Chicken butt!
If you would have told me, at any point in my life, that there would come a time when I brought a chicken into my house to wash and blow-dry her tush, I'd have looked at you like you had lobsters crawling out of your ears. Sure, I've washed a lot of chicken in my time, but never the live variety..and I've never blow-dried one, live or otherwise. Well, this afternoon, I did just that.
Poor Esther had made a mess of herself. If it were a chicken like Pearl, I'd have just waited until she cleaned herself up during one of the million and two dust (mud) baths she gives herself everyday. She's a pretty white chicken when she's all cleaned up but she prefers the bad girl biker look. Esther, however, is sort of like Miss Prissy on Foghorn Leghorn and I was sure she must have been horrified having other chickens looking at her in that condition. Kind of like when we went to DeWitte's snobby aunts house and she hadn't done the dishes yet so she wouldn't let us in the house.
So, this afternoon, I let the other girls out into their portable run and brought Miss Esther into the house. I put a warm wet rag on her nether regions, while Nathan held her and said "Gross!" a lot..I can't wait till he's a parent, that kid doesn't know from gross, and put her in a cage on the kitchen floor to give the gunk time to loosen up. We enjoyed the interaction between Esther and the cat. Esther acted like the cat must have been a ferocious chicken eating tiger, even though she's now twice the size of the cat and would surely win in a head to head match. Don't tell her, though, she thinks she's dainty. We evenutally locked the cat in the bathroom because it seemed like she was starting to believe the ferocious chicken eating tiger hype.
After that, it was time to really get in there and clean her up. I was kind of worried..the last time we tried to give an animal a bath that doesn't usually receive baths with the warmest of welcomes, was Cleo. DeWitte put a leash on her and attached it to the faucet, so she couldn't jump out, and she ended up flying around the tub in mid air like a cartoon cat and we had to replace the shower curtain. Esther didn't seem to mind, though. Throughout her back-end bath she seemed to kind of purr. I thought the blow drier would be a fight, too. My chickens are so chicken that they're eremikophobic, which means that if you put new sand in their run, they think it's gonna eat their face off. But, no, Esther just sat there and let me blow dry her like it was a five star feather salon. She even offered me a tip but I didn't take it, I just cleaned it up with a paper towel and washed my hands.
After she was dry, I took her back out and put her back with the other hens, who were all fighting over a three inch plot of mud. She just looked down her nose at them, turned around and shook her clean, fluffy butt.
