Talks to animals: My life among the chickens: New babies and Stella's Story

Seeing Double

Yesterday, Pistachio brought by her new babies, of which there appears to be nine. Very cute! Her and Nut are sisters, so it looks like you are seeing double at feeding times!

Seeing double!

Pistachio and Babies

Stella’s Story

Shortly after we returned from Costa Rica (July-Aug 2008), we were given Stella, with a broken leg. She received a vet’s appointment with Lyle, and unlike Goldie her leg was broken clean through. We were not sure if it would heal properly, but it did. She became a part of the family. Stella cuddled, followed, and accepted us as her mamas. While we had her as our “daughter” we continued to receive and find sick and injured chickens, including one unidentified song bird chick. All died, most being too far gone when received. With each sick chick that we had to bury, we learned more. Thanks to intensive reading and our neighbour, we learned how to identify bird ailments, but not good enough (even still!). After Cedar died, we learned to keep all sick chicks in a brood box intensive care unit 24 hours a day. Then, after another Teeny chick and Christopher died, we researched bird antibiotics, which was a good thing because beloved Stella became sick. We got her through the first infection, but a few weeks later, she caught another infection that wasted her so quickly that despite another round of antibiotics, she died on Thanksgiving Day (Nov 22, 2008).

Stella had become our pride and joy. She was trained to come running when we drummed the “cricket bucket”. She sat on our shoulder, she rested on our laps, she nuzzled under our “wing”, and sat on our foot during meals. We never knew a chicken could be so affectionate, but we know she loved us in her chicken way. We miss her dearly.

What I miss most about her was her singing. She sang a lot. When she was really small, she would walk into the sleeve of my sweater (while I was wearing it) and sleep there. She would sleep in bed with us cuddling under our chin singing happily, and when she sang, her tail moved up and down. Sometimes she sang silently to herself, and we could see that same tail movement. I also miss the sound of her feet on the bedroom floor. Stella was easily trainable. About the same time I trained her to come for crickets, she had been trained to come to my voice. This was a good thing because after almost 2 months of waking up to let her out in the aviary shortly after dawn, I was ready for her to take care of herself a little bit. So, before I went to bed, I would take of f the towel covering her box. Stella would then wake with the morning light, and would feed herself breakfast (I could her singing and pecking in the food dish in the mornings), and I did not have to get out of bed. When Stella was done with her breakfast, she would fly out of her box and would start peeping for mama. I would respond with her name, and then I would hear her foot steps coming my way. Then, “peep, peep.” ”Stella”, footsteps. “Peep, peep, peep.” “Stella”, more footsteps. Until finally, she was at the door to my room. Then, I would dangle my arm over the side of the bed, and she would see it, and “patta, patta, patta, pitter patta” and she would run to my hand, and I would scoop her into bed with me, and we would nap for an hour, then I would have to get up to let her out (at least at that point it was between 7-7:30am).

Stella never pooed on us until she was really sick. If she was on our lap, she would jump off (and then poo on the floor- good thing we have no carpet). If we were holding Stella, she would squirm and we would let her go, and she would hop off and poo.

Once, while I was working on the computer, Stella hoped off my knee and ran across the dining room floor and snatched up a cockroach. Good girl! She cleaned my house of insects. She would wander around the house going under and behind furniture looking for treats. Stella and I had a power clean team thing that we did. Me, armed with my dust buster in one hand and chicken in the other would walk around the house looking for spider webs. When I found one Stella ate the spider, then I dust busted the webs. Great teamwork!

She was also amazingly tolerant of being dressed up (I only did that twice). She would just cheep at you and sometimes walk around dressed up.

Like all chickens, she liked exploring and when we brought her in at night, she would always walk around the house. Ben used to watch tv at chicken bedtime, and tshe would walk around the living room until she was ready for bed. At this point, she would fly up to Ben’s lap and snuggle in there. When Stella got older, she would fly up to our shoulders and start to settle in for the night.