Just a little positive story of recovery… not at the end of the road yet but things are going well! 
Around 5 weeks ago my mum found our hen, Gisela, pinned flat and being attacked by several other chickens. She has always been a low ranking hen (with a slight limp following an injury) and I guess was already poorly. She is an ex-battery hen, RIR hybrid, and they are often weak in terms of health. We put her into our hospital coop and she declined over the next 24-48 hours to the point she couldn’t get up, stopped eating and couldn’t seem to see water (was pecking the air and confused). I was sure she was dying and have never seen a chook come back from that, BUT throughout it all she always seemed perky and bright, unlike others I’ve seen so unwell. I decided to give her a chance because of that. To cut a long story short, she didn’t eat at all for a week and I fed her critical care formula with a dropper to keep her alive. One day I felt like she might eat and voila, she did!
We’re now another month or so on and she is finally able to stand up by herself. She can’t walk yet but she grows stronger everyday. She has required regular care of course but to see her making a comeback makes it so worthwhile. I don’t know what her problem was/is or if we’ll be able to reintegrate her, but for now we keep up the work and enjoy her daily improvements.
Sometimes you just need to follow your gut and have some hope!
Around 5 weeks ago my mum found our hen, Gisela, pinned flat and being attacked by several other chickens. She has always been a low ranking hen (with a slight limp following an injury) and I guess was already poorly. She is an ex-battery hen, RIR hybrid, and they are often weak in terms of health. We put her into our hospital coop and she declined over the next 24-48 hours to the point she couldn’t get up, stopped eating and couldn’t seem to see water (was pecking the air and confused). I was sure she was dying and have never seen a chook come back from that, BUT throughout it all she always seemed perky and bright, unlike others I’ve seen so unwell. I decided to give her a chance because of that. To cut a long story short, she didn’t eat at all for a week and I fed her critical care formula with a dropper to keep her alive. One day I felt like she might eat and voila, she did!
We’re now another month or so on and she is finally able to stand up by herself. She can’t walk yet but she grows stronger everyday. She has required regular care of course but to see her making a comeback makes it so worthwhile. I don’t know what her problem was/is or if we’ll be able to reintegrate her, but for now we keep up the work and enjoy her daily improvements.
Sometimes you just need to follow your gut and have some hope!
