Our special needs chicken

 You may recall a while back I posted a pic of a young chicken with a deformed beak with the comment "This guy is NOT a keeper."

Well, it turns out that statement was wrong in two ways. First of all, that guy turned out to be a girl. Secondly, that ugly little chicken is staying.

Aside from the beak problem, she actually turned out quite pretty though much smaller than her siblings.

 As I said in the previous post, while growing up she was always first to the feeder, but this smart little girl actually figured out how to fly up and into the hanging feeders for a private meal every day. This was a very good thing because her beak deformity makes it hard for her to get food down.

 She is such a friendly chicken that we decided to intervene a bit. Now every day this chicken is first out of the coop and allowed to climb into the bin of chick crumbles to fill her craw before anyone else it let out. She also has a cage set up in the poultry house with food and water that she will bug me to lift her into midday.

 To top it all off, she's a really nice chicken. Perfectly happy to be picked up, petted, and even perch on my shoulder. I've taken to calling her Betty (get it, Ugly Betty? ha ha), and I think the name really fits her. Betty will even come running when you call her.

Chicken photo bomb!

 Proof it's not easy to take a picture of a chicken on your own shoulder.