- Sep 22, 2007
- 6
- 0
- 7
It was early Saturday morning that my hen was attacked. Her recovery has been slow, but I think mostly good...but I still have some questions. The first few days I had fed her from a spoon, forcing yogurt and sugar water into her bill. She would swallow but not take more unless I forced her. On Monday, I soaked some layer pellets in sugar water and she actually seem interested and picked at the food for a few minuets. She doesn't seem to be able to locate the water bowl by herself so every couple of hours I hold the water bowl to her beak and she will take a couple of gulps. In her recovery box she spends most of her time on her feet. One eye is opened, the left eye remains shut. Every day, I take her out in the bright sun about 80 degrees. She seems to like this and melts down into a pile like she is in a dust bath. She will only take a few steps in any direction and has shown no interest in pecking at the ground. My biggest concern is that she is not eating and drinking enough to maintain her weight. She does seem to have 3-4 poops a day that seem just a bit smaller than ordinary. Today, I took her to visit the other three hens outside of their fence. They seemed very interested in her through the fence and she started to make some clucking sounds. As she got closer to the fence it was clear that the other hens wanted to attack her and poked their heds through the fence. This alarmed her and for the first time I saw her open her left eye which has been shut since the attack. It only remained open for a moment. Today she started to curl her feet, standing on one and curling the other. She hadn't been doing this and I am wondering if this is a bad sign. I did put out some scratch greens and it was the first time that I saw her peck at the ground. She took about 50 steps today, so I think that is good and now that I know she still has muscle in her left eye, she may regain use of that....but I am really concerned about the foot curling and knowing how much she should be eating.
