Chickens Are Hazardous To Your Health

After my most recent injury, my husband declared, "Chickens are hazardous to your health!"

First to experience this was Alex's mom, who has a small coop with a handful of chickens in it. One dark and rainy night was making her way out to her coop to close the ladies up for the night. It was cold and wet, and she was in a hurry. Zipping through the gate into the chickens' fenced run, she slipped. Her feet flew out in front of her, and the flashlight she was carrying swung up and smote her forehead. As she fell, she reached out and grabbed hold of the fence, which had a loose wire poking out. The wire sliced open her finger. In a bedraggled and humiliated state, she presented herself to her husband (who had thought this chicken scheme a ridiculous business in the first place), he had a little laugh and then took her to get stitches.

A few weeks after his mother's injury, Alex went out after dark to close up our chicken coop. It was another very dark, cold, windy night. Out in our neck of the woods, dark does not even begin to describe a starless night. There are no streetlights or neighboring house lights. When you leave the small circle of light emanating from the windows of our house, you step out into a vast yet smothering unknown. After his task was complete, Alex was running back to the house, swinging his flashlight in every direction but in front of him, when he became aware that he was on his back, feeling like someone had taken a baseball bat to his shins. Sputtering and swearing, he hopped up looking around for the jerk that hit him, and saw our fire pit. I had dragged it up by the house earlier in the week to play campout and make s'mores with the kids. He must have been running very fast, because he flipped clear over the fire pit, landing on and spraining his wrist.

The crown jewel, though, in our chicken-related injuries, was my experience last month. Alex has this wonderful pair of massive, neoprene hunting boots. When I say massive, think Mega Man, in real tree cammo. I love these boots. They are warm, and best of all, they aren't mine. I wear them every time I go outside when it is cold or wet, and I wear them every time I go to the chicken coop. I have many times entertained the idea of getting them in my size, but the shallow truth is, if I am going to spend $80 on a pair of boots, they are going to be trimmed in fur and oh so pretty. Alex's boots are perfect for walking in chicken poop.

As I do every morning, I tromped out to the coop in Alex's boots to greet my chickens, collect their eggs, and let them out into their run. This particular morning it was very snowy, and the chickens had knocked over their waterer the day before. When they saw me, in my snow covered boots, they accosted me in one big fluffy mob the moment I opened the door, all fighting each other to peck the snow off of my boots. Realizing, I would never get them all back in, I decided to go around outside to their run to open their little pop door, hoping they would turn their frenzy toward the snow outside. As I was awkwardly stepping with my big boots through the sea of chickens, trying to get the proper footing to step out of the coop (a 2 foot drop), I tripped over a chicken. I missed the step, spun and fell. With just enough room in the boot for my foot to turn on it's side, but not enough to roll, I landed on the side of my foot and heard a crunch. Then pain, oh unholy pain! Somehow I crawled/hobbled back to the house (after closing the shed doors so no chickens could escape). Gasping and whimpering, I crawled into the house, where my responsible five-year-old called his daddy and set me up on the couch with pillows, blankets, ice, a drink and a movie.

Alex came home, packed us all up and drove me 20 miles to the nearest urgent care... then back home to get my wallet with my ID, then back to urgent care. Long story short, I fractured my fibula, and got to tell my crazy chicken story to a lot of doctors, nurses, receptionists, and radiologists. Did I mention I was wearing my pajamas? The only thing that would have made me feel more redneck is if I was toting a mason jar full of moonshine. Now I am in a boot for 10 weeks, hoping to be back to normal in time for spring planting.