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This is just the best news. Just wonderful. It is so nice to have some positive news on the thread. Thanks for letting us know. Hopefully she keeps improving.I went to see the Witch yesterday about Fudge. I explained my options naming all the chemicals. She wasn't impressed. Definitely a big NO to the acidified cooper sulphate. Not over keen on the anto yeast products either.
She told me to go back in an hour or so and she would make something up for me.
I was looking for advice tbh more than anything else. My view is, crop problems are best sorted as quickly as possible. I've been lucky in that I was on it very early.
One of the benefits of checking the tribes on a regular basis, not just when things have gone wrong.
I came back with a small bottle of liquid. The liquid comprised, garlic, thyme, a root extract I don't know the name of, liqorice root and lemon juice.
Fudge has been improving but she's been losing weight. Not a lot but she doesn't carry a lot anyway.
I'm going to write up the treatment she's had in case it helps someone else. But, my deciding line between sick and going downhill and sick but recovering is based on these things.
Are they eating?
Fudge wasn't eating really.
Are they grooming.
Fudge wasn't doing that either.
Posture.
Fudge's posture was not that of a fit and interested chicken. Head drawn in, seperate from the tribe, sitting too much and only really becoming alert when approached.
Fudge did eat a bit before going to roost. Her crop was about half full and she was huddled up next to Fat Bird when I first checked after roost time.
At 1,30 am I woke up and decided I would give Fudge the witches brew. It had to be warm, temeperature similar to what a lamb takes milk at. I've done a lot of that.
I took Fudge off her perch and tube fed the brew into her and put her back with her tribe.
I was a bit apprehensive when I opened Tribe 1 up this morning. The first thing I did was grab Fudge and feel her crop. It was completely empty. I mean so empty I could sqeeze it gently between my thumb and forefinger and not have to adjust the gap from the top to the bottom of the crop.
There was a really stinky pile of blackish runny poop below where she perched.
Once I had her in the house she was obviously hungry and even after I had fed her 10cl of live yogurt with the coccivex and Flubenvet in she set about the commercial feed.
She's been a different hen today. Active, interested, in with the tribe and letting the juniors know she's still with us.
This was the poop she did before the yogurt and feeding.
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It's very runny but bits free and the urates are about right. The blackish liquid looks much like what went into her earlier.
It's not over yet. I still don't know what caused the slow/sour crop although I'm guessing all the stuff she ate when moulting eventually clogged her up.
She may have has worms. She may have had a bout of coccidiosis.
That's Fudge by the maternity unit. So good to see her foraging.
View attachment 2431748
This is Fudge with her daughter Tackle eating before going to roost.
View attachment 2431745
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does the song come off second best amongst all those gorgeous puppers, trying so hard to get their tricks right?
. I'm too busy watching the dogs to pay much attention to the music, but I will find myself singing it later in the day!
