Rescuing Ivy
By:Blair A. F.
“Bawk. Bawk. Bawk. BAKAWWWWWWWWW,” the chickens muttered around in their aviary.
My family got chickens when I was five and we got ducks when I was eight. We keep our birds in our 900 sq ft lot. They stay in a giant Aviary to protect them from predators, but about once every two weeks I let them out to roam around.
One day we ran out of chicken feed, so on a Tuesday afternoon we drove to the feed store. We went to see how the baby chicks were doing and saw this one little chick laying on its back on the ground of the enclosure; she looked like a little white floof snowball. When we lifted the chick up and put it back on its feet, it could only stand for a second, and then it would just topple over again.
The owner of the feed store came and said, “Hey, that chick's 3 days old.”The poor little chick was getting trampled and pooped on by all of the other chicks.“Hey, do you want to take her home with you? We don't have enough time to take care of her,” The feed store owner said.
My mom and I really weren't sure if we should bring her home with us. We didn't know where we would put her or how much work she would be to take care of. Eventually me and my mom took the chick home because we didn't want her to be left alone to die.
On the car ride home I made sure to keep her warm. Fortunately we already had a brooder with food, water, and a heat pad already set up in my room. I did some research to figure out what to do. Every day I dipped her beak in water to make sure that she got water. I put a Band-Aid on her legs to keep them stable and kept picking her up when she fell. Periodically, during the day, I would come to check on her and make sure she was eating. Every morning for 3 days, I helped her practice walking while giving her support while standing. The brooder had a very nice and relaxing smell, almost like fresh wood. Within the next 3 days she started walking on her own. We decided to name her Ivy after Poison Ivy, since she seemed poisoned by all of the other chicks in the feed store. Surprisingly, she was not as much work as I thought. Now Ivy is a big chick, growing bigger every day because of the nurturing I gave her in her early days.
Chickens mean a lot to me because of how much personality they have. Chickens are very useful animals; they're very versatile. You can use them for food, you can use them for eggs, you can have them as pets, and you can show them. Another reason why I just love them so much is because of all the breeds. People think that just chickens are a white bird that you can eat but chickens are so much more than that because there are so many different breeds.
