Help with indoor isolated chicken

Welcome To BYC

She may be bored, but she may also be tiring out easily trying to recover from the infection and surgery.

If possible, get her outside every day like you have done, this will break up the day and get her moving a little.

If her flock is attacking her when you take her to them, you may find that even once she recovers they won't accept her back and you'll have to find alternative housing for her. It may be worth starting now to make a place for her to be next to her flock so she can visit, but still be protected.

Hopefully in the coming days she will perk up as she heals. Keep us posted.
Yeee. today i brought her outside but she didn't enjoy it as much (it was also much colder than yesterday). I will try later when the day gets a bit warmer. Im thinking of making an extra pen for her to be close to her sisters. But im feeling so scared :(
 
I have no suggestions for you at this time but I just want to say welcome to BYC and your English is AMAZING!!! I wish you and your hen all the best and a quick recovery to her. :hugs Be of good courage!

Oh, I do have a suggestion. Instead of washing her with peroxide, switch to saline solution. You can make your own:

Mix 1 teaspoon of salt with 1 cup of warm water that you have boiled for 15 minutes and then let cool to room temperature (start with a lot more than 1 cup, then measure after it has boiled, or cover while boiling). You can also add a pinch of baking soda to the solution. If you have a spray bottle, you can put the saline water in that and spray her with it, then you don't have to scrub her. You can do this twice a day, then put the healing ointment on her.
I will try this! she is very sweet and lets me do pretty much everything. But maybe scrubbing is not very pleasant for her.
 
They definitely try to establish a new pecking order when some gets pulled out for a bit. It only lasted a little bit for mine they pecked her a couple times and chased her around to tell her she’s at the bottom now and went back to normal. With you only having 3 I’m sure it won’t last long after she heals up. I used one of those fold up puppy fences that ring shaped and just let her peck around and put a sheet over half for shade. I know some people will remove bully chickens and put them in time out cage for a few days. So it drops them down in the order so they aren’t so entitled and mean.
Yeeeeeeah, the bully one is the smallest one. I read somewhere that it's a common thing, that the smallest one tries to get higher in the pecking order. Anyway, before thinking about all that i would really need to see her enjoying her life again :( it breaks my heart to see her sad like this.
 
Hello everybody! I'm coming with good news!
She is getting better, showing good signs of recovery. She started walking around the house, started getting more interested in food, got her tail up most of the time and getting back to her normal curiosity and activity. I still have her inside and I'm still planning on making her a pen to share time with her sisters safely while recovering.
She is going to be spending her next weeks inside but my plan is to make her the pen during the weekend and monitor closely how her sisters interact with her.
I have a vet visit on saturday for a routine check-up but he is feeling very positive as well (we talk every day and i send him videos of her activity and show him her wound to make sure everything is going good).
Thanks EVERYBODY for your messages and support <3
 
Hi! We have had to quarantine 3 birds in the past few weeks, including a very high energy rooster that started fighting the others and an injured hen. I created a "scratch bin" to put in their areas and provide some entertainment. I used a cat litter box and filled it about 1/4 of the depth (to give them plenty of depth and area surface to scratch through) with bedding, garden clippings, a patch of grass (dug down about 3 inches and squared a 6x6 piece) along with the dirt, roots and bugs already in the grass clump (try to take grass from an area of your yard that she seems to like and visits often, it may help to lure her to try some of it and hopefully make her excited about scratching), I add treats and food all over inside the box. Our rooster loves frozen peas so I will push them into the dirt clump to make it more challenging. He has really loved it! Secondly, we provide them with a "kick bottle" 2x a day. Our kick bottle is just a wide mouth plastic water bottle that we drilled holes into (drill the holes just a bit bigger than the treat you want to put in there and make sure that the edges for all of the holes that you drill are smooth and have absolutely zero hanging plastic. They will eat it. For some reason (becaise, chickens...) they are very determined to try it! 😆 Bird toys (for parakeets or parrots) are another great option, I buy mine at Dollar Tree and they work great. Lastly, I give them a fan in their area to keep the air flowing. Imagine sitting in your house with a down comforter wrapped around you (even in the winter that could become pretty miserable, fairly quickly!). Yuck...lol. These have all worked really well for us and have kept the chickens fairly happy, even when they have to be separated from the flock. In fact, our very first egg was from the injured hen that we had to quarantine so, she seemed happy/content with the setup.
I hope some of this may help you and, I will add more if I can think of anything. Also, I had a question: the vet said an antibiotic ointment with Lidocaine is ok? I've always understood Lidocaine to be extremely dangerous for chickens and have avoided it. I've read a ton of articles that say not to use it but, the vet is the pro so now I'm confused. I'm still new to this as well, we have 16 chickens altogether now, that we purchased in April because we had rescued an abandoned rooster near our home last fall and, he needed a flock. And, now we have 4 roos, meaning, we had a 70% succes rate on our wyandottes...🤣
 
Hi! We have had to quarantine 3 birds in the past few weeks, including a very high energy rooster that started fighting the others and an injured hen. I created a "scratch bin" to put in their areas and provide some entertainment. I used a cat litter box and filled it about 1/4 of the depth (to give them plenty of depth and area surface to scratch through) with bedding, garden clippings, a patch of grass (dug down about 3 inches and squared a 6x6 piece) along with the dirt, roots and bugs already in the grass clump (try to take grass from an area of your yard that she seems to like and visits often, it may help to lure her to try some of it and hopefully make her excited about scratching), I add treats and food all over inside the box. Our rooster loves frozen peas so I will push them into the dirt clump to make it more challenging. He has really loved it! Secondly, we provide them with a "kick bottle" 2x a day. Our kick bottle is just a wide mouth plastic water bottle that we drilled holes into (drill the holes just a bit bigger than the treat you want to put in there and make sure that the edges for all of the holes that you drill are smooth and have absolutely zero hanging plastic. They will eat it. For some reason (becaise, chickens...) they are very determined to try it! 😆 Bird toys (for parakeets or parrots) are another great option, I buy mine at Dollar Tree and they work great. Lastly, I give them a fan in their area to keep the air flowing. Imagine sitting in your house with a down comforter wrapped around you (even in the winter that could become pretty miserable, fairly quickly!). Yuck...lol. These have all worked really well for us and have kept the chickens fairly happy, even when they have to be separated from the flock. In fact, our very first egg was from the injured hen that we had to quarantine so, she seemed happy/content with the setup.
I hope some of this may help you and, I will add more if I can think of anything. Also, I had a question: the vet said an antibiotic ointment with Lidocaine is ok? I've always understood Lidocaine to be extremely dangerous for chickens and have avoided it. I've read a ton of articles that say not to use it but, the vet is the pro so now I'm confused. I'm still new to this as well, we have 16 chickens altogether now, that we purchased in April because we had rescued an abandoned rooster near our home last fall and, he needed a flock. And, now we have 4 roos, meaning, we had a 70% succes rate on our wyandottes...🤣
Ooooof! You kept me thinking with that last question, I honestly didn't doubt it as the vet told me to do it. But i ran to check the formula: it's 0,6g lidocaine every 100gr of ointment (it's not antibiotic, it's just for healing. I give her antibiotic in drops -enroflaxacin). But a quick google search tells me its not indicated. It's a human ointment, which is used to help with wound-healing / burnts healing, and not for the lidocaine effect, idt. Apparently according to google its not recommended bc its not tested to be safe. But i will ask the vet and come back with answers!!

And woooow, was a cat litter box enough? My idea of a "scratch/forage box" was kinda dead bc i didn't know what to get to be big enough for her to have fun, so I end up bringing her outside a couple times a day and that seems to entertain her for a couple hours at least. Now i opened her corner, so she can be free around my house, it seems to be working because she seems to be less bored (even if it means running around the house with a box of Kleenex cleaning after her lol). And I'm surprised too about the treat toy, I tried that with my cat once he got ill and didn't want to eat, i would have never guessed that chickens could enjoy them as well 😂.

TYSM for your time and dedicated answer. I'll get back to you with the lidocaine info 😉
 
Ooooof! You kept me thinking with that last question, I honestly didn't doubt it as the vet told me to do it. But i ran to check the formula: it's 0,6g lidocaine every 100gr of ointment (it's not antibiotic, it's just for healing. I give her antibiotic in drops -enroflaxacin). But a quick google search tells me its not indicated. It's a human ointment, which is used to help with wound-healing / burnts healing, and not for the lidocaine effect, idt. Apparently according to google its not recommended bc its not tested to be safe. But i will ask the vet and come back with answers!!

And woooow, was a cat litter box enough? My idea of a "scratch/forage box" was kinda dead bc i didn't know what to get to be big enough for her to have fun, so I end up bringing her outside a couple times a day and that seems to entertain her for a couple hours at least. Now i opened her corner, so she can be free around my house, it seems to be working because she seems to be less bored (even if it means running around the house with a box of Kleenex cleaning after her lol). And I'm surprised too about the treat toy, I tried that with my cat once he got ill and didn't want to eat, i would have never guessed that chickens could enjoy them as well 😂.

TYSM for your time and dedicated answer. I'll get back to you with the lidocaine info 😉

I am so glad to hear that she is doing better! It's hard on them to quarantine and it sounds like you are doing a great job keeping her spirits up while she heals! I have a a wound gel (it stimulates quick healing) that I keep stocked in my chicken first aid kit is called Silvex (it has nano silver technology?). It has worked VERY well for us, in fact, I had to remove part of the injured hen's waddle (I just trimmed it with scissors) and this stuff helped her create a tough and solid scab after about 6 hours. She was able to go back out with the flock within 12 hours and that was after just 2 applications! We also keep Neosporin on hand for the antibacterial part, of course, healing wise though, this stuff is pretty incredible! I attached a photo of the tube as well as a screenshot confirming it is ok for chickens and lastly, I attached a screenshot of why lidocaine is bad for chickens. Again, with the vet telling you to do it, it may just need to be done under vet supervision which, would make sense because the incorrect dose (based on their actual weight and calculated tolerance that would be configured by somebody that has education behind their decision to administer this medication) would absolutely be detrimental to a chicken. I hope she is back to full recovery soon! 🙏
 

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I am so glad to hear that she is doing better! It's hard on them to quarantine and it sounds like you are doing a great job keeping her spirits up while she heals! I have a a wound gel (it stimulates quick healing) that I keep stocked in my chicken first aid kit is called Silvex (it has nano silver technology?). It has worked VERY well for us, in fact, I had to remove part of the injured hen's waddle (I just trimmed it with scissors) and this stuff helped her create a tough and solid scab after about 6 hours. She was able to go back out with the flock within 12 hours and that was after just 2 applications! We also keep Neosporin on hand for the antibacterial part, of course, healing wise though, this stuff is pretty incredible! I attached a photo of the tube as well as a screenshot confirming it is ok for chickens and lastly, I attached a screenshot of why lidocaine is bad for chickens. Again, with the vet telling you to do it, it may just need to be done under vet supervision which, would make sense because the incorrect dose (based on their actual weight and calculated tolerance that would be configured by somebody that has education behind their decision to administer this medication) would absolutely be detrimental to a chicken. I hope she is back to full recovery soon! 🙏
OH! And, yes the cat litter box is big enough (even for my Wyandotte Roo) as long as you don't mind a bit of a mess around it. If you would prefer to keep it contained, you could do one of those little plastic baby pools or even just a cardboard box wide and deep enough to do so.
 

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