Well, she has done it again. Magic the hen has hurt her right leg to the point that she can’t move around well. We seem to be in a cycle. She hurts her leg, heals enough that the limp goes away, then hurts it again. I think she feels better, then goes and jumps off a high perch. Maybe. Anyway, the first time I isolated her with food and water. That didn’t do much but make her lonely, so now I just make sure I go out twice a day to see that she eats and gets water. We have a routine: I carry her out for distribution of grubblies, then we go over to the food bin, then to the outside water, then back to the waterer inside the coop. She tells me when she is ready for a station change by clucking and looking around. As long as I catch her wings when I pick her up, she is calm and lets me help her gain her balance when I put her down. I am a chicken minion.

I think she quite likes the pampering. I keep the rest of the chickens away while she eats. She can get around a little on her own, and somehow manages to get up to the perch every night. I did make a ramp of shavings so she doesn’t have to launch herself far, and the perch is only about 18” tall without mulch. I think it might be a tendon thing, or maybe I’m just thinking of my own healing tendon. Since the chickens are in laying mode I should be going out twice a day anyway to gather eggs so I have less of a chance of one going broody, so it really isn’t intensive nursing.

The temperature is dropping, the wind is blowing, and the flock is huddled in a feathery ball in the outside run. Huh.

The coop is open, and draft-free, just in case you are wondering. It is their choice to be in this place at this moment. I don’t understand chickens. As a side note, they did have all their heads tucked down, until I so rudely crunched the leaves and rocks trying to take a picture.