Taffeta - our little "Trisomy 18" chicken

Wouldn’t you know it - when I announced my Thirty One fundraiser in yesterday’s blogpost, I initially made a mistake in giving out the Thirty One link.  And of course I didn’t catch it until the post was automatically emailed out by Google. :( I did fix it in the post.  Here it is again:
Jump to our party page by clicking https://www.mythirtyone.com/NikkiHuffman/ , click on "My Parties" on the left, and then clicking on "The Lilly Memorial Projects Thirty-One Fundraiser."

Taffeta photos by Tabby.

 I’ve mentioned before that one of our Silkie Bantam chicks is a runt.  Tabby named her Taffeta and  Hunter says she’s so small because she has Trisomy 18 like Lilly did. I greatly enjoy watching the chickens running around our backyard.  But suddenly the other day, I just felt like bursting into tears watching cute little Taffeta trying so hard to keep up with the “big” chicks.  She reminded me of Lilly!  (OK ... the logical part of my brain says “stop!” You are associating a chicken with your daughter because it is almost her birthday and she isn’t here to celebrate it with you and so that is why you’re thinking of her more than usual and wanting to cry at so many things.  Self - logic talk over - let’s just go with this.)

(above) Little Taffeta by a normal sized Delaware chicken.

Taffeta is not much more than half the size of the other chickens, who are all her age.  (Slow growth.  “Failure to thrive?”) She is such a spunky little thing though!  Such a fighter!  (Like our Lilly was a fighter - that how she got the name “Little Firecracker” within a few hours of her birth.)  She has her funny way of running around and tries to keep up with the other chickens.  But some of the other chickens are just plain mean.  They sit on her and pull her feathers out.  (Just like many people in the world don’t think special children are worth it.)  But in spite of the bad treatment, Taffeta seems to be a happy little chick and is very sweet to us.  (Just like Lilly didn’t worry about the world saying she was “incompatible with life” - she was happy and loving.)  Taffeta is very brave too - she even stood up to the rooster when we first brought him here.  And her small size came in handy as she was able to dodge all his pecks by running under him!  (If you’ve read even half of Lilly’s story on this blog - you know she was one brave little girl!  She even won over a number of doctors that initially didn’t have any hope in her.)

As I watched Taffeta, I thought - she just may be the chick that makes me cry when she dies.