Tweaking the bird sling

Lil' Burday, or whatever her name is, has been flopping around in her straw-filled box in the bathroom. Not ideal. So I did some research (again) and found some ideas for the "chicken chair," one of many DIY poultry devices. (You have livestock, you'll be improvising crutches, slings, neck braces, whatever. I know a guy who built a version of the sheep chair, below. He said I could borrow it any time.)

I got sidetracked in my research by references to chicken diseases, complete with photos, and had to run away. Gah.

Anyway, Burday has some problem with her legs. They don't hold her weight, and one goes kinda off to the side. She might have a vitamin deficiency, or have taken a hard peck to the head. Some neurological thing. Kinda like me!

So here is her new habitat. It's a plastic storage bin with a double-knit sling with leg holes. Binder clips are key to the structure. Her food and water dishes are recycled pudding cups in a cheesy old wire rack, part of one of those 1980s wheeled organizer bin things. I bent the heck out of the rack to keep it in place, and ended up using binder clips there. Binder clips are excellent.

We tried it, and she kept getting off to one side, pushing with her good leg, so I put a couple of Priority Mail boxes in to keep her centered. There. Isn't it elegant? She loves it! Or at least she didn't bite me when I put her in there.

There's straw in the bottom to catch the poo and absorb any water she might dump (she enjoys dumping the water).

Feel free to use my design to build your own chicken chair. It's my gift to you.

We should take her out every day and help her flap her wings and do squats, all that Jack LaLanne stuff. Maybe we could do Tai Chi together.

Five eggs today. (Not from Burday.)