Ronda Tells the Story of Belina: The $700 Chicken With a Strange Appetite
A ranch is a perfect place to see animal life unfold in its natural spontaneity. The web of existence is a careful balance, both in the wild and at Ronda Rousey’s critter castle Browsey Acres. Any small disturbance could affect everything connected to it, including the owner’s wallets during a total chicken malfunction.
“Belina decided it’d be a great idea to start eating wood shavings. She’s an idiot. She got bred for looks, not for smarts. She filled her whole crop up with wood shavings so we took her to the vet like, ‘Please, there is something wrong with our chicken,’ she said. “They’re like, ‘We have to express her crop, that will be $500.’ They tried it and they couldn’t get it all out so she had to go to surgery which is another $200.”
Maybe it was all that time Belina spent clucking around the goats that convinced her she could eat anything. Maybe wood chips just taste good. After all, they are used to infuse delicious flavor into smoked meats. Motive aside, Ronda’s chicken was filled to the beak with pulp and racked up a large vet bill.
“I was like, ‘Aw babe, she’s just going to eat more wood shavings. We’ll be back here again. We’re going to have to let her go.’ I was all crying and upset about it.’ she said. “The next day I come home, there is Belina post-surgery recovering in her own bedroom. So, Trav went and paid for the surgery and brought her home.”
Like a white knight who had been appointed to save chickens from pencil-sharpener neck and Ronda from tears, Travis paid the $700 and cleaned out the chips from the entire coop. Belina’s diet was quickly changed from mostly bark-based to cereal grains and medicine.
“We had to force-feed her vials of medicine twice-a-day,’ she said. “Imagine trying to shove something down a chicken’s throat that they don’t want down there. A chicken that’s so small post-chicken bypass surgery that if you squeeze it hard it would die.”
Need more fauna drama? Check out life, death, and literal