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Does she look happy to you?

A discussion of “mad as a wet hen” appears in the previous thread, so I had to dig out a picture. This is Mapp chicken in 2012, wet. I don’t know about mad, but she ain’t happy.

My lot *will* go out in the rain (especially the Polands) and get thoroughly soaked. Anything is better than being cooped up. But chickens famously will drown if they fall into water and scoot if water is sprayed at them (handy for hostile cockerels).

In fact, I’ve heard more than once that a chicken that falls into water will die even if it’s rescued in time. I don’t know if that’s an old chicken-keeper’s tale.

You can, however, wash a chicken in warm soapy water and give it a blow dry. People do it before shows. Then they put Vaseline on their combs and wattles to make ’em specially red and on their legs to make them…shiny, I guess.

Chicken keepers, eh?

Mapp here is not preparing for a show. Mapp was the tragic victim of a novice chicken keeper: me. Her first Summer as an adult, she abruptly stopped laying and sat on the nest all day looking miserable.

Turns out, she was just broody. Broody hens stop laying eggs. She went broody every Summer for the rest of her damn life (and she lived to be eight, which is good going for a bantam). I didn’t get many omelettes out of this old girl.

But I decided, in my ignorance, that she must be egg bound. Getting an egg stuck in your egg chute can be fatal, so I did panicky things like soak her in a bucket of warm soapy water for an hour, to no avail.

I don’t even want to talk about what I did with the olive oil.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: December 8, 2021, 11:15 pm

Stoaty: “I don’t even want to talk about what I did with the olive oil.”

I’m guessing it had nothing to do with chicken marsala.

I’m not not not trying to get you to explain. I have an imagination.


Comment from blake
Time: December 8, 2021, 11:22 pm

We’re looking at getting some chickens. It’s increasingly common in L.A. For the past 15 years or so as a designer accessory thing, and more recently because eggs jumped in price and we’re all DOOOOOOOOMED!


Comment from Cantharkmycry
Time: December 8, 2021, 11:30 pm

I think you may have told us at the time about the olive oil, although my mind has (mercifully?) relinquished the details…


Comment from Mitch
Time: December 8, 2021, 11:56 pm

Ah yes, The Olive Oil Incident. I remember that. Has it really been that long? Where does the time go?


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: December 9, 2021, 12:33 am

I know every chicken I put in a pot of water didn’t come out alive, so there’s yer scientifica! Proof!

And I also recall “The olive oil incident” as we imaginary friends like to refer to it.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: December 9, 2021, 2:44 am

I remember what you did … 😉


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: December 9, 2021, 11:24 am

Some idiot at the NSA is right now trying to decide if “the olive oil incident” is code for something like “John has a long mustache”.

A wet chicken in every pot ya numpty.


Comment from Drew458
Time: December 9, 2021, 2:11 pm

Your olive oil story might redefine my notion of “chicken fingers”, which (until now) were an easy hand meal of fried breast meat strips.


Comment from Some Kinky Vegetable
Time: December 9, 2021, 6:59 pm

Oh…..! I know

The Last Tango In Paris

Uh,

The Last Maypole dance in Croydon

Except with olive oil instead of butter, right?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: December 9, 2021, 8:36 pm

I saw Last Tango in the theater with my mother. I have never recovered from the cringe.

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