Back in mid-December one of my buff orpington pullets was injured in a freak accident. I found her hanging by one foot; she'd caught it on the edge of a wire cage in the coop.

I didn't know how long she'd been hanging. After disentangling her toes, I carried her into the house and put her in a private suite in the mudroom: a lidless tote with a generous layer of shavings on the bottom. I didn't have an extra feeder or waterer, so she had cat food bowls with water and her feed crumbles.

Two days later it occurred to me that she'd probably dislocated her hip, but it would have been too late to fix that. She didn't seem to be in any pain though, and she was eating and drinking, so I thought I'd give her a chance, wait awhile, and see how she did.

Her legs seemed to be useless, and she sat in the shavings for a long, long time. I had a wire top on the tote but she wasn't going anywhere. I bought a chick waterer. I changed her shavings, changed her position several times a day, and bathed her when the shavings stuck to her rear end. One leg was skewed forward, and the other stretched out backwards.

Obviously it was the pullet that liked to hop on my back while I was feeding them, since that wasn't happening any more when I'd go in the coop each morning.

She sure had a will to live. I didn't think she'd recover and I didn't want a "sitting chicken" living in the mudroom for the rest of her natural life. But - partly because I just didn't have the heart to put her down - I continued caring for her.

Eventually she began to propel herself backwards with the forward-stretched leg. And then one day I realized she was actually standing on one leg. When I found her in the middle of the mudroom floor - she'd pushed the wire top off the tote and flown out - it was time for her to go out to the coop.

To keep her safe from the other hens, since she couldn't move quickly to get away from them, she stayed in a rabbit cage inside the coop for awhile.

Three months later, she's now walking on both legs completely normally. I am amazed at her recovery. Isn't it wonderful what time and care can do?




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