The Runt

She’s not moving.

As 2-week old chicks playfully scoot and scurry about their roomy brooder - a glorified steel tub in the shed that offers extra heat and protection in their first weeks of life - one chick has surrendered to stillness under the pulsing red heat lamp. It’s a stark contradiction to the lively chirping chorus harmonizing around her. 

I scoop her up with one hand, her feather-weight body no bigger than a small apple, and rush her to Chicken Hospital. 

Chicken Hospital is what I call a shoebox in front of a space heater on my living room floor.

I gently admit the patient. Kiln-dried pine shavings cushion her landing.

I sit cross-legged beside the box and begin my examination: unseeing gaze, shallow breath, stunted growth, profound lethargy. Critical, but stable. Instinctively, I mix water and honey into a small glass bottle with a dropper top. The patient resists my tincture, but as the sugar weaves with her system, an unmistakable pith of life resurges. Once she is sufficiently rehydrated, I offer a finely diced hard-boiled egg. The patient accepts. 

As she gains strength, the patient is discharged and returned to the flock.

The next day, I spot her petite figure instantly when the flock gathers at the feeder. As the other girls fill in the scaffolding of their frames with new feathers, they readily push the Lilliputian body aside. I watch her concede to a slow, dehydrated death.

I readmit the patient to Chicken Hospital. She embraces the familiar dwelling, content with a quiet life alone in a shoebox. 

I exhale, searching for the words to remind us both that hiding away only works for so long. That even when the flock is annoying, it’s necessary. That solitude can heal — right up until it starts starving us.

I whisper to her,

You are a mountain of courage.

You were not born to play small.

Take up space.

Eat.

I return her to the flock.

She figures it out.