Good morning day 16:
She ate off and on of her pellets yesterday but only about a half cup of lettuce. Instead of just standing in her house looking out at the rest of the crew day after day, she was walking around quite a bit trying to forage in the straw. The texture of her poops are better and still no longer runny but very very soft. Imagine if you ran a bunch of salad greens through a juicer and took the separated pulp and spread it out about a 16th of an inch thick - just like that - moist, firm, but flat. It's the color of grass green. Probably from eating the lettuce? Yes, Miss Lydia, it is funny how we get so excited about their poops, lol
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Because she was eating on her own I opted out of tube feeding her yesterday (with exception of the wormer and the 10ml of formula that morning). Every time I thought that maybe I should I looked out at her and saw her nibbling at the pellets. I didn't want to disrupt that if she was showing such an interest.
I did not start the antibiotics. Instead I put a couple drops oil of oregano into her gallon of drinking water. She seems to actually like it. The reason why is that because she had not eaten in so long I'm concerned about the state of her liver and worry that starting antibiotics may cause damage (or further damage If there was any). I didn't want to risk it and decided on a more holistic approach.
Today I got smart. Before I let her out of confinement and into the house, I weighed out a new bucket of feed and will see how much she actually eats today. I did tube her another 15ml (again she got too wiggly to give more safely) along with the last dose of the wormer this morning. I gave her the left over formula in a dish with a few meal worms and a few pieces of chopped kale on top to make it interesting (also weighed). When I let her out she went right to the bucket of pellets and began eating.
Her behavior so far is the same as yesterday - Lively, trying to forage, bright eyed, preening.
She will still be separated from the rest of the flock for several more days at least so I can make sure she's improving and well enough to play in the yard again.
What a great update.. I think your right to wait before letting her back with the flock, but so happy to hear she is improving and getting back her appetite.