Brown Egg Blue Egg

Booblet

by Ruth Haldeman

Chicken Diapers

Ruth Haldeman
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Booblet was a child of my heart.

Six years ago in early spring when it was still pretty chilly, one of my little ladies hatched out some babies. She had gotten off the nest and was busy showing them off, so I figured that she was done with the hatching. I went to clean up the nest and one egg peeped at me. I figured if I didn't take the egg somewhere to keep it warm, the baby would die. So I tucked the egg into my shirt. My incubator was full and I didn't want to put a hatching egg in there, so I ended up keeping the egg in my undergarment for two days.

I didn't sleep much those nights for fear of crushing the egg. Then one afternoon Booblet hatched in my bra. I wanted her to have a real chicken mom, so I tried to slip her under her mom with the other babies. I checked on them in the morning and, to my horrified gaze, there was little Booblet, lying still and bloody on the ground. I decided then and there that she was meant to be mine.

The little fuzzball had a cleft palate and seemed to have more trouble with dry food, so that meant unless s/he developed to where eating dry food isn't a problem, wet mash will have to be freshly made several times a day. I didn't bond much with Booblet at first because I wanted her biological mom to raise her.

As for the seizures, when I found her, I at first thought she was dead; then I realized she was having a lot of trouble breathing. She would have these really long pauses between each gasp. I would feed her, and she would have moments where she would just be fighting for every breath. I was so scared that she would inhale the food slurry.

After two days it seemed like she thought I'm mom, so I guessed that's OK.

Soon she didn't have any trouble but I did worry that her troubles would come back. It's tough being a mom, eh?

Booblet was my constant companion for the first month of her life. Never mind that I slept very uneasily, she insisted on burrowing under my chin every night. At about two months, I started moving her to a rolled-up towel perch on my nightstand. It became a nightly ritual that she would snuggle under the covers briefly as if to say good-night, before climbing out of my bed to sleep on her towel perch. It was her way of saying good-night :)

Booblet eventually moved outside where she shared a pen with a sweet gentle little roo named Mulberry. Booblet stopped laying when she was only two years old, so I never did hatch any of her eggs.

Booblet took care of some young'uns that weren't supposed to be here. A neighbor's boy said he wanted the eggs, but wanted me to take care of them while he went on vacation. A little hen had been sitting on the eggs for him. The boy decided he didn't want them but I couldn't bear to throw away mostly developed eggs. Ten chicks, mostly Silkie x Aracauna, hatched.

I lost Booblet to cancer. She had good days and bad days, but I am grateful that the end came for her, when the bad days started to outnumber the good ones. She was a child of my heart, the first one to share my bed with me, the one who used me as the Human Mountain in the middle of the night.

I miss her still.

I still look up expecting to see her sometimes, but I know she's not suffering any more, so it's a bittersweet thing.

Booblet brought a lot of joy to my life. I'd like to remember her that way.



Brown Egg Blue Egg