The miracle hen that survived being crushed under a paving slab
Pictured above is our ex-battery hen, Galadriel, who at the weekend survived a paving slab falling on her, without a single broken bone in her body. I was rearranging the paving around the hen-house, and the slab was so heavy I had to drag it around. It was much too heavy for a grown man to easily lift, and was left for a short time leaning against a tree when it fell over. Onto our hen.
Galadriel was hunting for worms where the paving slab had previously been positioned on the ground, because whenever you move stones and the like, worms and bugs are found in abundance beneath them. The horror happened so quickly. Her head and wing-shoulders were underneath the paving slab, she wasn’t moving, and her wings and legs were sticking out at revolting angles. Immediately, I lifted the slab, fully expecting to find a gory mess. But no. She wasn’t moving, but she was alive. So I thought her neck broken, but again, no. It wasn’t. And there were no external wounds, no blood at all.
I lifted her up, set her down on the ground and she stood up, completely and obviously concussed, and hobbled down the garden. One leg appeared broken, maybe a wing. She stopped, and simply stood in one place with every indication being that she didn’t know what she was, where she was, or anything much at all. So I picked her up, carried her indoors, wrapped her in a towel on my lap, and called the emergency vet. While waiting for a callback to let us know when to take Galadriel in, I gave her water and corn. She consumed both eagerly, and did a poop—so we knew before the professionals saw her that her appetite and digestive system seemed entirely normal. She remained, pun intended, shell-shocked.
It was Sunday morning, so there was an automatic £50 charge as the surgery was closed, and that was before any treatment. The vet examined Galadriel and said she had a twisted ankle, and was probably bruised all over, but confirmed no broken bones. Galadriel was given an injection of steroids (to reduce swelling) and morphine (for pain relief) and came home with saucer eyes. Since then she’s quickly recovered her chicken mojo, and last night went to the vet’s again for another painkilling injection.
Galadriel is a very fussy patient: green salad leaves are consumed, for example, but only reluctantly if she knows there are some purple ones available, when she will throw the greens out of her temporary box accommodation, and demand her favourite leaves instead. She enjoys anything and everything broadcast by BBC Radio 4, and marvels at the TV occasionally. My mother called, and Galadriel could hear her on the phone, showing interest, so Mum asked me to put the phone to our girl’s ear, to see how she’d react. Galadriel was fascinated for all of a minute, but then aimed her beak at the disconnect button and so I had to quickly take the phone away.
I kid you not. She went straight for that one button. Trust me, nobody puts the phone down on my ma and gets away with it.
Galadriel has an egg inside her which the vet told us is intact, but may not come out for a while. We have to watch her on that score, and if there are any problems with it, to take her back. But any eggs she produces for at least a week cannot be consumed—there’s a risk of them being drugged, and we wouldn’t want to provide any house guests with egg-on-toast for breakfast only for them to collapse unconscious at their desk later! But it was the first vet who said a week; the second vet said government guidelines say 21 days, but how the hell we’d know her eggs from the others produced by our flock, I’ve no idea.
But who cares about eggs when our miracle hen has been signed off as well on the road to recovery? It’s amazing!
Total cost of treatment to date? Just over £100. For those who keep hens for meat, this will be considered outrageous. But Galadriel is not kept for meat, she is a pet first and foremost, and one that survived a year of misery as a battery hen. She’s my favourite, having made herself so by being the most affectionate and running to me every day when well to leap into my arms for cuddles. Yes. Cuddles. But to put the money into context, it cost us £45 on Saturday to add another four birds to our flock. Three at £10, one at £15. Two Marans, one Buff Orpington and one Buff Orpington/Maran cross. The ex-battery girls cost 50p each through the wonderful Battery Hen Welfare Trust. So we now have eight birds, although we won’t see an increase in eggs until September at the earliest (Marans) and next year (the Buff Orpington, and Buff/Maran cross).
It follows that Galadriel is now our most expensive bird. And worth every penny. She didn’t deserve to have her neck wrung, to be ‘put out of her pain’ as was suggested when I posted some panic-fuelled appeals for first aid advice to online forums after the accident but before the visit to the vets. I understand why people said that, and don’t condemn them at all for their approach, but I felt they were jumping the gun until medical advice had been obtained. Plus, it’s all about why we keep the hens: again, pets not livestock. If it’s a bird destined for the table, then yes, there’s no point spending a ton to get it well.
I knew already that Galadriel has a strong will to survive. And she deserves more time on Earth to continue enjoying the love, care, sunshine and natural behaviours she was denied in her former half-life. Now, thanks to a miracle, she will be back with her sisters very soon.
Today, for the first time, she has begun putting a little weight on the affected leg, and doing a bit of scratching around in the straw. The vet has instructed that she cannot return to the flock for at least a week, maybe two, and has to live confined to a box inside the house. I carry it around with me, to wherever I’m going to be, as although the cats have been completely chilled about her presence, there have been a few occasions when our little hen has tried to peck them as they walk past. It’s for their protection I keep her close by—not hers.
How can a hen survive being crushed by a paving slab? We call it a miracle. Amazingly, two vets over two days called it a miracle as well. They could not even begin to suggest how she escaped alive, let alone without a single broken bone in her body. At the surgery, Galadriel was a cause célèbre–on Monday, the nurses already knew the story when we arrived, and had been looking forward to our little girl’s visit.
I guess this is a story worthy of coverage by Fortean Times, being one of those bizarre and inexplicable survivals we read about from time to time, like the window cleaner who fell from a skyscraper and lived. See, Galadriel should have had no head after the slab fell on her… But, as the photos show, she’s looking fantastic given what happened.
The laws of physics were broken, that’s for sure. Heavy objects slamming down on small, light objects should, well, they should squash them. Would you or I survive intact if one of the stones at Stonehenge fell on top of us? No. We wouldn’t survive at all. We’d be smears on the ground. The Chicken Gods looked kindly on our girl at the weekend, and spared her so that she could continue enjoying life and providing us with much love and interesting tales to tell.
There’s one other strange thing about Galadriel: she had a wing clipped upon arrival in February, as necessary, but everything I’ve read says you only need to do this once a year. She had it done again three weeks ago, when spotted flying over the fence one day. At the time she was also occasionally choosing to dig underneath the fence and escape that way, but tent pegs a-plenty put a stop to such Tenko-style escape plans. She still eyes the strawberry plants from afar, her favourites and, it seemed, the motivation for her burrowing and short-haul flights…
So if anyone wants to interview Galadriel, she is available but requests that purple salad leaves be provided for the duration of any meeting, or it’s no deal.
But I must point out, for reasons unknown, Galadriel hasn’t ‘talked’ since the accident. She makes tiny sounds, of pain (less each day) or interest (more each day), but none of her usual chatter. But I understand her, most of the time, and am always on hand to translate. The vets don’t know if this means there’s permanent damage, or if it’s a psychological response to her accident. It’s just another mystery to add to the fact that neither Galadriel nor any of us will ever know why or how she survived. She frankly doesn’t care, and ultimately, neither do I. Me and my beloved are just glad she’s still around, and charming us even more while she’s living the indoor good life…
If you don’t believe in miracles, you’re wrong. Miracles do happen. I know. For what purpose, if any, well… That’s an interesting question, isn’t it?
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