Well, I'm now convinced our chickens were conceived in a much lower circle of hell than I originally had thought. (Chicken-keeping for the first time in my life has been a theological revelation.) Marigold was not the victim of their gang mentality this time--she's too fast. It was Georgina, a large, placid White Brahma.
I think much of the issue was that we ended up with two roosters in our last batch of chicks and let them both grow to adulthood without enough hens in the harem. Daisy was a psychopath and (literally) lost his head early on because of violence to the hens. After his demise, Chipmunk seemed to have gained enough confidence to follow the same path of criminality.
After supper one night, Rundy told me that he noticed Georgina by the fence, seemingly three-quarters of the way into her grave. Apparently, Chipmunk had bloodied her and then most of the rest of the flock had done their best to kill her. I went to go look at her with fear and trembling.
It was bad. Really bad.
She was pretty much completely missing the back of her head. One eye was still intact, but unseeing. The other eyelid was a bloody slit and I had no clue what lay underneath. Rundy was ready to kill her then to put her out of her misery, but I (call it softness, call it cruelty, I don't know) couldn't bear it quite yet. My mom was there for supper and is also made of marshmallow goo in situations like this. (Before life made him hard, Rundy was also made of marshmallow goo and admitted that he'd have tried to save her back when he was 12. In other words, he gave me his blessing.) With her seconding, I made a nice box with hay and food and water and brought her into the house to see if she'd make it through the night.
She did.
She couldn't see to eat or drink, and did neither for almost the entire first day. I got beads of water on her beak which she moistened her tongue with, but that was it.
The next day she drank when I lifted the water to her mouth.
The next day she could see well enough to drink by herself.
The next day she ate by herself.
Within a week I had her back outside--separated from the flock, but outside.
Her second day out her other eyelid opened, and there was an eye underneath! And it could see!
She took off from there, free-ranging. I let one of our other hens out (Georgina's BFF Roberta) and they hung out happily. Now Georgina is back in with the flock acting completely like her old self with a reestablished place in the pecking order and a good quality of life (other than the inevitable unsettled feeling that must come when you know you live with a bunch of cannibals...). She still wouldn't win a beauty pageant, but new skin is growing and I have hope that someday her skull will once again be nicely covered by all the things that should cover a skull.
The End.
And here's (really blurry) token documentation of Tadhg, sensitive to Georgina's plight and feeling softhearted enough to try to feed the terrifying creature. (No close-ups of Georgina's head to spare you all.)
PS - Lest you wonder, Chipmunk is no more. Petunia is once again the sole lord of the flock, continuing his reign of peace and jollity and making sure all of his ladies have lots of food (his primary concern in life). All is well in the chicken yard.
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