Scrambles83
Free Ranging
This is one of the lessons I learned from my Bok, I brought her in for a night or 2 before putting her back out with the pullets until her vet appointment.It's a strange thing. Chickens are social eaters. They also seem to take comfort in having their tribe/group around them when they are sick. I have read people posting that their hens attack a sick chicken but it's not something I've seen.
Read just about any of the American based/cited medical advice and they almost always say seperate the sick one form the others. Speak to a competant vet in Spain and many other countries with rather more knowledge and experience with chickens and they will tell you to keep the sick one with the other chickens unless the problem is contagious.
Of course, once isolated the chicken feels stressed in most instances because they are unused to the isolation environment and they stop eating.
One really wants a sick chicken to eat as normal if possible. In the end, decent nutrition is likely to speed recovery.
When I bring Volt to the allotment, Henry shuffles around her giving her gentle pecks and most of the time a couple of hens gathered around her and get right next to her as if they are trying to keep her warm and protected.
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I also wonder if having her euthanised was the correct thing to do but I went by your rule Shad of counting the days she wasn’t eating or coming out of the coop and I felt she was suffering too much and I was heartsick for her.
I guess I’ll never know and it doesn’t do well to speculate, otherwise you end up going in circles of guilt
was for the chickens. Reynauds is miserable.
I really hope she perks up soon!
