Avian "Accident"

So one of our chickens, Fluffhead, is definately the runt. She's small, different, and even a bit impaired by her outlandish feathering. It's not her fault. It's just a natural expression of her DNA. But it is her lot in life to deal with it all. She surely gets some special attention and treatment from us and visitors, but she's also bullied by the rest of the flock.

Fluffhead is a White Sultan. A ridiculous variety of all-white feathered chicken with a puffpall for a head and fluffy feet. I picked her out from the catalog for entertainment value, but now I mostly just feel sorry for her.

Especially after yesterday morning.

I brought the food scraps out to chickens yesterday morning, a morning ritual met with as much chicken enthusiasm as I exhibit when I get a bonus day off of work. They live for this moment. The see me or Annie from across the yard and come racing towards us. They all line up for a front row look through the fence to see what goodies we're bringing. Except yesterday Fluffhead was not lined up. With all those feathers, she sometimes can't see us coming, but usually gets the idea when she hears the excitment of the other hens. Where was she?

I checked in the chicken house. No Fluffhead.
I checked in the run. No Fluffhead.
I looked around the outside of the run (in case she escaped). No Fluffhead.

And then I saw a tuft of white. There, wedged in the 3 inch space between the coop building and the fence, was one very incapacitated Fluffhead. She must have fallen (or been shoved) off the roof of the coop and down between that wall and the fence. She ended up on her back, totally incapable of escape. She must have been there all night. Expecting a lot of resistance and flailing, I put on some heavy leather gloves and managed to extract her without getting her tangled in the fence. This was not exactly easy as the entire space was more narrow than my cleched fist.

Afterward she stood where I set, paralyzed in shock. She was later seen walking around the run and pecking. We'll keep an eye on her to make sure she's fine. In the meantime, access to her little accidental isolation chamber has been sealed off with lengths of split firewood.