Hazel's molt
I've been very concerned for Hazel the last two days but I'm feeling a little less anxious today. Here's what's different about this that I haven't read anywhere (maybe I've missed it) and I want to report for everyone's thoughts. She has been drinking for a very long time when I come around filling their waterers - she sees me, comes over, and asks to drink from the jug, looking up hopefully, which I've done in the past. Just like cats they like the stream of water. So I sit and pour a thin stream out and sometimes go to the second jug to keep it up. Seriously, she will drink taking good sips for ten minutes. She will walk a few steps away like she's done but then come back and tap on the plastic jug I've still got in my hands so I pour again. Others come around and have some and then go on their way but she stays forever. Her poops are loose, and I am guessing that's why. I have seen her drink from the waterers too. DH jokes she has diabetes. Is this normal molt behaviour & normal poops for molt?
Her pea comb is a dark dusty rose. Not clear pink to pale pink like the others. It is maybe not purple but distinctly darker than the others and I worry it is verging on purple by comparison and I'm paranoid about it. I might be able to get comparison close ups of their combs, what I have doesn't show it well.
She did go up into the coop and nest box yesterday early afternoon, after doing a little wail and a croaking moaning wanting sound, like she used to. She came out shortly but I thought maybe that was encouraging.
But especially later in the day yesterday she was doing a lot of standing around and napping while standing (I thought). However when she stood close by me while I sat with them around dinner time I saw her tremble and tip her head sideways a bit as she closed her eyes. Was that what I was seeing earlier from a distance when I thought she was just dozing? Is she cold? She has some feathers everywhere. Cold from not enough calories? Mareks? A parasite? It was disturbing to see. She wasn't ruffled up. Her feathers were smooth, lying better than they've looked actually. Her new tail feathers are visibly sticking out now. She wasn't hunched up. Maybe a little bit hunched. I could see her head, body and her one long tail feather tremble in a little spasm. She did that two or three times. She'd pop out of this state and act sort of normally again, but she stuck by me not moving much while everyone else foraged elsewhere. It was weird. I frankly thought she might die in the night, and was glad the coop is protected and she could be next to someone if she was cold and be relatively warm with everyone in it. I hoped for the best.
She is very light and bony. Her underside in the back is soft but concave feeling, not flat and soft with innards like everybody else, there's not much in there. She has some crop, she is eating small bits. I've been giving her anything I can think of (yesterday worms, today sardines and some cooked corn on the cob - some kernels off the cob for her, maybe a tablespoon, and then the chewed cob she loved getting into also, and then also today Baby Bird formula in a soft pudding, she took some bites) and she is catching worms again today. Yesterday I got her worms but had to pretend she was catching them, she wouldn't take them from my fingers, she would grab it, drop it, then look quizzically at it and not bite it again, or sometimes she would, and she ate a couple, but I couldn't predict it. So I hid them in dirt, and then scratched and tried to show her they were in there, and even then she was not at all the predator she normally is. But that worked better, she ate some. She did also eat a little greens.
Today she acted much better, she was out and about this morning, and much more bright-eyed and active. I never saw her nap while standing. She was vigorously foraging and getting wild things to eat plus greens. She came over and pulled off bits from dandelion greens I held and ate them, didn't just grab and drop them. Tiny worms have hatched and they found a couple of great spots to dig. Hazel and even Peanut pecked both Butters and Popcorn when the whole bunch were at it and they got too close. Hazel was really hogging it, and I was crouching next to them digging some too with a stick, so I distinctly heard a serious skull knock she gave Popcorn, poor Popcorn! Eventually Popcorn and Butters foraged a foot away together, I dug a bit for them, but anything good or possibly good Hazel was right there, they never got a break though they did manage to get some goodies.
Sorry for the long post. I hope more experience will let me just sum up something, right now the details are all I see, I don't know what it all means. Thanks for listening. I appreciate any ideas or thoughts.
It drives me crazy.
Jaffar tries to help, but the ladies don’t listen at coop time.
Violet helped me paint it.
But the hawk was on them before I knew it was there. It was their frantic squawking that alerted me.
