Business Chicken

About 20 min ago, Jason heard a commotion in the chicken coop.

Shy Chicken staggered out apparently, flapping, and fell over with one leg in the air.

Jason ran to get me and I put on shoes and also brought a towel in case Shy had been fighting with others or just sick (that is how we move sick chickens into the house bathroom to get them away from other chickens).  We moved the coop to get her out and brought her inside. She looks like she is asleep but chickens don’t sleep on their sides like this.

Shy was originally the most shy of all the chickens and then she became the most friendly.

We think she had Flipover disease which is a fancy name for her behavior but chicken death has many causes.

Jason will bring her to the vet tomorrow to see if it was something that could affect the other chickens. But it might just be chicken heart attack.

We are sad.

Sometimes people take their chickens a little too seriously.

An attorney for the local activist known as the “Chicken Man” said Tuesday that he filed an emergency motion to fight the man’s eviction minutes before he killed himself by blowing up his house.

Andrew Wordes set off the blast on Monday as marshals were preparing to kick him out of the Atlanta-area house that was in foreclosure, a last act of defiance by a man who seemed to relish fighting the government.

“This was the first step of our larger legal battle to keep his home,” said Wordes’ attorney, Ryan Strickland. “He had options. He had a way out. And he had a good case.”

Strickland said he met Wordes last week and pledged to help him avoid eviction. The legal filing on Monday wasn’t going to resolve the case, he said, but it was an important step to stop the eviction from going forward.

“It’s overwhelmingly sad,” said Strickland. “It’s one of the most stressful things someone can go through – the prospect of losing your house and finding somewhere else to live. I can only imagine what he was feeling.”

Wordes had become well-known for his fight to keep poultry, goats and pigs at his home in Roswell, Ga. Former Gov. Roy Barnes took his case against the city to court, and he attracted far-flung supporters who read about his case online.

Behold, the Giant Metal Chicken of Ballard!

Norm McDonald has a theory.

They are crafty.

I let the chickens out to rummage in the yard today while I hosed out their coop. I always lure them back in at the end with popcorn, but this time I poppeed it in advance, making sure to leave it on the foor porch hidden by the privacy wall. That way they can’t see it.

I finish the disgusting task, look around…..and where’s Business Chicken? The BUSINESS, as usual. She had somehow sussed out where the popcorn was and covered the front porch in corn debris.

She sees me coming up the stairs and flips out. She runs around in circles for a few seconds, jumps on the front porch railing (between the slats, not on top, framing her Chickenness for all to see), and then LEAPS INTO THE AIR.

It was AMAZING. She flew a good twenty feet from the porch to the street and landed on the greenbelt right in front of the asphalt. I didn’t know she had it in her.

The best part was that a 20-something neighbor guy was walking by at the time looking at the ground, not paying attention, and didn’t see her coming. I see her enormous feathery body slowing drifting closer. I guess he heard this ominous whump WHUMP WHUMP WHUMPWHUMPWHUMP flapping getting closer, because when she got within about foot he dropped into a crouch to avoid FLYING MEGACHICKEN.

When he came up from his crouch and saw what he had just avoided he laughed.

I dodged a bullet there, as I’m not sure if home owner’s insurance covers neighbors getting injured by flying poultry.

They are dangerous.