June has been a month of both worrying about the chickens, and causing the chickens to worry (by introducing new chickens) - and July is looking set to be the same. First up was Bessie. Bessie went quiet a few weeks ago (always a bad sign), and seemed to be heaving her whole body each time she took a breath. We gave her a warm bath, and had a good feel of her abdomen, which seemed to be swollen. After keeping an eye on her for a day or two with no improvements, we took her to the vets. Our local vets are lovely, but they know very little about chickens. This is common among vets I think - until fairly recently people just didn't keep chickens as well-loved pets. Chicken medicine isn't as advanced as for dogs or cats, and our vet had a prod and said 'there's definitely something going on in there, I'll give her some antibiotics, but I don't think it'll do anything and there's nothing else we can do.' I suspect if we'd agreed he would have put her down there and then, but on the whole we prefer to nurse them ourselves, so we brought her home. Bessie was still running around though. Not as quickly, but she was still eating, still hanging around with the others, and didn't seem at all ready to die, although she was clearly quite ill. After a bit of searching, we found a specialist chicken vet... And so this is how we ended up driving for an hour and a half to a tiny little Cheshire village to have Bessie seen by an 'exotic pets' specialist. This lovely woman drained half a pint of fluid from Bessie's abdomen, took blood tests, and gave her more antibiotics and some hefty diuretics for good measure. After a week we took her back - nothing wrong with her heart or liver, but she'd accumulated more fluid, suggesting something wrong with her reproductive system, so she now has a hormonal implant (!) to stop her producing eggs. So far she seems fine, but we'll keep an eye on her. We'd got our names down to collect some more rescue hens at the end of June. Three chickens isn't really much of a flock, so we were going to add another two, but when it seemed like we might lose Bessie, which would have meant losing three chickens in three months, we decided we needed a break from the short lives of rescue hens, so instead we found some young ones. The new ladies are adorable - but introducing young chickens to battle-scarred older ladies is proving rather different to introducing new rescues. Last time, introducing our current lot to Mildred and Maud, there were squabbles, the new ladies gave as good as they got, and everyone reached a truce within a few days. This time, the older ladies just have to look at the new ones, and they run flapping to whatever high surface is available. Still, we're getting there. The new ladies now take themselves to bed in the evening, in the same house as the others (although they tend to wait until we're there for backup). We do supervised mingling, but they've not yet been left to mingle on their own, as the young ones (they're 16 weeks old, so not quite laying yet) are still a bit scared. The older ones are mostly ignoring them. Anyway, I've not introduced you! This is Chippy. Chippy is affectionate - she was the first to peck food from my leg, and the first to jump up onto my knee (and my head, and my shoulder). In the evening when she's ready for bed she always jumps onto me, and I have to gently explain that I'm not going to spend the night in the chicken run just so she can have a comfortable perch. Next up is Bonnie. The top half of Bonnie's beak is shorter than the bottom half - I'm not sure why as they haven't been clipped. She seems to be able to eat and drink just fine, but we'll keep an eye on her. Bonnie is sweet and also affectionate - she was the first to hop onto my leg like this and sit down. She also seems the most inclined to get to know the older hens - her and Bessie even had a few beakfuls from the same food bowl this morning. She's quite adventurous, and was the first to attempt to follow the older hens into the hen house at night (she rapidly came out again after a bit of squarking, but they're getting there). And finally we have Bunty. Bunty looks very like Bonnie (aside from the beak), but is rather more highly strung and a bit nervous. She's showing a tendency to strut, and I wonder whether she'll evolve a Mildred-like bossy character in the end. The world must be a strange place for them right now though. Plucked out of the shed they shared with many others, transported in a box, and plonked in with some rather haughty older hens, it's no wonder they're a bit wary. Their combs are still growing, and they're not laying yet, although they should start to in the next couple of weeks, and maybe by then they'll have settled down a bit. We're spending as much time with them as we can, although the weather has been vile this week. They've got a secure outdoor area now, so they can spend a bit of time outside, although they only seem to come out when we're there. I might let them wander further afield today, supervised of course - although they're still quite jumpy and I'm not entirely convinced it'll be easy to get them back in. And now the new ladies are settling in a bit, we're starting to worry about Rusty, who seems a little under the weather. Her breathing was a bit rattly for a couple of hours the other day - maybe she caught a cold? She's had some apple cider vinegar in her water (I tried garlic, but she refused to drink it), and I've ordered some kind of (probably useless) chicken cold remedy. We'll keep an eye on her, and take her to the vets next week if she doesn't get better.
They are a worry these chickens. Well, if you take as much of an interest in their little personalities and individual wellbeing as we do, that is. At least we're learning a lot about chicken health, as we don't seem to have had two with the same thing wrong yet. Fingers crossed that all the various ailments clear up soon.
1 Comment
TDQKaren
4/7/2020 02:56:10 pm
Wandered over here as you haven't been on t'other place for a while. Nice to see you are just busy with the ladies. They look so lovely. As we have a mad golden retriever have to live your good life vicariously x
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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