Our chicken flock suffers from too many roosters. This sorry state resulted from Lil’ Blackie becoming broody late in the season, which meant her chicks didn’t show secondary sex features until it was too cold to harvest them. Of her five chicks (all Giant White/Light Brahma mixes) three were male. We already had two roosters: the Giant White (named Mr. Whitey, because his only accomplishment was being a good caretaker) and a Barred Rock (named Roger, because that is who he is). A fox or bobcat relieved us of one extra GiWhAhma rooster, and the other two seemed to be getting along well enough with everyone else. As they all are somewhat indistinguishable, we’ve just been calling them the GiWhAhmas. Until yesterday.

Fallen feathers and what looked like blood, but was a bit of leaf.

Michael took advantage of the sunshine and 20° weather to open up the coops and clean them. That meant shooing out the birds. He noticed some real drops of blood on the ice that accumulated in the chicken coop and the absence of a GiWhAhma rooster. On his way to the used straw heap, he noticed the feathers in the snow. This is when he called me in to track down what happed to the rooster. Michael figured he got chased out of the coop and then eaten by a predator. The question really was: owl, eagle, bobcat or fox? I went to the last sign of feathers. No tracks. No blood. No trail. Then something caught the corner of my eye.

The poor boy ran away and found a place he couldn’t be attacked. He also couldn’t get out. How he got in upside down I’ll never know.

I tried kneeling next to him and easing him up and out, but didn’t have enough up space to make that possible. The next step was to dig him out.

These picket fence pieces got stored behind the pistol backstop long ago. Other boards got tossed on the ground back there as well. Digging out the fencing became a journey of discovery.

Finally, sufficient flexibility to free the chicken.

Michael believes that chickens earn individual names through doing individual things. This no longer is an anonymous GiWhAhma, but Hector: he who was defeated in battle and dragged around the block. The classical Hector also died a violent death, which might happen to this guy as well, but not this day.

This day he got to sit in the sunshine and eat raisins until I was satisfied he hadn’t broken any bones and could get by on his own again. The fact that he let me hold him at all means he was pretty shaken up. The biddies raised by Lil’ Blackie are … — This day he got to sit in the sunshine and eat raisins until I was satisfied he hadn’t broken any bones and could get by on his own again. The fact that he let me hold him at all means he was pretty shaken up. The biddies raised by Lil’ Blackie are more skittish than our incubated chicks.

Hector went back into the coop last night. He seemed fine this morning. I do admit to being quite happy to have rescued him, as long as Michael doesn’t start calling me Hecuba. We may have to consider renaming Lil’ Blackie though. I credit her mothering skills with his survival. I do hope she raises another brood for us this year…just early enough to cull the excess roosters before they earn a name!