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What a wonderful thing you did back then. While her time with you was short, it was well lived. It makes me tear up to think of how she was living when you found her. You did a wonderful thing.SHRA!
Remembering Queenie
I am on my PC, I only have a few pictures on it, and this is one. But kind of fortuitous. It was in December last year when I got Queenie from the wood & storage closed-in shed abutting the house that she was roosting and hiding in. She had successfully hidden from the strangers (instructed by the departed chicken-keeper) that had come and split up the free-ranging tribe, taking chickens on two separate days, the week or so before, a flock of ~9 chickens and a rooster, all Buff Orpingtons. I think she chose the storage & wood shed because it was all enclosed but had a small hole in the wall that was like a little pop door; the human kept the actual door locked. It was safer for her as a single hen than the broken-down old barn across the street where her tribe had roosted but which was very open to owls, hawks, coyotes and other predators. Not much to eat except a bit of bird seed thrown out for the wild birds by the house occupant who didn't want chickens. Queenie was foraging in the snow and I think getting water from the small stream nearby. Soon it would freeze over and be snow-covered. Being so alone out there, and then having two weeks inside with me, when introduced to the Buckeyes she went crazy as soon as she saw them. She made it her mission to join them, volunteering to be bottom of the pecking order. Here's a picture I took about then (photo is dated Dec 19, 2020). You've seen it before. I remember I asked everyone about the spot at the top of her beak. It was a small scab and came off by itself some time later.
RIP Lil' Queenie
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