There is always Hope

I am a crazy chicken lady.

My husband grew up on a farm.  I grew up in the suburbs.  When we met, and he told me his family were all farmers, I thought he was kidding.  I was the kind of clueless idiot who thought all our food today was grown on commercial farms, owned by Simplot or Green Giant, and that there weren't really people who did "farming" anymore, unless they were working for some big company.

So when Whit asked me about three years ago to get chicks around Easter, I thought he was nuts.  He was so adamant about it, and reassured me that the kids would love them.  He told me that he would do everything, that they're super easy, and that I wouldn't have to do a thing.

The kids did love them.

That was the only thing he said that turned out to be true.  They were in a box in our garage and they made big messes.  They pooped in their water, they scratched and ate and drank and made messes and pooped and pooped and pooped more.  Did I mention the poop? Then they ate and pooped enough that they grew pretty big and they were hopping out of their stinky box and wandering around pooping in the garage.  I had cleaned the box to the best of my abilities, but they needed a bigger box.  And the coop I ordered never came, so I tried to go buy one at the store, but the season had passed and they didn't have them anymore! Crisis!  On Whit's next day off, Whit and I spent the whole day getting stuff, building a coop and painting it.  This was pretty much the opposite of what I had been promised, and I was not super happy about it.

Egads they were messy and I worried and worried and worried about them.  It was cold, it was rainy, so I was outside putting heat lamps and changing the coop shavings and buying them special supplemental foods and taking them scraps and putting up fabric to block the rain.  (I did get over that.  I mean, a chicken's gonna get wet.)

But then on my birthday, disaster struck.  They'd been laying for a month or so when an opossum found them.  And killed my favorite one!  Did I mention this happened on my birthday??  I was so sad to lose Trip and I really didn't want to lose anymore, but then the opossum got another, and a dog got two more.  I was down to just three.  I did what any sane person would do--I bought more!

This was the first step on my descent down to crazy chicken lady-ness.

It was not my last.

So I bought TEN more chicks.  Because I loved the first seven.  But first, I secured my coop from predators.  I prepared a room and a heat lamp and a space for the chicks.  I took way better care of these little guys.

I still lost two to hawks when I let them out too early.

But the worst, the lowest moment of my chicken parenting was the night of the raccoon.  I had a little four month old puppy who weighed about 2.5 pounds.  We went out to lock up the chickens for the night at dusk and I could just make out the shape of a raccoon ahead of me.  My puppy went charging for it, and I called Foxy back because I knew the raccoon could end her.  I shouted and waved and the big old raccoon ran up into a tree.

I kept walking and found that the chickens, instead of being holed up in the coop, were in complete disarray.  All over the yard.  The raccoon had already killed one, Whitney's (my husband's) favorite one.  I found another one huddled at the far end of the coop.  I couldn't get her to move, or come to me.  It was one of the young ones, and I locked the rest in before going to get her.  I couldn't make out much outside but she wasn't moving at all.  I was worried she might be dead.

I carried her inside and she still wouldn't move.  I could see why in the light.  See, raccoons like to eat chicken's heads.  If they have several around, they will ONLY eat the head before they move on to another chicken head.  (Delightful, right?) I interrupted the raccoon, so it hadn't really eaten this one, just gnawed on it.  Both eyes had been mangled beyond repair, and I was heartbroken.

Whitney offered to wring it's neck.  He told me it was really the only thing to do.

I just could not let him do it. I googled what to do and found out it was in shock.  I got antibiotics and put them in its water.  I pushed its beak down and made it drink.  It would not move otherwise.  I put it in a box and kept it inside, since it was March and it is vital to keep a chicken in shock warm.  Foxy was beside herself, but we put her far enough away that she would leave the chicken alone.

The injured chicken stank.  By the next day it was way worse.  She would not eat.  Nothing.  She wouldn't move.  I kept making her drink at intervals all day.  When I went outside that day, I discovered the darn raccoon had eaten another chicken.  I spent a lot of time re-securing the coop.  I was beside myself.  I went out and bought this kind of expensive spray-on antibiotic and Whitney helped me clean the wounds on her eyes as well as we could.  We put neosporin on them and later I used the spray like clockwork.

She still would not eat.

Although her eyes looked better and better, she would not eat, even a bit, despite my best efforts.  By day three, the internet said that if she didn't eat she would die.  I had read a lot on blind chickens and I knew that if the rest of the flock helped her, she could survive.  The odds weren't good, but it had happened.  The blind chicken could follow the sounds of the other chickens to find the food and eat the grain.  I thought maybe she would eat in her old surroundings, so I took her outside. She perked up right away and I was so hopeful.

The second I stepped away, she felt my absence and hunkered down.  I was delighted to see her sisters/friends come running over.  Then they reached her and immediately began pecking at her injured eyes.  I was crushed.  I can't tell you how much it upset me, to see her friends, her family, trying to tear at her when she was down.  I cried and cried, so concerned for this little chicken who I had been trying to help (all to no avail) for three days. I can't tell you how many times people suggested I put her down, or let her die.  They told me that I was prolonging the inevitable.  She was in pain.  She was miserable.  Stop trying and let her go.

I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't let her die.  So I read about force feeding chickens.  I read about how they have this little area where their food goes before it goes to their stomach and you don't want to overfeed them or it will burst and they'll die.  Small frequent meals, then.  Whit helped me at first.  I tried to feed her alone and could not get her to eat anything.  She squirmed and flailed and turned away and I made a huge mess.  I was trying with yogurt, which they say is the thing to kick start a gut when it's been going hungry.  We were on day three, the make or break day.  If she didn't eat she would die on her own.

With Whit's help (he's unfailingly supportive, even when he thinks I am being crazy) I fed her.  Then an hour later, we fed her again.  Then an hour later.  Whit made me go to bed after that third feeding.  I wanted to feed her through the night.  After all, we were on day three.  How much was enough to save her??

We did the same thing the next day, but Whit came up with a way to shove her down in the sink so one person could feed her and water her alone.  We gave her a bath and cleaned her eyes again so they didn't stink so bad and a small miracle--one of her eyes was THERE!! I had so much hope.

So that day, she started eating by force and she had an eye.  I started to really hope (for the first time) that she might live.  I told the kids I hoped she could make it.  They would say, "is she gonna die?" and I would say, "I sure hope not."  Eli and Dora started to say "we hope she lives.  We sure hope so."  And Emmy picked up the refrain and began calling her Hope.

Each day I force fed Hope and I put her outside whenever it was nice, but in a pen so no dogs, cats or other chickens could harm her.  They all wanted to.  She was so scared she would hardly move.  I also think she was adjusting to the loss of one eye.  We still don't know exactly how well her "good eye" works.  During those days, she would not eat a single thing I did not force on her.  She would not drink a single thing without me forcing her.  We were at day 11 and she was eating grain, watermelon, yogurt, bread, greens, and on and on, but she still she had not eaten or drunk a single thing without my help.

The problem was that in two days, I was leaving to go to Moses Lake Washington to visit Whit's family.  I had no choice but to dump her into the coop with the rest of the flock to pick her to death or for her to starve because she couldn't eat alone.  I was so scared for her.  I felt sick.

I had asked my mom over the phone if she wanted to take her and feed her and my mom laughed.  My mom had grown up on a mini-farm and she said the same thing everyone else did.  "At some point she has to either reintegrate or die."

"No chance you want to take her to your house?  Have a pet chicken??"

My mom laughed.

And then she came to get Eli's fish the night before we left.  She saw Hope, eating now from my hand without force.  She would not eat on her own, but she loved me.  She would open her beak up for me to feed her.  She never ever tried to get out of her little box.  She let me carry her around like a lapdog.  She loved me and I loved her.  Her eye was getting better.  She didn't stink anymore.

My mom, with her heart the size of Texas, could not resist.  "Oh give me her stuff," she said.  "I'll take her with me."

I will not bother with the rest of the story, since this is already super duper long, but let's just say that Hope survived, one eyed and all.  You would never know she only has one eye unless you looked close, and she still thinks she's part of the family.  She loves kids, she loves people and the only thing she would ever do to hurt someone is peck at their toes if you have a flower on them, because she loves little yellow flowers.  Tasty.

She will jump up in the air to get a treat, she lays a beautiful brown egg, and she is the sweetest, kindest chicken you've ever seen.

There were many moments, many hours, many days and yes, even weeks, when I thought she would not survive.  I had a baby, a puppy, twelve other chickens plagued by a persistent raccoon, a husband and three other kids and it was very very very hard for me to care for little Hope.  I am so glad that I did.

In our lives, there will be many such times, times where we feel like giving up.  Times where people are telling us we are stupid to keep trying.  There will even be times when our family and friends try to tear us down.  Satan wants you to give up in those hard moments.  He wants you to give in.  He wants you to throw in the towel and by the way, he's the one behind you telling you to pick at those family and friends who are down.

I am here to tell you the following:

DO NOT GIVE UP.  HAVE HOPE.

If you do, you never know how good things can get.  Even with one eye, life is pretty good.  God loves you and he has a plan for you.  It's a plan you can't see, and it's a plan you can't predict, and that makes it so hard to have hope, to have faith that it's there.  But it is.

If a little bitty three pound chicken can do it, so can you.  And when I say your Father in Heaven loves you more than He loves that little chicken, you should believe me, because it's true.  He has so much beauty and joy in store for you that you can't even take it all in right now, and you can't comprehend it's magnitude.  Just have a little hope and keep on going. Your good times are right around the corner, I promise.