stubborn birds before, like that Muscovy duck we covered in "My Muscovy's a flight risk: and a feathered food thief", but this feels different. This is love gone haywire. Anyone else's hens pull a stunt like this when the mercury rises?
Cluck-tastic news? No, this is a feathery emergency: help needed now.
Oh, my heart is absolutely breaking for this little hen. She's a fighter, that's for sure, if she's still standing and walking around after having her poor head that roughed up. You've got to give her credit for that stubborn spark, even while the rest of us would be chickening out just looking at the photo you described. Listen, when a bird has that kind of exposed tissue, the risk of infection is immediate and brutal. It's not about being brave here; it's about being kind. If she's eating, drinking, and alert, there's a small window to help. But if she starts to fade, or if you see any swelling, you owe it to her to end her suffering.