Dot the Green Eyed Chicken
Dot the Green Eyed Hen
Herk and Stephanie Hancock lived in Conway, WA, where they raised two kids, Cubby and Jaynie. Herk was one of the better auctioneers in these parts and had great old barn in which he conducted mostly estate auctions and used a section of the barn as a second hand store where he managed to move a lot of his second hand merchandise ileft over from the auctions he’d held. They lived in a nice old farm house between the south fork of the Skagit River and I-5 interstate.
At some point, the kids talked Mom and Dad into getting a pet chicken. So they got a speckled hen and called her Dot, the Green Eyed Hen. There was a huge yard, the river dike, and a big parking lot attached to Conway Pole Co. next door. This meant Dad would have to build a chicken coop, which he did, but the kids were always playing with Dot in the huge yard which usually left Dot to wander around the place when the kids got tired or went off to school. The chicken then had the place to herself. She managed to find plenty of places to roost, as hens are apt to do, and the kids always had the greatest fun trying to figure out where the she might have laid the most recent batch of eggs. Everything was going along just fine, with Dot, Jaynie and Cubby, til' the neighbor's dog came along and caught Dot sleeping up on the picnic table. The dog did considerable damage to the hen, and the apologetic owners told Herk to take Dot to the vet and they would pay for it, probably figuring that they’d have to put poor Dot out of her cluckin misery. Cubby and Jaynie would have none of that, so the vet reconstructed what he could of Dots rear end and egg laying facilities and handed Herk the bill. Over $400.00. So Herk took the bill to the neighbors and they refused saying, "Sorry Herk", but no chicken's worth that much”. The vet told them that Dot could still produce eggs, but due to the trauma of the whole event, would probaly stop for some time. As fate would have it, Dot didn’t stop producing eggs, she just didn’t have the strength to lay them. So Mom and Dad, clad with vinyl gloves and a tube of K-Y jelly acted as a chicken midwife to extract Dots' eggs. The process got to be too much for Herk or Stephanie to deal with, so they checked with the vet about getting Dot the Green Eyed Hen fixed. He said, “Sure, bring her in.” So, they bundled Dot up in a towel, jumped into the truck and headed to town.
Now we don’t (and never will) know if Dot became traumatized at the thought getting fixed, thereby ending her egg producing days, but the poor bird died in Stephanie's arms on the way to the vets.
At some point, the kids talked Mom and Dad into getting a pet chicken. So they got a speckled hen and called her Dot, the Green Eyed Hen. There was a huge yard, the river dike, and a big parking lot attached to Conway Pole Co. next door. This meant Dad would have to build a chicken coop, which he did, but the kids were always playing with Dot in the huge yard which usually left Dot to wander around the place when the kids got tired or went off to school. The chicken then had the place to herself. She managed to find plenty of places to roost, as hens are apt to do, and the kids always had the greatest fun trying to figure out where the she might have laid the most recent batch of eggs. Everything was going along just fine, with Dot, Jaynie and Cubby, til' the neighbor's dog came along and caught Dot sleeping up on the picnic table. The dog did considerable damage to the hen, and the apologetic owners told Herk to take Dot to the vet and they would pay for it, probably figuring that they’d have to put poor Dot out of her cluckin misery. Cubby and Jaynie would have none of that, so the vet reconstructed what he could of Dots rear end and egg laying facilities and handed Herk the bill. Over $400.00. So Herk took the bill to the neighbors and they refused saying, "Sorry Herk", but no chicken's worth that much”. The vet told them that Dot could still produce eggs, but due to the trauma of the whole event, would probaly stop for some time. As fate would have it, Dot didn’t stop producing eggs, she just didn’t have the strength to lay them. So Mom and Dad, clad with vinyl gloves and a tube of K-Y jelly acted as a chicken midwife to extract Dots' eggs. The process got to be too much for Herk or Stephanie to deal with, so they checked with the vet about getting Dot the Green Eyed Hen fixed. He said, “Sure, bring her in.” So, they bundled Dot up in a towel, jumped into the truck and headed to town.
Now we don’t (and never will) know if Dot became traumatized at the thought getting fixed, thereby ending her egg producing days, but the poor bird died in Stephanie's arms on the way to the vets.
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