Princess Mudball Gets A Bath

So yeah, had to bathe Burger the light Brahma hen to get all that damned mud off.  I was afraid with feathers that soiled they wouldn't insulate properly and that she would suffer in our coming colder temperatures--25 degrees tonight, 10 to 12 degrees tomorrow night and the next 3-4 nights after.

Princess Mudball is brought into the house and invited into the bathroom.

'What...?  Me...?  OK...'

"Hum dee dum dee dum..."

 'Hmmm, what's this?'

'Uhhhhhh...'

NOPE.

Sadly for Princess Mudball, she's is ganged up upon by three humans and has no choice.  The rubber ducky doesn't even intrigue her.

The water got darker and darker the more I doused & scrubbed her.  Burger has a dark undercoat of gray feathers, so some of that darkness is natural under all that dirt.  And it took some determined scrubbing, too--this wasn't your basic 'get a chicken ready for a poultry show' bath, this was hard-core decontamination.

NO, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T JUMP OUT NOW!

Achievement Unlocked:  Mad As A Wet Hen, 100000 Gamer Points

The sludge she left behind had it's own alluvial fan.  Burger really returned some topsoil to the Earth here.

Time for rinsies!

I swear, Burger really IS a big hen, she just looks small right now.


Even rubber duckies can't help poor sad wet chicken.

Princess Mudball struggles to regain some dignity...OK, this towel is kinda nice...

But then it is removed along with the last shreds of dignity.

Just to be sure the chicken humiliation is well-rounded, the next step is the hair dryer. Get the wingpits...

Both sides, everything has to get dried...

EVERYTHING.

Especially those Brahma pantaloons.

Starting to look more like a proper Brahma again, the Brahmabrow is reemerging.  After this Burger is released from the bathroom and allowed to hang about in the house for about an hour to finish drying out and arrange her feathers.
Which she does, slowly but surely.

As it started to get dark, she got up on the couch to hang with the kid and watch her play video games.

...and finally, back to being a light Brahma again, yay!