A New Experience

Well this week we have had a whole new experience and that is a very sick bird.  Abbey, our champion egg layer, came down with a bout of diarrhea about a week ago and I have been keeping an eye on her hoping it would clear up.  Unfortunately on Saturday morning she was sitting away from the other birds with her head down and her eyes closed, I got a real fright, she was obviously very ill.

I did not think our vet would treat chickens being a town vet who mainly deals with small fluffy dogs but we phoned him just in case and no, he does not treat chickens so we were on our own.  I immediately went to the internet and searched through many blogs and articles on treating sick chickens and came up with a cure (I hoped). 

Whole, bio dynamic yoghurt with rolled oats added - so up to Woolies we went.  Abbey loved the yoghurt and oats - as did the other chickens and later that day I gave her a second dose.  I was sure she was brighter already.  Yesterday (Sunday) I repeated the process and she was alert and seemingly back to good health! 

Now I decided it was time to give her a little wash as her "petticoat" was soiled and she couldn't clean all those soft feathers properly and it was upsetting her.  So we gave her a little wash which she didn't mind at all and I also had to clip some of the little feathers.  Well, when we took her back outside she was a sight to behold - I said to Greg "Her petticoat is ruined!"  Skeeta was aghast and tried to restore some dignity to Abbey by helping her preen her feathers!

I checked on Abbey about an hour later and was very pleased and relieved to see that her feathers had dried white and fluffy and her petticoat was pretty again and being ruffled in the breeze as she walked.

                                                                                 

I am still giving them the yoghurt twice a day and this morning Abbey was the first out of their pen. : )