Everyone deserves a chance at their best life. 

So, when Meesh Davignon got a call about an animal in need, she knew she had to help.

After all, when you’re a pet lover, it doesn’t take much to pull your heart strings.

Davignon was already raising guinea pigs, dogs, a cat, and even some chicken. Adding one more chicken was easy, she said.

The owner of the tiny chicken was moving and wanted a loving home for the bird to live.

“She had a little Malaysian Serama chicken that had lost his toes to scaly leg mites,” Davignon said. Mites are tiny arachnids that can survive in the scales on chicken’s legs, causing long-term damage.

I thought he was really cute — he weighed less than a pound, and his breed is the smallest chicken in the world,” she said.

The chicken was missing a majority of his toes causing him to walk on the nubs of his feet, so Davignon named him ‘Nubz’. And the first thing she did when they got back to her home in California was introduce Nubz to the other 12 chickens she owned.

“They did not accept him immediately — it definitely took him time to become part of their flock,” Davignon said. “He was kept in an enclosure inside their area for a while so they could all get used to each other safely.”

As Nubz would walk around, she started noticing how difficult it was for him to walk on gravel and dirt.

“He has very thin skin because of the mite damage, so he hobbled around and fell a lot,” she said. Davignon said it took time to remove any mites that were left. 

“You can suffocate them in Vaseline, then tightly wrap the chicken’s feet,” she said. “But I had to keep rewrapping cotton around Nubz because everything got so dirty. I was changing his wraps three times a day.”

One day, Davignon said she recalled a pair of shoes she had used for her Chihuahua, Rex. The tiny dog slippers were decorated with reindeer and Rex had never worn them.

She quickly went to the chicken, and gently put his feet inside the slippers. Then she offered him a mealworm, his favorite snack, to see if he would walk to her.

It worked.

“As he got more comfortable wearing his little shoes, I’d leave them on longer each time,” Davignon said. “Pretty soon, he was getting around a lot better than he did without them because they were great little mobility devices. I’d let him wear them to walk on wood chips and anything else that was rough on his feet.”

After Nubz had been with her for a year, Davignon celebrated by creating a TikTok page to share his adventures in his shoes.

@calliopenubz Replying to @Frostee’s Mama im not sure if this is the right one lol… ill have to soend some time on making one that really fits the beat of it 😅 #morepassion #moreenergy #pettok #fyp #foryou #saturday #chickentok ♬ More Passion, More Energy – WasteLand

People fell in love with Nubz. Her video went viral, and as she kept posting more stories about the chicken, people started sending her shoes for him.

Shoes that have been sent in for Nubz by his TikTok fans. Photo courtesy of Meesh Davignon

Packages poured in and soon there were more than 30 shoes for Nubz. These days, Nubz has his choice of fleecy booties, tennis shoes, blue suede shoes, beach sandals, dinosaur claw boots and others in an assortment of colors.

However, the chicken had to take a break from his favorite footwear after having to stay at the vets for a few days because of two degenerative discs in his neck. He is doing well and expected to be back in his shoes soon, she said.

Her love for the tiny chicken is something she cherishes, Davignon said.

“He’s a sassy little chicken and he needs to be the boss,” she said. “But he’s also sweet, cuddly and extremely loving, and he likes me to snuggle with him. I adore him.”

Watch below for a look at this dapper little chicken and his fancy new shoes.

Sources: Washington Post | People