How are your babies today
And Butters?
It is so good to hear Butters is improving.
In the first picture, the poop, it is still long and thin. Is is possible that there is still blockage so that her poop is not coming out in the regular shape?
For food, maybe you can try some of the food that RC mentioned here for tube feeding:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-27057425
I also hope you three little ones are thriving!
OK so first off everyone is still alive but Butters had a setback. She did not get a tube feeding yesterday or the coconut oil as it seemed she was eating on her own the night before. I felt her crop this morning, there was nothing, but Popcorn also had very little in at that point. I spent most of my chicken time checking on the littles in their room, changing over their setup to bedding and carefully taking down the old box setup in the bathroom and removing it all.
I saw Butters drinking and at the bowls, but I noticed later in the day she didn't seem interested in the starter crumbles and she looked poorly by late this afternoon. She had a fluid-y small crop. She came out with everyone but went about slowly, and I immediately got some gruel and the tube / syringe ready and cooling down. She eventually crouched in a protected corner of weeds and cinder blocks and didn't move from there. So I then tube fed her right there a good 35 ml including a good teaspoon+ of melted coconut oil. The bigger tube from the vet previously is nicer and fits the new O-Ring Syringe, and that tube has two holes too, so it was a nice quick feeding, not 3 seconds but 5 maybe. It seems to insert better than the red ones, or I just hit it immediately right today.
She stayed crouching for awhile, then perked up, maybe 30-45 minutes later? She ate two grit pieces when I offered a handful. Her tail was up. She went into the run and started to eat the starter crumbles. She swept the grit too but I don't think she ate any. Later she got more interested in foraging and started going around with Popcorn. They all stayed out late and she did eat a few bugs. She beaked around in the shale driveway for grit I think too.
Here she is eating the crumbles. Her eye actually was better today, open more. I do not see what is bothering her. She scratches her ear area and above that more than her eye. Here it's half-closed again. I ordered non-medicated Nutrena Starter-Grower today and it should be here fast (usually fast from Chewy). Why - she's not laying, it comes in small bags, instead of 25 -40 -50 lbs, and I figured why not, maybe it's more digestible? Mainly too, she really, really likes it, and I'm tube-feeding her the Kaytee Exact Baby Bird formula already.
@Ponypoor none of the things she's been excreting has been dried or stiff. The first one was wet and flexible but I could not pull it apart, like it was one long tough weed. The latest one was soft and wet and easily pulled apart and I could see it looked like grass. The things I photographed on top of the coop were dried from having been there from the night and most of the next day. She is drinking, saw that today.
My concern for her is whether this is an episode I can nurse her through, or this is a chronic condition, which I can also keep helping her with. I'm willing as long as she's still having fun. But whether this is the beginning of some serious breakdown in functioning from which there is no recovery remains to be seen. Heart, kidneys, gizzard? Seems to me no way to tell and to just keep helping her until it's evident what's going on.
Babies still alive too, that's a win. Okay I'm being very dark but it's just horrible to be surprised with five babies, get into the many unplanned bundles of joy and then bang lose two. And "lose" maybe should be replaced with "unintentionally kill." DH referred to the place where I've buried everybody recently deceased as the Chicken Memorial, because I have some special stones there and have a plan for the Littles' stones.
So the three little ones are doing well, getting bigger by the minute and definitely resembling Spuds now. I'm thinking Ida, Anna, and maybe still Thread, or Tedi for short (as in Theodora), that one I can tell from her cord thread, though it's shorter now. They are off the paper towels and on chopped hemp, which I researched is fine for chicks and have on-hand, well-stored and dry, using it for the Big Girls' poop tray. Here they are in their holding bin while I cleaned out and fixed up the tote.
@RoyalChick the first thing one did was hop-fly right up on to the edge (10 inches) and look out the window, then turn around and hop back down. I hoped the hemp would keep them interested while I worked. Thankfully it did. One immediately decided to dustbathe in the sun! Hemp was flying all over.
Nighty-night
) passed.
