Update: About a week after Little Red Hen's first vet visit, we found and took her to a farm vet an hour away. It was worth it. For $20 less than my other vet visit, they kept her from Tuesday until Friday and gave her daily steroid shots to help with inflammation. He believes the damage to be nerve damage and showed me how to help her build up strength in her leg and right side. It can take up to a year for nerves to heal. :-( btw - the vet office has called to check in on her 3 times since we brought her home 2 weeks ago. They are really great!
So on to her: she still can't stand on her own, but she is making little improvements and getting stronger as time goes on. This week's milestones were 1. being able to stay in 'perching position' on the bottom of her box all night without flopping over on her side and 2. able to stand for several seconds on 2 legs while propped against a rock. We take her outside near the other birds and keep her under a guinea pig cage top so they don't pick on her. We also carry her around the yard and help her 'stand' at the feeder and waterer. We gave up on her sling for now because she kept flipping herself out of it and ending up in an uncomfortable position on her head. I think a redesign is in order.
She kept trying to groom herself, but still has limited mobility of her neck. So we started using our fingernails to pick dead skin off the new feather growth. She seems to like it and makes cooing/purring noises. Today we had her around our 5 week old chicks (supervised) and a couple of them were grooming her. So cute!
As for diet, we did use probiotic and electrolyte sav-a-chick for a few days. Her poops returned to normal so we stopped offering it. She didn't seem to like it after a couple of days anyway. We also stopped all the special foods and just kept her on starter feed/crumbles. She has gotten some watermelon treats when the weather has been really hot. She started putting on weight and now she finally seems to be close to where she was before the "Animal Attack."
Our new coop keeps getting things added to it, but we hope to soon have an area in it for her to be outside with the other birds. She doesn't like it when we bring her in at night or when it is raining. btw- The 2 roosters who survived the attack still refuse to go into the old coop, which has been reinforced until we finish our new one. They keep 'bedding down' next to the house in the bushes, and then we have to pick them up and take them to the coop. Hope they go into the new one once we put it in service.
She will be 5 months old next week, so now I am worried that she will have problems if her body starts to produce eggs before she is healed. . . so I guess it's time to do more reading.
