One of my pet chickens has been not herself for 3-4 weeks now. Started with noticing that she wasn't eating or drinking as much as normal and standing in one place most of the day. I've went over all the postings here I could find, and there were quite a few, looking for answers. Went thru all the common possibilities such as crop problems, egg bound ect., I make sure she's getting water by using a medicine dropper. Some days she'd seem better only to seem worse the next. Yesterday, it she started having trouble standing and spent most of her time resting on the back of her legs. I ended up taking her to an animal ER after being sent to three different clinics. I live in Portland OR and there aren't any avian vets really close to where I live. Luckily the doc we saw had chickens herself and didn't even mind when my little Chickadee started pecking the crap out of her. She didn't even flinch. A mass was felt, originally thought an abnormally shaped egg that was stuck, and x-rays were ordered. Well an egg would have been better than what we found, she has a good sized screw in her gizzard that they can't tell if its punctured her GI tract or not, along with other objects making up the mass that was felt. There's also metal and other in her crop. They weren't comfortable suggesting surgery and instead gave fluids to hydrate and some pain meds and instructed me to see an avian vet this morning to discuss treatment options. Now, I realize that it looks grim for Chickadee, she's lost so much weight and am pretty sure she would've passed it already if she was able to. But there's still a part holding out hope. I have two special needs kids and the chickens have kinda become their "companion pets". But funds are very limited and I can no way afford to pay the vet bills. It was $240 just for what they did last night and it did nothing towards fixing the problem. So I hoping that maybe someone in my area knows of a program or something that might offer some help with vet bills?? Any advise, or maybe someone's positive outcome in a similar experience would be appreciated. I have to start calling vets here shortly after getting my little guy off to preschool.
