This thread is dedicated and all about the trials and tribulations of my Silver Dorking, Bubbles.
I first bought Bubbles back at the start of the year to replace my Salmon Faverolle who unfortunately passed away from an unknown illness.
She was about 4 months old - cute, quiet and happy as can be
Then over a couple of weeks she developed a nasty infection to her eye.
I battled this with her for the best part of 6 weeks. Tried injectable antibiotics, oral AB's. Nothing was working. I honestly thought if the infection did not clear up soon, I felt cruel in having her continually suffer through it and thought of having her euthanised.
During this time she was kept in isolation from the rest of my flock in case the infection spread. So she did not have any interaction with other chickens for quite a while and was probably feeling particularly lonely.
She ended up with her namesake, Bubbles, because her eye was all bubbly and yuck.
I turned to bathing her eye in a warm saline solution, wiping the gunk out daily with a cotton bud and applying Chlorsig (a human conjunctivitus cream) to her eye times a day.
I also fed her up on a mixture of scrambled eggs, livamol, apple cider vinegar, garlic, coconut oil and sardines and fed this to her twice a day along with ad lib pullet grower pellets.
Her feathers on her back where constantly crusty from Bubbles wiping her eye on them which I am sure didn't help her situation one bit. I had to bathe her every week to get rid of those crusties to try and minimise the irritation it was causing to her eye.
As time went on, she was able to open the lids somewhat and all I could see was this thick, horrible pus.
I thought to myself if she pulled through this, her vision would more than likely be compromised.
So I continued to flush her eye daily and eventually was able to dislodge the hard, thick pus.
A few days went by and her eye got better and better. As I thought, she cannot see out of the eye since it suffered a lot of trauma, but is able to navigate around, eat and drink and forage just the same as my other girls.
Back she went in with the rest of the flock
As time went on, her comb and wattles developed rapidly
She is no worse for wear having gone through a horrible eye infection and is as strong as ever, even though she's right at the bottom of the pecking order, poor darling.
Approximately 2 months after the infection had cleared, Bubbles laid her first egg - a lovely off-white beauty!
She is a very reliable layer, laying 5-6 eggs a week consistently. Bubbles is by far my most vocal bird before and after laying an egg - of course she has to announce to the world she's still here and proud to be.
Now, about a week and a half ago, this little girl went broody for the first time. Perfect, I thought, she can hatch some babies. After setting her up in the brooder box and tentatively waiting to see if she's take the move and set, I bought her some fertile eggs; six Pencilled Rock Bantams, six Araucana and three Faverolles.
The Brooder Box Chateau
The lovely fertile eggs
I put the eggs under her on Wednesday night 1/10/2014. The following day I checked on her and found one Bantam Rock egg had been cracked
Nevermind, still 14 left.
Bubbles steadfastly sitting on her brood.
She's made that Corona box into her home. The brick is there so no eggs can roll out.
I candled a few of the eggs last night 6/10/2014 - I'm pleased to say of the ones I candled (about 7) all but one was developing!
She is such a fighter and fast became my favourite chicken out of the 10 I have, but shhhhh!!! Don't tell the others I've said that!
If you managed to read through all that, I'm keeping this updated as Bubbles goes through the incubation, eventually hatching and raising her chicks. Wish us luck and thanks for reading!
I first bought Bubbles back at the start of the year to replace my Salmon Faverolle who unfortunately passed away from an unknown illness.
She was about 4 months old - cute, quiet and happy as can be
Then over a couple of weeks she developed a nasty infection to her eye.
I battled this with her for the best part of 6 weeks. Tried injectable antibiotics, oral AB's. Nothing was working. I honestly thought if the infection did not clear up soon, I felt cruel in having her continually suffer through it and thought of having her euthanised.
During this time she was kept in isolation from the rest of my flock in case the infection spread. So she did not have any interaction with other chickens for quite a while and was probably feeling particularly lonely.
She ended up with her namesake, Bubbles, because her eye was all bubbly and yuck.
I turned to bathing her eye in a warm saline solution, wiping the gunk out daily with a cotton bud and applying Chlorsig (a human conjunctivitus cream) to her eye times a day.
I also fed her up on a mixture of scrambled eggs, livamol, apple cider vinegar, garlic, coconut oil and sardines and fed this to her twice a day along with ad lib pullet grower pellets.
Her feathers on her back where constantly crusty from Bubbles wiping her eye on them which I am sure didn't help her situation one bit. I had to bathe her every week to get rid of those crusties to try and minimise the irritation it was causing to her eye.
As time went on, she was able to open the lids somewhat and all I could see was this thick, horrible pus.
I thought to myself if she pulled through this, her vision would more than likely be compromised.
So I continued to flush her eye daily and eventually was able to dislodge the hard, thick pus.
A few days went by and her eye got better and better. As I thought, she cannot see out of the eye since it suffered a lot of trauma, but is able to navigate around, eat and drink and forage just the same as my other girls.
Back she went in with the rest of the flock
As time went on, her comb and wattles developed rapidly
She is no worse for wear having gone through a horrible eye infection and is as strong as ever, even though she's right at the bottom of the pecking order, poor darling.
Approximately 2 months after the infection had cleared, Bubbles laid her first egg - a lovely off-white beauty!
She is a very reliable layer, laying 5-6 eggs a week consistently. Bubbles is by far my most vocal bird before and after laying an egg - of course she has to announce to the world she's still here and proud to be.
Now, about a week and a half ago, this little girl went broody for the first time. Perfect, I thought, she can hatch some babies. After setting her up in the brooder box and tentatively waiting to see if she's take the move and set, I bought her some fertile eggs; six Pencilled Rock Bantams, six Araucana and three Faverolles.
The Brooder Box Chateau
The lovely fertile eggs
I put the eggs under her on Wednesday night 1/10/2014. The following day I checked on her and found one Bantam Rock egg had been cracked
Bubbles steadfastly sitting on her brood.
She's made that Corona box into her home. The brick is there so no eggs can roll out.
I candled a few of the eggs last night 6/10/2014 - I'm pleased to say of the ones I candled (about 7) all but one was developing!
She is such a fighter and fast became my favourite chicken out of the 10 I have, but shhhhh!!! Don't tell the others I've said that!
If you managed to read through all that, I'm keeping this updated as Bubbles goes through the incubation, eventually hatching and raising her chicks. Wish us luck and thanks for reading!
