Here's a little background on my flock for those who aren't familiar with my story. In February of this year I started thinking about getting chickens (probably due to stumbling onto BYC from some rogue internet search of an entirely different topic
), I researched and read and researched again. We got approval from the borough and our landlords, DH built us a coop from mostly re-purposed materials, we closed in a decent size run and were off to a local small animal auction... this was over a couple months, just abbreviated for of run-on sentences and unnecessary details.
We came home with 4 adult, non specified age, Red Sex Links. We went through molt (finishing up now, I think), lice (treated with wood ash) and now the much feared; sour crop! We haven't even had the girls for a full month
!! So, I have researched sour crop to death and have decided to take as natural an approach as possible because that's how we want to roll with this project of ours. I vomited her 2x on Saturday and 2x on Sunday, which seemed to help some just not enough. Last night I removed her from the coop after they went to bed for the night in the hopes it would be less traumatic for all the girls. She is in a nice sized rabbit cage in the house right now, no food and only water since about 6pm last night. She is alert and drinking her water at an astonishing rate. All her poops seem fairly solid and her crop has decreased in size by about 1/2. I just gave her a little plain yogurt sprinkled with grit. We also keep going over to her and talk to her in soft tones so she doesn't get lonely. The rest of the flock is very aware of her absence and seem sort of sad.
So basically I am asking, where do I go from here? How long should she be separated? When can I start feeding her again (we have switched to fermented feed, so it's very digestible)? Am I doing the right thing? I haven't even had the girls for a month and I'm not sure how I would handle losing a girl this soon. Like I said though, she seems much better than she has been for the past few days.
We came home with 4 adult, non specified age, Red Sex Links. We went through molt (finishing up now, I think), lice (treated with wood ash) and now the much feared; sour crop! We haven't even had the girls for a full month
So basically I am asking, where do I go from here? How long should she be separated? When can I start feeding her again (we have switched to fermented feed, so it's very digestible)? Am I doing the right thing? I haven't even had the girls for a month and I'm not sure how I would handle losing a girl this soon. Like I said though, she seems much better than she has been for the past few days.
