Yolko the Chicken.

Today is a good day to write about Yolko.  Why is today a good day to write about this particular chicken?  She was injured at some point between yesterday and today.  Her injury doesn't appear serious, but it is gross.  Part of her comb, the red part of fleshy skin on the top of her head, seems to have been sort of scraped off her skull.  Like a wierd fleshy hangnail. I think I will call it a "combnail", maybe? There is blood down both sides of the comb but it was all dry by the time I saw her.  I quickly checked the other chickens to see if 1. they were all there and 2. were there any other injuries.  Well, all of the chickens were present and accounted for and there didn't appear to be any other injuries.  Relief washed over me because we have already lost one chicken (R.I.P. Poppyseed). I decided to google what to do about a broken comb and the best I can tell is that it was likely caused by one of our other chickens (most likely Dumpling) and that it can be fixed with some neosporin.  So I went back out and slathered the poor girl with neosporin.  I will keep an eye on it and if it doesn't get better maybe eat her take her to a chicken vet?

A little background on Yolko.  She is a buff orpington and her full name is Yolko Moira.  She is yellow and we thought that Yolko was a fun play on words. I always liked the name Moira, so when we were picking chicken names, I was pretty insistent.  But when we went with "food" names, I relented and said she could take Moira as her middle name.  Her show name, as I like to say.  We don't show her though.  I've looked into it.  There are a suprising number of chicken shows.  And I digress...she lays a brown egg.  This is her egg.  I think.  Dumpling also lays a brown egg and I've never been able to figure out which hen lays which brown egg. 

I hate to pick favorites, but Yolko is my favorite.  She always squats for me to pet her.  Now, you may be wondering, "did she just say the chicken 'squats' so Lauren canpet her?" In fact that is exactly what I said.  If you google why a chicken may squat, as I did shortly after Yolko did this a few times, you will see that a chicken squats when it is being submissive.  And here I just thought she liked being petted.  Anyway, Yolko is our "friendly" hen and will squat for you to pet her or pick her up.  Eugene has also had her ride on his shoulder.  She is just that kind of hen.

As friendly as she can be, she also is our "broody" hen, which means she wants to sit on the unfertilized eggs until they hatch spoil.  When she is broody, she is not very friendly. Her feathers get all ruffled and she will not come out of the coop for days.  She won't even come out to eat or drink, which is why a broody chicken is bad.  When it's really hot, she could dehydrate and even die.  A chicken goes broody when she wants her eggs to hatch and if they eggs never hatch, broodiness can be indefinite if not cured.  If I take her out, she angrily plops down on the ground and as soon as I turn my back, she runs back into the coop.  We've had her go broody probably three times.  There are several ways to cure it and we've tried a lot of them.  We've tried dunking her in cold water (results=wet Lauren, wet and still broody chicken), tossing her out of the coop (results=airborn, but still broody, chicken) and keeping her locked out of the coop at night (results=great success).  She is not broody right now, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

This is our Yolko.  She is a nice pet and we enjoy her and her delicious eggs.  And we won't ever eat her.