TL;DR: Yesterday was not a good day. (things are handled, but just wanted to share)

[Dottie the Chicken]

Oh, no! Naughty little bird! Hopefully she'll keep it on next time!

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Oh, no! Naughty little bird! Hopefully she'll keep it on next time!

Right? Maybe it means her pain meds are really working? Spouse is texting me from the clinic parking lot and I guess she’s strutting around the carrier and preening and otherwise behaving like a normal chicken. She might be at "I don't hurt. Wrap is dumb. Why is everyone messing me up? I don't mind cage too much because bred to be farm animal"

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

Hopefully she'll settle down and learn to live with it! She's a speckled sussex right? Little goofy birds!

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Hopefully she'll settle down and learn to live with it! She's a speckled sussex right? Little goofy birds!

She is a speckled Sussex, yep! A fact I learned on here as what we pre-ordered were Bielefelders and had no reason to doubt that we had Bielefelder chicks because we received little chipmunk striped fluffs. But lo and behold, no Bielefelders grew out of those chipmunk fluff balls. They’re both pretty timid, bottom-of-the-pecking-order birds, too, and Goga especially so. Although she doesn’t seem to get outwardly picked on by anyone, if anything she seems to like the bossiest one pretty well. She’s also kind of a snuggler. I’ve watched her crowding the others on the roost bar because she wants to nestle into their feathers and they just keep scooting over until they’re all tightly crowded at the end and there’s just acres of space on the other side of little Goga while she just wants to snuggle up. I don’t know how much of this is typical Sussex personality or if I just wound up with a preciously codependent chicken.

 

[JDChickChat]

Sarah on behalf of "Dottie" thank you. Those who don"t have "small dinosaurs" have trouble realizing the bonds their caretakers have with them. It's strong.

Amen!! Gotta love those adorable velociraptors!

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Amen!! Gotta love those adorable velociraptors!

And my other Sussex is actually named Velociraptor, no less! It’s funny because she’s a big worrywort, is very shy at being approached and will make nervous sounds even when being offered things like lettuce.

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Ugh... My poor spouse who rushed the chicken to the ER this morning at around 9am or whenever it is is STILL waiting in the parking lot for someone to even come out and take her in there. It's been nearly three hours. We don't have limitless time in the day to spend waiting on ER care, he has to work and this is the second day of just spending so many hours waiting there. This is like seven hours of work lost. I absolutely get it re: the ER clinic's flow but it's really frustrating at the same time. Really, it will be very good when we have our appointment at the regular avian DVM and get established there so if this happens again it would be a lot easier to, say, maybe even just drop her off there to stay until they have a free moment to replace the bandage for us and call to pick her up. The vet ER won't just do that without having examined her, though, so he's just waiting in the car with the chicken in the carrier. So we have to wait for our appointment for tomorrow and in the mean time, have to go through this whole prolonged process at the vet ER with this established ER patient check in procedure they have. I called them when he left the house with the chicken hoping that if I gave them a heads up they would be able to streamline this better, and we've both called to ask if someone can just take her and hang on to her so he can get back to work. I completely understand why a busy emergency practice has this set clinic flow but again, in the past two days it's been seven hours (and counting!) of having to sit tight in their parking lot. (sorry, just had to vent. I feel terrible because again, he needs to get back to work and there's nothing we can do)

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Ok, we’re trying a chicken straight jacket now. My poor, silly chicken.

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

Poor baby

 

[JustSarahThanks]

Okie doke. I wanted to drop by and leave an update since Goga has had her follow up with the avian clinic. First off, after about four hours of waiting at the emergency clinic for the bandage replacement, Goga managed to remove it in about an hour after that. The ER told us that if the bandage slipped or came off before her appointment at the avian-specific vet just leave it off for the time being, no need to rush back over to the ER and have another lengthy parking lot waiting game, so that's what we did, we just left her be. If anything, at least when she's not hog tied in a bandage she's actually quiet and calm and does well with the crate confinement. When she's in the bandage that's when she's flopping around the cage and getting herself tangled up in the towels or wedged underneath the divider that's in there. So I guess, all things considered, it could have been worse I suppose.

The visit with the avian clinic was reasonably heartening, they still feel a bit of mobility and the fracture still seems displaced but (and I guess this is a wacky avian-specific thing, and please do feel free to correct me if I've gotten the details wrong, any veterinary geeks/avian biology nerds who are out there) there's enough callus development around both fractures to sort of splint the fracture, so for the time being and considering that she is simply not tolerating the bandages at all, we're leaving her unbandaged and will be rechecking again there in a week. They did take a set of follow up xrays to confirm all this. I'm not sure if they'll take more in a week or not but I guess we'll see? Also we switched her meds up a little, we swapped the tramadol for gabapentin as that will have the dual benefit of pain management and sedation (and I actually have GOBS of gabapentin at home because my geriatric cat who turns into a little rage demonbeastmonster at the vet gets gabapentin prior to vet appointments for sedation purposes).

At any rate, jury's still out on whether or not she'll have full wing function on the back end of this ordeal, so we still may yet have to sort of revamp our coop (again), but that's OK. They're recommending crate confinement for another week until her next appointment and then we'll see what the plan evolves into.

Thanks again, fellow chicken lovers, for all the support! I'll keep reporting on her progress as the situation develops.

EDITED TO ADD (and to correct spelling, oops): In case anyone needs this information, I have egg withdrawl period info for meloxicam and gabapentin! Apparently the egg withdrawl period for meloxicam is 4 weeks, 6 weeks for gabapentin. No idea on tramadol (they never gave me that info at the ER). Also Goga is probably still at least that many weeks away from POL, so I think we're probably good?