Learn About Our Special Animals
Meet Mystery, a Brown Leghorn. I have so many questions for Mystery. How old are you? Where did you come from? How did you get there? How long did you roam the land before I found you? How did you stay alive? I will never know these answers as they will forever be, well, a mystery.
On 9 April of this year, I was driving home and came to the corner of Spangler and Haddix Rd. I slow down to turn, and there’s a chicken beside the road. There’s not much there. Mr. Brentlinger lives on one corner, but he doesn’t have chickens. There’s not another house for at least a half mile. People sometimes dump roosters in the country, but I could tell this was a hen, so it struck me as odd. Chickens love safety, food, and water, so they don’t roam very far from their home.
I was curious, so I pulled over. Was she OK? Were there others? Could I catch her and give her a nice home? The first picture is one I sent Andrea. If you’re going to bring home a chicken, it’s wise to warn the wife! I had no net to catch her and no snacks to lure her, except for an old fortune cookie in the car. She didn’t care for the cookie, but I slowly followed her until she let me catch her. She was light and didn’t struggle. Her comb was pale and she had some infection between her toes. I put her on my lap and we drove home. She seemed happy.
At the farm, we took her to our “infirmary” in the back of the coop. We treated her for mites, cleaned the infection, and gave her as much food and water as she wanted. To help determine a chicken’s age, we look at legs, comb, and eyes. Her legs were smooth and light, meaning young. Her eyes were bright and unwrinkled, meaning young. Her comb was very pale, meaning old or lack of nutrition. So how old was she? I have no idea, but I’d guess 1 or 2 years old. She definitely needed some good food.
She earned the name Mystery, and we kept her in the back so she could eat as much as she wanted without interruption. When we fed the rabbits some fresh greens, we dropped some on the ground. Mystery sprinted over to eat it. I believe she spent quite a while roaming and eating vegetation, which became her favorite treat. She didn’t initially care for chicken feed or corn, but eventually filled her crop. If she roamed alone for a long time, how did she stay alive with predators at every turn? Or perhaps there were others that didn’t fare so well.
Despite her apparent youth and it being spring, Mystery didn’t lay eggs. That confirmed the lack of nutrition. A young hen lays an egg when everything else is taken care of (food, water, safety, health). But after a few weeks of recovery, she started laying! She would sing the egg song and lay a beautiful white egg. Her comb became a much darker pink, almost red. She was recovering!
Mystery still prefers to stay in the infirmary, as she feels comfortable there. That’s OK. She occasionally goes outside, but in the evening, she’s waiting at the door to get back in. If you take a tour, you’ll see her when you visit the main coop.
I’m glad the chickens can’t talk or they’d all be yelling for more snacks. But I wish I could talk to Mystery for just a few minutes. I’m sure she has many interesting tales to tell.
