Having chickens can be a slog. Just like housework, there is no end to cleaning up poop, filling waterers and feeders, and contending with the dust. Then there’s being vigilant to predators, pests and parasites. Compound all that when caring for a disabled hen.
So there’s got to be an upside, right? And yes, there is. Chickens are worth their weight in gold for their entertainment value alone. If we could bottle and sell their ability to make us laugh we’d all be rich. So when you’re feeling a bit worn down check out the stories from other chicken keepers for some validation that you’re on the right track.
I present an original short story of the origin story of Fiona the Crossbeak and the struggle to feed her.
I’m going to start this with: if don’t hand feed Fiona two or three times a day she will die. That’s a fact. Sure, not right away but eventually she’ll wither away.
Let me tell you about this pint-sized ball of feathers that literally cannot live without me – no this isn’t a love story- and how she has the perfect villain backstory in the chicken world to plot world domination, yet I have to feed her and keep her alive.
Fiona has spent more time living inside with us than any other chicken we’ve got due to her disability, but don’t you dare call it that to her face because she will either use her snaggle beak to scratch you or look into your soul with her evil eye and make you weep.
I spent the first four months of her life hand feeding, babying, interacting, spoiling, and sleeping, YES SLEEPING, with this bird in my headboard behind the bed at night unknowingly setting her up to learn how to control everything around her.
She was a normal chick but by day five I could see that she was developing a crossbeak. She was able to feed herself so I didn’t think too much of it. She was so sweet she’d fall asleep just about anywhere. There was nothing out of the ordinary with her she was just a typical chick with a bit of a crossbeak. I didn’t even have a special bond with her. There were other chicks I paid more attention to than her and she didn’t mind it. She wasn’t particularly fond of being held or let alone emotions and (shudder) feelings.
Once she and her siblings were big enough to be outside she got the upgrade to the big coop. She loved it. She hated sharing the brooder with twenty chicks. It was freedom for her to stretch her legs. Her crossbeak was significantly worse by then, but she could still eat and drink on her own.
Each day I’d check her crop to see if it was full and it was, but I noticed she would spend all day at the feeder pecking and picking up food rather than out scratching. I realized that she had to use her tongue to pick up the crumbles. . If that’s how she was gonna spend her day great.
By the fourth day outside she took a turn. I didn’t know it would be so hot out. Little did I know that the sun would affect her so much.
Fiona’s crossbeak wasn’t that bad. Although her lower jaw is crooked her tongue still sticks out straight. Just the tip. She’d flick it like a lizard. Her tongue being moist and wet allowed her to pick up the food. She would lap up the food and water like a dog. This hot day dried out the tip of her tongue and she couldn’t lick up her food. Her crop was empty and I didn’t want to risk it.
I felt horrible. I asked in an online chicken group and they recommended torpedo (assisted) feeding her. So I did.
Little did I know that day she lost her independence and has held a grudge against me since.
Fiona stayed inside with us permanently after that. I was just so worried she wouldn’t thrive I kept her inside with us and the other chicks. She could no longer eat on her because the tip of her tongue dried up but also her lower beak started to turn at a complete 90-degree angle.
She was officially disabled, says with a whisper.
She wasn’t lonely though. We had four other chicks that were still inside so she had company, extra love and care. My load was much lighter and all of the babies got extra special attention and treatment.
I was now fully in charge of feeding her and had to experiment. I tried giving her food in different ways to see if she could eat on her own and it didn’t work. Once I gave up on her having control over what went in her mouth we tried syringe feeding. That was a nightmare that took forever and by the end of it we’d both be covered in wet chicken slop. It wasn’t pretty. I hated it. Fiona was my first crossbeak and I was determined to make sure she lived. I did everything for her to make sure she got a crop full of food and had the most comfortable life.
Maybe she was too spoiled and therefore took that as her sign that she was superior and was meant to rule the world. Who knows?
Despite all we did for her she began to change in personality. The once independent chick that wanted nothing to do with us would start to engage in couch cuddles and snuggles. I liked it. I enjoyed her. I think that’s when we official named her.
We joked and said by day she was a sweet chick and by night her beak would get worse and she’d go through the ‘change’ like Fiona from Shrek. But the more she changed the more she would terrify me.
It would start with her learning how to run along the couch quiet as a mouse and come up behind me while I was watching TV and just start breathing in my ear. Then she’d add in her own touch and gently scrape her snaggle beak along my cheek or make a small sound only for me to look over and see her staring inches from my face just breathing. She’s made my husband jump and get scared a time or two.
I think she was testing the waters to see how much fear she could strike into her victims.
Then the night terrors began.
My headboard has drawers that slide back and forth. We made a nice little bed for her in there to sleep in at night. It began with the creepy sounds of her shuffling in the night hitting the headboard that would wake us up. We’d wake up and know it was her but just go back to sleep and ignore it. It’s kinda like a Gremlin. Once nighttime is over it’ll be okay. But then she learned how to open the headboard and escape at night.
Imagine this: it’s practically pitch black other than the moonlight shining in through the windows. Your eyes are closed but you feel something off, a heaviness in the air. You can see through your closed eyes the very faint dim light of the moon but you don’t want to open your eyes. You know you have to, but you’re afraid. You finally open them but you see the stuff from your nightmares: a sleep paralysis demon. You can’t move or scream. It’s her.
Fiona has managed to slide open the headboard and is standing on your pillow but her head is 1” away from your face. She is staring into your eyes and cocking her head back and forth inching closer to your face. She is just breathing with her raspy, nasally breath, watching you sleep. It’s HORRIFYING.
You can’t do anything other than pass out and wake up thinking it’s a bad dream except for when you get up the headboard is wide open and Fiona is just sitting there staring at you, gaslighting you with her eyes asking you “What’s wrong? Rough night? Oh that’s terrible.” She can’t smile but you have the gut feeling of knowing it wasn’t a dream. SHE WAS THERE. Testing her control over you.
This went on and on for those four months but you just chalk up these weird experiences to having a chicken in the house. I mean sure she looks rough but she’s cute, right? She isn’t evil, right? But even then you’d think that after all of the spoiling and love that she would kind of somewhat tolerate you or get the hint that I am the cure for her hunger needs or, I dunno, maybe life and survival?! Right? But NO. Her dependence on humans only fueled her anger.
Now that she has graduated to living outside she has managed to take the four smallest chicks we have as her own harem of girls. She has also staked an unclaimed (by the other chickens) portion of our property as their territory and she and the other four have no rooster to hold her down or control her. Fiona loves that. No one tells her what to do.
With this newfound freedom, independence, and clear takeover of the yard she’s decided to use the skills that she learned inside about control and fear to start her takeover. But she’d also rather die than her ask for or accept help. She hates that.
In her mind if she doesn’t need a rooster to find her treats (even though if she did she wouldn’t be able to eat them; she just smashes her head into the ground eating imaginary food outside) she doesn’t need me. I think the fact that she can’t dig up worms or eat grass just fuels her anger even more.
At this point, with her little club of chickens she could be calling the babies over for food when she finds what she thinks is a snack when in reality it could be deer poop for all the babies know. But they trust her. She gets to test her influence with them. She doesn’t need no rooster to feed her no matter how pretty and she doesn’t need me either which is cool and all, except for she will die without me.
When it’s time for me to feed her she looks at me with her evil little eye and says with her scowl “Over my dead body, I’d rather die” and walks away, tail up. If I pursue her she honks like a goose and acts like a lunatic flapping like I’m about to unalive her. This isn’t a normal chicken sound. She screams like a banshee causing a ruckus in the entire chicken yard. I think she does this to try and get the other chickens to not trust me.
Her little group of baby friends will gladly come to me and want love and food. They chirp and jump on my shoulders and snuggle me because they know I’m the holder of the special Fiona nuggests – yes, Fiona’s food even has its own special name. They know the sound of the bag is food and if they come to me they get treats, but not Fiona. She refuses.
If I do manage to wrangle her do you want to know what she does half the time?!
She spits it out. That’s right. She straight up spits it out! I even have a video of me feeding her saying, “Don’t spit it out”. And she looks at the camera and SPITS IT AT THE CAMERA. It’s not like I can know how she prefers her food. I just roll them into what I think is the perfect size and length every time. Nope.
When I roll it out I can see her eyeballing it. One big ugly eye looking for food and I swear if the length or girth is off by a micromillimetre in her eyes she’s already decided it’s for a peasant, not her superior fluffy butt and spits it out the second I get it in her. I have to reroll it and try and try again, and again, and again. A task that should take what? Five? Ten minutes? Ends up being what feels like an hour some days. No joke. Especially in the 105F heat.
Sure I could just push it down her throat further so she can’t spit it out but then she sits there with a mouth full of food, refusing to swallow, and eyes filled with rage, plotting my demise for the next time I ever let her sleep inside.
You think I’m gonna bring her inside to do this? Absolutely not. Knowing her she’ll probably go and hide somewhere and just wait for us to fall asleep and make her move. She can walk up the stairs. Nowhere is safe for us and everywhere is her territory.
Maybe I didn’t say a prayer over the feed when I made it? Maybe I’m supposed to put up a shrine of her while I am making her food honouring the Fiona god and asking her to infuse the food with good vibes, the strength of 10,000 men and the face of a gremlin. I dunno, but she is holding on to her independence and desperation to not need me. Maybe she wants to not look weak to the other chickens? Maybe she’s worried if she’s getting special food then the other chickens will think she wrangled the prime spot of the property and her own girls because she is ‘mom’s special girl’ and not the fact that she can take on grown men and make them feel small and insignificant.
Oh did I mention? I have a video of my hubby trying delicately to feed her. He acts like she’s going to bite but she can’t and when he finally gets her to stop wiggling enough to get the Fiona ball in she spits the food out and he says, “I give up”.
I tell him “Trevor, maintain alpha status! Maintain Alpha”, but he can’t. I’ve got video proof of her taking him down.
Maybe she’s worried if the roosters see her depending on me for food then that’ll be their chance to see that she might need them and they’ll try to wrangle this resting bird face of a chicken in for their own taking? May the chicken gods help whichever rooster is dumb enough to try and claim Fiona and her babies as his because Lordy that boy will have a whooping and hurt ego like none other. I mean, heck, even I am left humbled and humiliated after Fiona puts me through the emotional wringer during feeding times. I can’t imagine what she’d do with a rooster who actually likes her?
Fiona’s attachment style is a dismissive avoidance. If you don’t know what that is look it up. I didn’t know that chickens can have attachment styles but good grief she hates being wanted and she hates not having independence. Trying to keep the most stubborn, independent, and avoidant chicken known to mankind alive is a true test.
The worst part? Even if she hates me and is plotting my demise I have to face her and her defiance on the daily. Ego wounded more each time. The more independence she gets the more control she gets and she is planning to take over our homestead for her own control and I can’t do anything about it.
I like to joke and say that Fiona in her past life was just a horrible human being and therefore was reincarnated as this disabled chicken that strikes fear into us and depends on humans to live; the more she starts to control around here the more I believe it. Watch out world. First she’s going to take over my homestead, then she’s coming for you.
If you got to the end of this fun lighthearted, but true story I’m assuming you have a heart of gold and would still feed this adorable fluff ball if her plans for domination and control succeed and she comes to you or sends a crossbeak chicken into your life. Just be sure to make the Fiona balls how she likes them when she takes over because you have to feed her, otherwise you’ll feel bad when she dies.
Many thanks to Shannon Marie Simmer for sharing her story and photo.
Bitchin' Chickens 
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