I have chickens. I know there are all the memes about women of a certain age and hens, or crazy chicken ladies. That’s fine. I can deal with the sterotypes and labels.

But I have chickens because nothing beats fresh eggs.

And they have the built in bonus of being the best composters to cut down on what you throw away.

So I have chickens.

When I moved into my new place, there was a convienently placed garden shed in the back corner of the lot, that was easily converted to a chicken coop with the addition of an inside wall and an outside run.

Now my chickens literally have the Taj Mahal of chicken coop set up. Lots of room to laze around inside, and even more room to run around, under the trees outside.

This current batch of hens (+1, which is a story for another time), I got when they were just wee little fluff balls, so they had some growing to do.

Now, I’ve had chickens before, but apparently, in my dog Pavlov’s mind, these new chickens needed to be oriented to the “ways of the Pavlov”, so he found it highly entertaining for awhile to make mad laps around the chicken coop when the chicks where in the run, and stir them up into a literal tizzy.

And the chickens, still being young and excitable, never failed to humor him and run around like chickens with their heads cut off and squwak.

(Thankfully this was relatively short lived, and Pav has now learned “no chickens”- again, and the chickens have learned to ignore him)

However, back when the tizzy’s were still a thing, I went out one night to put the “girls” to bed, and upon doing a quick head count, realized I was coming up one short.

I went inside to see if she had put herself to bed earlier, but no.

I walked around the entire coop and run, trying to see if she had found a hole and a way out, but there was no escape hatch.

Huh. Strange.

Where did the feather ball go?

I did have some wire laid across the top of the run, more to keep the neighborhood hawk and eagle OUT of the run than to keep the chickens IN, but the chicks were still young enough they weren’t really proficient flyers yet, so I didn’t think she could have gone up and over.

But after a little more investigating, I decided that she must have somehow flown out, because she certainly wasn’t still in.

I expanded the search into the woods a ways, but there was no sign of her, and it was getting dark.

I figured she’d either find a spot to roost for the night and show up in the morning, or the friendly neighborhood fox would take her home with him.

The next morning, I got up and headed out to the coop to see if the wayward chick had made her way back, but still nothing.

I did another loop in the woods and around, looking for any sign of her, but still no luck, so I figured the circle of life had swept her up.

For the next two days, I kept an eye out for her, and did a sweep every morning and evening, but still no chicken.

I need to pause here to paint a visual picture of my coop for you.

The garden shed I converted to my coop is a full size shed, probably 18 ft x12 ft or something close. It’s tall, with a little loft area over the coop section, and situated in the back corner of my lot. However, it is not situated on level ground. So whoever initially put this shed out there, attempted to make it as level as possible, by put it up on cement blocks at the corners.

Quite a few cement blocks.

This made it relatively “level”, but also left quite a crawl space under the building.

When I put up the run, we ran chicken wire all around the bottom of the building, to prevent the chickens from going out under the coop, and to prevent anything coming in.

Because I know chickens love to dig, on the side of the coop inside the run, I also put a piece of wood, probably 3ft wide up against the building, in front of the chicken wire, so they couldn’t get in there and dig under the wire.

Then the ramp to go up to their door was also going up over this piece of wood.

On day 3 of Operation Missing Chicken, I am on my way out to open the door and let the chickens out for the day, when I happen to look into the run, and notice something odd protruding from under the ramp.

I stop and look a little closer.

I can’t say for sure, but that kind of looks like a head?

I open the gate, go into the run, and sure enough. There’s a little chicken head poking out from under the piece of board up against the building, under the ramp.

My little missing chicken had somehow wedged herself up between that board and the wire, likely during one of the Pavlov tizzy runs, and had spent 3 days trying to work herself out. I can tell you, there was not a lot of room to work with.

She must have gone up head first, and it must have taken her all that time to turn herself around and stick her head out, hoping someone might finally see her and come to her rescue.

I helped her get out from under the board and back to solid ground.

The poor thing tried to stand upright, but promptly fell right over. (Imagine if your legs had been stuck in one position for 3 days and you tried to stand on them!) She also had some toes that were not in the shape or position they should be, which weren’t helping.

I was a little concerned about her ability to recover from this, but she was still with us for the moment, so I figured first priority was food and water, since she hadn’t had these for 3 days either.

I got the other chickens out in the run and then took her inside and got her some food and water in dishes she could reach sitting down, and she let me know she had definitely been missing both.

I hung out with her for awhile, trying to decide what she was going to need. She kept trying to walk, and kept falling over, but she did seem to be standing for a little longer each time.

I decided the best plan was to let her hang by herself, with plenty of water, and get some rest. Then we’d see where we went from there.

It took her a few days to get all her kinks worked out, and to unbend herself back into normal chicken form, but now she’s out there running around with the rest of them like nothing ever happened.

And hopefully she (and the rest) have learned their lesson about playing hide and seek with Pavlov.