little peepers
A couple months ago, one of the Poplar Spring volunteers came across a rooster wandering around Silver Springs. This was not an ideal place for a chicken to be living, so the volunteer managed (after quite a bit of time) to catch him and rescue him. They could house him temporarily at Poplar Spring, but his final home was going to be Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary. I’d been meaning to get back out there anyway, so I volunteered to drive him down this weekend.
On Thursday I got an email asking if I could swing by the DC Animal shelter on my way out of town and pick up some baby chicks that had come in that also needed to go to ES. Great timing, and I was excited because there is little that is cuter than baby chicks!
And that’s how I ended up being a chicken taxi today!
The babies were in the cab of the truck with me in their own carrier. If you’ve never heard baby birds peeping, well, you’ve been missing out! There is something ethereal about it, and the peeps seem to float around them, rather than coming from any of them individually. Sometimes, when they’re especially happy, there is an additional whistling sound added, and it sounds like the beginnings of a song a songbird would sing.
They traveled easily, peeping when they were awake, flopping into sleep in that boneless way that babies do. It worried me a bit at first, and I’d wake them up to make sure they were really just asleep. Poor things! They must have been annoyed with the dratted human who kept interrupting their naps! We all settled down, though, and they spent quite a bit of time in a heap of babies.
Once we got to pattrice’s, the babies were set up in a bigger cage under lamps to make sure they stay warm enough. They got their food and water, and they were curious and energetic, eating the food, and leaning on each other as they fell into brief naps. They sang their happy chirps, and I’d swear their joy is contagious.
Holy shit that is cuteness times ten. Very cool of you to bring them there where they will live the best life a chicken could live.
Oh MAN that is freaking adorable!! Good job being a chicken taxi and yes, I agree with you in regards to the peeping sound–though I’ve MOSTLY only heard it from turkeys.
@ rich - they really are cute. I was glad to be able to bring them to pattrice’s, and they’ll definitely have great chicken lives now.
@ Becci - I’ve never heard a baby turkey! I have heard the adult turkey sounds, and I always find myself trying to answer them. (they’re never fooled, go figure! lol.) These little ones really were adorable.
Deb, you’ll be glad to know that the chicks and the new rooster are all doing very well. Thanks again for driving them down and also for your help in coop cleaning (and for the delicious baked goods you brought me)!
pattrice, good to hear they’re all doing well! No surprise there - they seemed to settle in very quickly. It was no problem driving them down.
Glad you’re enjoying the stickyfingers treats as well!
[...] I’ve written before about birds in the library, like Saturn the rooster (who’s now outside in the infirmary yard with other elderly birds) and Greenbird the parrot (who’s now doing very well at the parrot sanctuary). This week it’s chicks. Eight multicolored fluffballs whose wings are just beginning to feather are camped out in the library with the heat up high (it’s like Malaysia in there) chirping their little hearts out all the livelong day. (I’ve noticed that they sing louder when they can hear music coming from another room; the times I’ve had only a single chick inside I’ve often used music to soothe them… bluegrass, Irish jigs, anything with fiddles seems to work.) Deb of Invisible Voices taxied the chicks to the sanctuary. She writes about that — with pictures! — here. [...]
What a great story and nice thing to do! The concentration of cuteness must have been off the charts!
I wonder, when driving through the Eastern Shore, amid the horror of chicken farms, was it surreal, was it jarring at all…to sense tht just outside your window were these factories of suffering and torture, and inside were these precious beings - the same as those condemned to Hell perhaps a few hundred yards away - who were blissfully enjoying the start of peaceful and long lives?
In that regard, was it any different on the back, without the happy chirping of the chicks?
Well, you don’t see anything. It seems peaceful and rural, but that’s it. I didn’t see the chicken trucks or any barns that I knew were filled with chickens. No big signs proclaiming “purdue farm of death, turn here!” Not even when I looked closely could I see anything that was for sure a chicken farm. I know, because pattrice has said so, that there are the big farms nearby. I simply never see them, at least not to recognize what they are. What was most jarring was her neighbor who was annoyingly revving his engine of his souped up car as if he was about to take off on the indy500 or whatever.
[...] to that is simple enjoyment. I got to see the babies I’d taxied down last month, as well as the rooster. The rooster was the same, a bit full of himself, but not so much that he [...]