I Just About Had A Major Freak Out

Really, I just about had a complete freak out panic attack meltdown a few minutes ago. Thankfully I was able to avoid it. I just looked out my kitchen window and saw a dead chicken. But it wasn't really dead. Thank goodness. But I swear it was. This is what happened.

Yesterday we were gone. My neighbor Lori called me and said, "You're not home, are you?" And I said, "No, why?" She went on to explain that one of our chickens just got attacked really bad by a dog.

You see, we have a trail that runs the length of one side of our property. And people use it all day long. A lot of people walk their dogs on the trail and very rarely do they have their dog on a leash. I always have dogs in my yard. And they always run up to my chickens and sometimes it is really hard for the owners to get them away from the chickens. But I have never seen one actually hurt a chicken.

I have to be honest and say it really freaks me out because I have a 4 year old who plays outside and if a dog comes into our yard, she is going to run up to it and try to play with it. And I kinda have this thing about her around dogs. I freak out when she is around them, because she got hurt really bad by one last December.

So my neighbor, Lori, she is one brave chick! She saw the dog attack the chicken yesterday. And she saw the owner get the dog and start to take off without even checking to see if the chicken was OK. And she went over and gave him a piece of her mind! (This is the same lady who has the trail going down the side and behind her house also and one day as her family sat around the dinner table, they watched a leashless dog murder their cat while the owners of the dog looked on) And she checked on the chicken to make sure it was OK. This is what we came home to, a ton of feathers everywhere:

The chicken was pretty shell shocked. It wouldn't come out of the coop the rest of the night. There was no blood or anything, thankfully, just a lot of missing feathers.

And Aubrey, our little chicken lover went out to hold her. It is Zac's chicken, Chikenzilla, who got hurt. Usually this chicken doesn't ever want to be held and will fight to get away from the kids, but last night she just sat still and let Aubrey hold her. And she kept her eyes closed the whole time.

Anyway. Back to the dead chicken part of the story. I let the ladies out of their coop this morning and they all seemed fine. I have been gone all day. I got home, looked out, saw all four chickens sitting in the shade. Then I looked out about half an hour later and there was a dead chicken! It looked as if it had just fallen right over face first in the dirt, with it's leg sticking up at an odd angle. I have never seen a chicken look like that before. I really didn't want it to be dead, so I sat and watched for a few minutes. The more time that went by without movement, the more freaked out I became. Freaked out because I knew I would have to do something about it before the kids got home from school. And I didn't want to touch it.

Then I reminded myself that just a few weeks ago, I went over to my neighbors house (the ones we got the chickens from) and I skinned and gutted 2 chickens with my own bare hands. And I was all like, "Oh wait, there's still a lung in here...*rip*....got it!" Then I brought them home and cooked them and served them for dinner. I didn't tell anyone until after they were all done eating. And they all started freaking out. I was like, "HEY! Every time you have ever eaten chicken before in you whole life, it has been killed by someone!"

So I couldn't understand why now, with the prospect of having to remove a dead chicken from my yard, I was all about to have a nervous breakdown. So I gathered up every ounce of courage I had and walked out the back door to see about removal. But you know what? As soon as I opened the door, the dead chicken hopped right up and ran over to me! YAY! SHE'S ALIVE! I don't think she is all well and whole. But she IS alive.