I meant to document Sweetie's progress/recovery here as so many posts have been very helpful to me in the past.
Sweetie is still getting better week by week. When I look back at my original post I can't believe it was over 3 months ago!
At this point, she can eat and drink by herself. She walks forward slowly and is constantly catching her balance. She appears to have weakness in her upper left leg. She uses her wings to help with her balance. She can't scratch and peck, but sits down to forage. She is back to laying eggs for a few weeks now and is happy and alert. She's been taking dust baths in the past week too. She will try to get away from her attackers (4 healthy hens she grew up with) and sometimes will stand up to them. I don't leave her alone with them; I'm certain they would kill her.
She does have a friend though. We had gotten a month old chick (Goldy) a few weeks before this happened who was in quarantine and after awhile it was hard for me to maintain 2 separate quarantines and I started keeping them together. They appreciate each other's company and the older hens have not accepted Goldy yet. Goldy just laid her first egg at 5 months old yesterday. Goldy gets agitated when the other hens try to pick on Sweetie, but is still too young and small to take them on.
Recovery has been slow. Initially Sweetie drank some water with Epsom salt. After quite a bit of diarrhea and inflammation I switched to water with ACV. She refused to eat. She lingered near death for several days. Whether chemical poisoning or botulism I believe this was key to getting rid of the toxins as quickly as possible.
Eventually she began to pick at some favorite foods. It required time, a lot of time. She was not able to support her weight at that time and I had to hold her up to drink and poop. I started a brand new full time job the week after this happened and I'm surprised she lived. I made sure she are/drank/pooped in the AM and PM and I also did some leg excercises with her and had her flap her wings but pretty sure she did nothing else while I was gone ALL day.
When she started walking, it was backwards for quite awhile. She learned how to guage where she needed to end up in order to be where she wanted (food/water). It was hard to watch her struggle but she seemed to respond to my encouragement.
She is getting stronger every day and learning how to make adjustments in order to get around. I do need to bathe her occasionally as she can't keep herself clean, stepping and sitting in her own waste.
I did not bring her to a vet as they are much too expensive around here. Ultimately I think it was her will to live that kept her alive.
