On a Tuesday morning recently, I held our big, white, Plymouth Rock chicken in my arms, thinking she was dying.
Snowy is our oldest hen, the only one remaining from the original three my husband, Paul, and I started our chicken-keeping adventures with back in 2012. She has plenty of personality, and is a constant chatterer. It was especially heart-wrenching for me to see her in this state.
Snowy hadn’t been quite herself on Sunday; by Monday we suspected something was wrong. Tuesday, we knew she was sick. She wasn’t eating, and was standing around with her head stuck into her neck. Snowy looked pitiful.
Though she is the most outgoing and active of our flock of three (we added Rhode Island Reds Hope and Nellie a few years ago), she has had her share of mishaps. Snowy has become egg-bound twice, requiring emergency intervention. This happens when a hen has an egg to lay, but, for some reason, can’t. The prescription is a warm bath in Epsom salts and a poke up the rear with the owner’s gloved and lubricated finger. I find letting the egg-bound chicken walk around the yard helps too.
Then there was her great comb-ripping escapade of 2014. We’re not sure how it happened, but she was probably scared by the noise of a building being torn down in our neighborhood. Snowy seemed to have jumped into the pen, tearing her comb on the wire. Paul found her covered in blood.
I love when he calls me at work and says, “Snowy is covered in blood!”
I did what I always do when I don’t know what else to do: I googled it. We could stanch the bleeding with corn starch, I learned, and then help it heal with Vetericyn. We had used the latter on our dogs’ hot spots, but I didn’t know it could also be used on chickens.
We set up our “emergency pen,” or ICU unit, in the garage. Paul had bought this pen, sans coop, when we were introducing Hope and Nellie to the two chickens we had back in 2013. The newcomers spent their days in it, joining the other ladies at night. The corn meal worked, and once the bleeding stopped we could see that Snowy had, indeed, cut through about three-quarters of her comb. It would never be right again.
Her recuperation took two weeks. Chickens have to be isolated if they are injured because the other hens will peck at them. Since we didn’t want to leave Snowy in the garage all day, and we couldn’t leave her out all night, we began a routine of taking from the pen in the morning, treating her, moving the pen outside, and putting her back in for the day. Then we repeated the procedure in reverse at night. I became adept at carrying her in one hand while holding an edge of the pen in the other as we moved it in and out of the garage.
We all weathered that experience two years ago. I wasn’t sure, as I held Snowy on the recent Tuesday, if we were going to make it through this one.
Though we weren’t sure what was wrong, an Epsom bath always helps. We washed her, and then discovered that her oviduct (part of the egg-laying apparatus) was protruding. This is something Paul has always feared would happen, especially with Snowy. She lays very large eggs, and is still going strong in that department at age five, which is somewhat unusual. The previous weekend, she had laid two of her whoppers two days in a row. That must have caused the oviduct to pop out.
Once again, Doctor Liz was called upon to use a gloved finger in Snowy’s nether regions. Though it’s something I never thought I could do, I popped the exposed oviduct back in. Then I had to go to work.
Snowy did not improve immediately. In fact, she just huddled in the same position in the pen for several hours. Then, she laid an egg. She must have felt considerably relieved because Snowy perked up a bit after that.
Paul had made a late-afternoon appointment with the only vet in our area who treats chickens. The doctor verified that the oviduct had come out, and that we had successfully replaced it. But Snowy’s hind end was inflamed. We were to keep her in isolation, reduce her exposure to daylight and treat her with Preparation H for a few days.
Yes, we were taken aback too. But, the medication is designed for inflamed tissue in humans, so why not?
Snowy steadily improved. Hope and Nellie missed her, so I took her back there to see them once a day. By Saturday of that week, Snowy was feisty when we tried to treat her. It was time for her to rejoin the flock.
I still can’t quite believe her comeback. I know this can happen again. But when I was holding this pet chicken, and I saw her eyes close, I thought she might die right there in my arms. No matter what happens next, I’m counting this as a happy ending.
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