Bumblefoot and joy

“Catch a rooster by the toe” was going to be the title of this post. But it turns out I’ve already used that one. I’ve already caught a rooster by the toe. This led me to ponder my life and why it involves so many rooster toes.

My desk is next to a window overlooking the chicken coop, which I love because watching chickens brings me great joy. Chickens are really quite hilarious. However, it also means I might know too much about their mannerisms. Because of this, I noticed that two of our chickens were limping. One was brown, and one was a rooster.

I caught the brown one immediately, this particular “cohort” (we have 3 cohorts of chicks, now chickens, and Hubs knows each cohort’s definition and thusly calls them by their cohort. It turns out, I am unable to remember which is cohort 1, 2 or 3 and this causes endless confusion). However, this cohort was hand raised by middlest child (as an aside, youngest child used “middlest child” in a sentence yesterday and I deeply support that). Because he was so hands on, they’re much more tolerant and will even let us pet them. I caught the brown one. She did draw blood, so maybe they’re not that friendly. She had, what is known in the industry, as Bumblefoot.

That’s a real word, nay, condition. When a chicken has Bumblefoot, they can die. In fact, here is a list of things from which chickens can die:

Bumblefoot
too much water
too much food
egg stuck in the egg canal
mites
literally anything

Bumblefoot is essentially when a chicken gets a small cut on her foot. Then she stands around in poop all day and it becomes infected. Then she dies.

I captured the chicken. I had to soak her foot in a tub of warm, epsom salt water. I then had to pick a gross scab thing out of the bottom of her foot. Then I applied Neosporin. But NOT Neosporin with “pain relief” because, guess why? If you guessed: they could die, then you are correct. I wrapped the foot in gauze and a bandage and isolated the chicken in an area with a soft, dry ground covering.

I mean, my goodness.

Then I went for the rooster.

We have 3 roosters. One of them is a cohort all his own. His name is Dave. The other 2 are from the same cohort, which I believe is cohort 3. They are named Li’l Dave and Davey. Now, cohort 3 received none of the special attention that the brown chicken’s cohort did. Thusly, there is no catching the cohort 3 rooster. I had to wait until nightfall.

Chickens get real dumb in the dark. It’s an inexplicable phenomenon but you can pretty much do anything to them as soon as the sun sets. One article told me they have terrible night vision so they can’t see you approaching them. Another article said they’re “very deep sleepers.”

There is a reason you don’t see wild chickens in the woods. They would not, I mean, have not, survived to that point. They are purely domestic and even then, the odds are not in their favor.

So I nabbed Li’l Dave and I was pretty worried about my eyes getting pecked out, but again, the sun was down. I took him inside and gave him his little bath, then I picked away the scabs on his feet, bandaged him up and put him in a comfy, soft coop all his own.

Don’t his little thumbs kind of look like ET’s finger?

He’s also my favorite rooster because look how pretty his head feathers are! They’re golden locks. Both chickens are doing pretty well at this point. The brown hen is still limping a little so I probably need to snag her again and rebandage. Li’l Dave is still rocking his bandages, you’re supposed to do the bath and redress the wounds several times per day. That’s not really my style, I’m more of a crockpot chicken tender, set it and forget it.

Here is the brown hen, mid process. The same friend who smelled my dog for skunk showed up during the bath and when I saw her I said, “I’m so glad you’re here, come look at this chicken foot.”

I suppose if an egg is this big, it’s a little more understandable why it might result in death…