Chicken found alive after 1-2 months of being trapped

[Sequel]

There are a lot of varying opinions about ACV. It's very controversial around here. You must make your own decisions.

I agree! From my own experience, it was one of the things that I read about so thought it was important to give them once in a while, but the bucket it was in always got slimy. Maybe that slime was beneficial, I have no idea. It’s easy to get sucked into the supplement vortex. It’s important to remember that industry is pretty much unregulated.
I believe in fresh food and fresh water. My birds have access to pasture so I’m sure they get plenty of biotics, pro and otherwise. I limit treats to greens from the garden, a few meat scraps now and then and enough scratch to keep them happy to see me!

Back to the vinegar thing…I quit bothering with it several years ago and won’t bother again unless there’s a good reason.

 

[Folly's place]

Vinegar stays in my kitchen, where it's truly useful!
Mary

 

[veesymanski]

Hello and thank you for reading!
We thought one of our chickens was taken by a fox 1-2 months ago, but we found her tonight in our crawl space!
She must have gotten trapped in there somehow and has managed to stay alive all this time!
She’s in bad shape though. We found her laying on her side. She’s too weak to stand and can barely lift her head, but she is alive!
We’ve brought her in the house and are slowly trying to hydrate her with homemade electrolyte. It’s night time, so the feed stores are closed. My husband found a recipe online that said: 1 gallon water, 1 T sugar, 1 t salt, 1 t baking soda.
She is drinking! Any advice?
If she makes it through the night, when and what should I feed her? Has anyone had a similar experience? I hope she pulls through, but it seems it will take a miracle <3

As soon as you are able, get some superworms. I have found that those worms have crazy nutrition in them for birds who are ill. Good luck!

 

[Aunt Angus]

The only research I've read about ACV was for broilers, and they don't live long enough for long term effects to be tested.

Never heard of bene-bac (I'm assuming short for "beneficial bacteria"), but imma look into it now! Thanks for the info!

 

[LoveMyGurls]

Blondie is still here
She perked up a lot yesterday. She’s trying to stand and scratch, but isn’t quite able to yet. I’ve decided to hold off on the sling and PT since she seems to be making the effort on her own. I agree that she’s probably has atrophy. I started giving her chick feed yesterday for the extra protein. We’re also giving her .5 ml of the nutridrench daily.
On the advice of someone here, we started taking her outside to be in the sun for a little while. She really loves it.
I did notice this evening that she’s been making a gagging head movement. I suspect she may have eaten too much today, and I think she’s trying to clear her crop. I hope it isn’t getting an impaction. I’m going to check tomorrow morning and make sure it’s emptying, and then go slower on the food.
Thank you for all your support! You guys are the best!

My chicken was doing that head movement thing when she had sour crop and I fed her live yogurt with scrambled eggs for a few days and gave her a treatment of oral thrush cream for a week and it's cleared it away. I think giving chickens live yogurt is a really good thing and it might help put back the good bacteria that she would have lost. I read they don't like it but mixed with scrambled eggs made with water she soon wolfed it down.

I'm so pleased to hear the little one is coming on nicely. We are all rooting for her! What a lovely person you are to give her such a chance. It restores my faith in humans and I don't have much... Keep us posted please.

 

[McChooky]

Months with only a few bugs to keep her alive has no doubt caused her to have crop issues now that you are feeding her.Under no circumstances can you give her solid food of any kind. Giving her sweetened yogurt could cause yeast or sour crop since she doesn't have a healthy digestion system.

 

[BlueBolete]

Thank you everyone for checking in and the advice about her crop!! I can’t believe it’s been one week today since we found her!!!
We did have a scare with her crop for that one day, but it seems fine now. That next morning it hadn’t fully emptied, so I massaged throughout the day. She was still pooping though, so it wasn’t totally blocked. I think she ate too much too fast, and things aren’t working quite right after having nothing in there for so long.
Luckily, by the following day she had stopped making the gagging movements, and she’s still eating and pooping good I’ll probably get that good bacteria several people mentioned. Thanks for that tip!!
We’ve been taking her out for about 10 minutes a day to be in the sun and peck the grass. I don’t want her to be out more than that with her potential crop issues. She just goes crazy with the grass!!
And she tried to walk today!! She stumbled around a lot, but she wanted to walk and scratch! I grabbed my camera and caught it for y’all to see :

I also saw this other picture that my husband had taken the first night we found her. She still has a ways to go, but look how far she’s come!!

 

[Folly's place]

Beautiful!
Mary

 

[Aunt Angus]

No, I'm not crying. I... I have allergies...
❤

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Such little survivors they are!