Meet My Pocket Chicken!!

This is Belle. She is my pocket chicken.

What exactly is a pocket chicken? Well, it's exactly what it implies-- a chicken who hangs out in my pocket.

Belle is one tough little bird. She had a rough start, but you would never know it. She is a mixture between the chicken breeds Silkie and Cream Legbar. If you don't know what silkies are- they are the fluffy Asian chickens that look like bunnies.

Belle was once an egg being woken up under her foster mommy. However, her foster mommy decided to get off her egg before she hatched! (She was a little bit of a late hatcher). So, being the good chicken parents we are, we stuck her egg in the incubator. We didn't know if she would hatch or not though.

It had been more days than it usually takes a chick to hatch, so we didn't know if she would. We tried it anyway though.

And just a couple hours later, she pipped.

About 6 hours later, little Belle was welcomed into the world.

After she was all dried off, and all fluffed up, we stuck her back outside with her little siblings and foster mommy. She went under her wing to get warm, and it seemed all was well. So, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside we went in and went to bed.

The next afternoon, though, did not go so well.

When we went out to check on her (being only a day old), we did not find her running around and learning to eat with her chicken siblings. Instead, she was plunked face first into the wood chips-- with only her little feet sticking out. Her foster mommy didn't accept her. :(

This is how Belle got her name-- she was a "dead-ringer". Like when they got diseases in the South, they would bury people with bells in their coffin so they could ring them if they weren't really dead. Well, that's where she got the name.

Her whole entire head was covered in blood-- which, if you have never dealt with baby chicks, this was not good. We really, really, did not think there was any chance she was going to make it.

We decided to do whatever we could to help her though.

So we held her by the heater, trying to asses the situation. Her whole head was covered with blood, and we didn't know where it was coming from- so much so, that she couldn't open her eyes. So first things first, we tried to get her to drink water. She couldn't see, so she wasn't really responding well to that.

Very surprisingly though, she was trying to stand up and walk around. So we moved her into a little box and set her by the heater with some food and water.

By the time the blood dried on her head, she couldn't open her eyes at all. Her eyes were crusted shut for a few days. Despite that though, she was still running around peeping, trying to be a chicken. We had to feed her with a dropper though, and make her drink water which she didn't dig too much.

Nonetheless, she was getting stronger and stronger every day. Chickens are very social birds, and they don't like to be alone. So, I spent a lot of time with her. She would run up my arms (even though she couldn't see) and peep.

At about the third day of her getting better, she was able to open her eyes. She hadn't really had the chance to learn to eat and drink on her own, so I had to show her. Like a chicken. Literally. I played a video on YouTube of the sound chickens make to show babies snacks, and "pecked" at the food with my finger. At first, she looked at me like I was crazy. Then, she started to eat on her own!

Soon, she was eating and drinking on her own without any problems at all. But, since she was lonely, it was all I could do to keep her company.

I quickly realized I couldn't get a lot done sitting with a chicken all day. So, I did what was only natural-- wrapped her in a sock and stuck her in my pocket!!! And, actually, she didn't mind being in my pocket. She actually started to dig it, I think.

So, I spent a lot of the time with her running up my arms and chillin' in my pocket. You know, usual chicken stuff.

Well- now Belle is older and bigger and doing so well! She is super friendly, and I think it's because she knows we saved her. She doesn't really fit in my pocket anymore though. But, she will always be my pocket chicken. I swear, she thinks she's a human.

Unfucking the world, one pocket chicken at a time!

#chickens #homesteading #babyanimals #cute #pocketchicken #unfuckingtheworldwithpocketchickens