Entry #2
Name: Jasmine
Breed: Australorp
Age: 5
Gender: Female
Fun Fact: Jasmine is one of the original hens. She also has an incredible story. The following I copied and pasted from my sisters flock thread (Cloudy Days In The Coop)
"Last Autumn, she was attacked by a large dog. While I managed to get to the scene before the attack could become fatal, I found that she couldn’t walk. She refused to eat for days, and only drank when I coaxed her to. While one leg seemed to work, the other wouldn’t work at all. Thinking it was dislocated, after several days I took her to a vet that would take a look at chickens. After four hours, they determined that she was most likely paralyzed. They explained that when the dog was shaking her around like a rag doll, her spine may have been severely injured. They gave me medicine after I refused to put her to sleep, telling me that it may help her. Jasmine was a fighter! After two weeks of giving her medicine, a check-up pronounced her to have nerve damage. She was always weak, but one day when I took her outside to be in the sun, she flew out of her bin to get around. That gave me hope. After several months living in the house and giving her medicine, she was hopping on one leg. By winter, I had a chicken tractor made. The ‘Chicken Infirmary.’ She spent those snowy days in there, nice and snug, and I would put her in the coop to stay warm. By spring, I began to introduce her to the flock again. One the head hen, she was now at the bottom of the flock, and still is. Amazingly, she began to use her weak leg to walk as well. Though she’s still slow in moving around, and her limp evident, she has gone a long way!"
(Hopefully it's ok to use a family members hen?)