The Story of Ella, The Chicken Who Ate Everything

[Urchin]

Wow. What an enthralling story! I'm surprised she didn't try to reswallow the nail when the objects were out being shown to you. Will you be making them into a shadow frame with her bill?

She was on the floor when the items were out. I'm not going to frame them because my son squirreled them away somewhere in his room. He's a collector -- if he likes it, he takes it and displays it. He has a couple of bantam chicken egg shells, the shell Gorgonzilla hatched out of displayed in a bird's nest (he'd have PJ's egg, too, but Ella stepped on it, smashing it), a snake skin, some interesting rocks, some of his artwork he really likes and other things.

Ella scared me yesterday because she stopped eating. But she kept pecking, so I wondered if she was just tired of a liquid diet. What I'm feeding her is the consistency of baby food. So I tube fed her yesterday after I got home from work and last night picked up some baby food to mix with her recovery powder. That worked because I woke up this morning to find her with an orange crest and an nearly empty bowl. Her poop is still bright green, which means she's still not getting enough food through her system, so I might tube feed her just before bedtime to supplement what she is taking in herself. Today she's up there pecking away at the sides of her container and trying to find treats under the fleece.

 

[Urchin]

Ella is now active, alert, gaining weight and has decided to moult. The past couple of days it looks like there's been a pillow fight in her container. She's been moved up from a liquid diet to mash. I'm still putting different flavors of baby food in it so there's a bit of variety for her. Normally she gets chicken food and kitchen scraps plus treats. Plain old mash is going to get just as boring as a liquid diet.

Anyway, since her entire plucked area is full of pin feathers, I now need to devise a way to get her out of her container without handling her. I picked her up yesterday to change the fleece and she let out a hurt squawk then panicked. It's just been over a week since she had surgery, so I certainly don't want her tearing anything open. Maybe a cardboard box she can walk into will work. If she's not too wary of it, that is.

 

[Urchin]

And getting pills into her has become a chore. You don't need lips to spit something out, I've discovered. So three times a day I spend five to ten minutes shoving a pill in her mouth only to have her shake her head so it comes flying out again. She's patient, too. I'll pry open her beak, pop it in, hold her beak shut for a minute or two only to find out she's just sitting there with the pill under her tongue ready to spit it out as soon as I put her down. I'm going to have to invest in a pill crusher, I think, because these pills are made of concrete. I can't crush them between two spoons or with a knife handle or anything short of a hammer. At least then I'll be able to mix them with some kind of mashed treat for her.

Ella's getting some quality time with her two adult chicks so she's not too lonely. Mostly they stand around looking at each other awkwardly like a group of near-strangers trying to find something to talk about at a cocktail party. But she seems to enjoy the company of her own kind because she calls out to them for a while after I put everyone home.