Doris, Again

Well, isn't this nice. Doris is now bubbling at both eyes. No signs of respiratory distress (wheezing, coughing etc). If I put my ear to her back there's no scary bubbling sounds. Her face doesn't smell bad, and here nostrils are clear. There is no swelling apart from some slight inner eyelid irritation. None of the other hens seem remotely symptomatic. I could scream.

I last treated Doris for something very similair at the beginning of last November. The vet prescribed Baytril, and I had to bribe my lovely chicken sitter with a bottle of good Merlot to fire the medicine down Doris's throat three times a day. It was a tad stressful for all concerned. I am quite disheartened to find myself back at square one.

Doris is one of four hens that I bought from one breeder. The others were Delilah, Belinda and Mini. Can you spot a connection there? Yep, the other three are all ex-hens, and were within a year. They all died of different conditions and cost a significant amount of money to treat. I thought that perhaps we'd got lucky with Doris. However, within weeks of bringing her home initially she'd had an eye issue. On and off, there have been flare ups of spotty eyelids and bubbling. I can only assume that Doris has dormant myco which comes to the fore when she is stressed/under the weather anyway. Since the New Year I have been adding various tonics and supplements to the girls' feed and water in an effort to ward off the nasties. I am still waiting for the colloidal silver to arrive.

So now I am once again contemplating the vet and  yet another course of Baytril. This is not really a good or smart move. I am loathe to go down the route I did with my beloved Mini, spending months and literally hundreds of pounds attempting to cure something which was ultimately uncurable. If I was a breeder, I'd probably be thinking of dispatching Doris off to that big coop in the sky. And yet. Yet, she is a pet. She has been with me now for two and a half years. I cannot and will not see her in pain or suffering. So when I finish this post, I will once again phone the vet. I will attempt to convince him to prescribe the Baytril without making me and a poorly hen trek down to the surgery. If I am successful, I will spend the next seven days wrapping Doris in a towel and forcing meds down her reluctant throat. I will do all this and hope that it works. And all the time I will know that it is probably pointless. That she will probably get ill again. That I am possibly risking the rest of my flock.

Sorry for the depressing post, but I am feeling really quite disheartened.

Mycoplasma Is Evil

Ok, I give up. After four days of squirting antibiotic eye drops in to Doris's spotty eye, I'm reaching for the Tylan. She still shows no respiratory symptoms, but now her other eye is bubbling slightly. I loathe dosing the whole flock, but it seems to cause less stress all round rather than seperating Doris and treating her on her own. Plus, myco is generally present in the whole flock if one shows symptoms. I still suspect that Doris is just low from her moult, but I'm not taking any chances. I am reminded of my long battle this time last year to save my beloved Mini and feel generally quite glum.

The weather hasn't helped my mood. It has been blowing a gale here now for two days and the ground is decidedly spongey. The chooks are not impressed and have stayed in the coop only venturing forth for pellets and the now medicated water. On occassional forays in to the run they sit on the perches out of the wind and we all eyeball each other miserably. Maeve's hackle feathers are growing in now, so she's slightly less demented and the whole flock is thankful.

I wrap up in wet weather gear to go out and attend to them which is a sight they find troubling. The wind snapping my windbreaker causes a kefuffle, so I haven't even had and chickenny cuddles to cheer me up. This morning, while cleaning the coop, I heard several sneezes and saw a few headshakes. I have my fingers crossed that everyone just has a cold, but my experiences last autumn make me feel terribly fatalistic.

I promise I'll cheer up for the next post.

Another Round Of Myco?

The weather is glorious here at the moment. Usually, the hens would be out from sun up to sun down, rearranging my planting schemes and sunbathing. Not this week, though. Because Doris is coughing.

After last nights human meal, I had some mashed potatoes and noodles left over. This is a feast for the chooks, who go absolutely crackers for mash. They bury their entire heads in it, and when the dish has been picked clean, nibble it from each other. It is always a joyous occassion. So, the eldest child took the treat bowl outside, and sat down to watch the show. After a few minutes, I was called outside because Doris was coughing. And she was. She was gobbling down pulverised spud at a rate of knotts, and then occassionally hacking as if she was on forty a day. At first I assumed pure chickenny greed, and that the daft bird was gorging herself and was going to be sick. However, I've never seen a chicken vomit. In fact, I'm not sure that they can.

Grabbing hold of her for a closer look, I could hear her wheezing. She was breathing heavily with her beak open, and when I put my ear to her back I could hear the tell tale 'clicking' that suggests respiratory infection. Looking her in the eye, I noticed some slight bubbling. All classic signs of a mild mycoplasma infection. Arse.

With a heavy heart, I plonked the poorly girl back on to the lawn. She let out a hoarse 'bok-ARK' just to show her displeasure, and I trudged back to the house to root out the Tylan. Doris is the eldest child's hen, and understandably he is anxious. Since the sad loss of Mini back in January, the girls have been hale and hearty. This is a disappointing set back. However, we have had mild myco outbreaks before that have responded well to Tylan, so my fingers are crossed. The hens are relegated to the Palace for the next few days, to avoid them slurping out of puddles. They aren't overly keen on the Tylanised water, but if all other options are removed, they have to drink it.

This morning, Doris is not wheezing. She is eating, reluctantly drinking, preening and dust bathing. All in all, she seems in good health. None of the other hens are showing obvious signs. With a bit of luck, by the weekend, everyone will be infection free.

Much hand washing is occurring before I go near the chicks.

Complicated Chickens

Maeve, the new chick on the block

Well, best laid plans and all that...

My idea had been to integrate Mini with the new teeny Maeve, and once they were firm pals to reintroduce the pair to the flock. Easy. Except Mini has some kind of respitory infection. She's wheezing a bit, snotty and has a slightly swollen face. When she sneezes, mucus flies. Oh crap. Just as I noticed this new development, Mabel wandered over, bokked a bit, and then sneezed wetly up my arm. Double crap.

To be honest, at this point I may have thrown a little tantrum. After the nightmare of Delilah's illness and subsequent death, I really thought I was owed a good run of chicken health. Ha! The chicken God apparently has a wicked sense of humour. So, monday morning saw me high tailing it to the vet and picking up some baytril.

Baytril is a broad spectrum antibiotic, which in this case comes as a syrup. Cue me trying to hold a chicken in a headlock while firing medicine down her throat. Cue Mini making an alarming amount of noise of the 'I can't breathe! I'm dying!' kind, and turning an unpleasant shade of purple. In a human you'd have called it an asthma attack. I popped her back into the coop, sadly expecting her to cark it from stress. Five minutes later, she trotted down the ramp and wandered off to eat aphids. I actually let out an audible sigh of relief.

We went through the whole rigmarole again yesterday, before my brain engaged this morning and I squirted the baytril onto a piece of bread. Mini scoffed it with enthusiasm, and no near death episode. Good. I am currently awaiting the delivery of a set of digital mini scales, so that I can measure out the Tylan I need to treat the whole flock. Hopefully, this will kill all bacteria and the birds will be healthy again. Until the next time...

Maeve has been cheerfully destroying the greenhouse, managing to tear up everything in the growbag and then crap on it. She has been out for the odd wander around the garden, and rightly keeps out of the other ladies way. She has a big charcter for such a little bird. When she is grown, I think she's really going to shake up the pecking order....

Clean knickers

Delilah has become a bit whiffy, what with lying in her own filth for days, so this morning she had a bath. I'm rather glad that she feels too ill to fight me, as I suspect that a healthy Delilah plus a bath would equal me losing an eye. As it was, she settled for giving me a look of pure malice while I washed her drawers.

Delilah is only the second chicken that I have bathed, so this is probably a hideous generalisation, but chooks seem to really enjoy being blow dried. D lay on a towel, eyes closed and lifted her wings as I blasted her with the hairdryer (on a low setting, I had visions of spontaneous combustion otherwise). During all this palaver, I realised that D is actually bald all along her underside. This is a classic symptom of a broody hen, so I suspect that she was going broody. A broody hen doesn't eat or drink very well, and is therefore much more likely to succumb to illness. The mycoplasma would have been in her system, waiting for her to weaken enough for it to take hold. She's giving it a run for its money, though.

After syringing water/medicine into the poorly chook, and shoving her beak into some weetabix until she either ate or suffocated, I went outside to tidy up the healthy girls. Pekins have huge fluffy knickers, and they can easily get covered in minky cloacal poo. Wiping a chickens bum not only feels weird, but doesn't really achieve anything. Think playdoh in a deep pile carpet. Hence, when those knickers need cleaning, out come the scissors.

I donned my pink 'chicken business' glove, armed myself with the scissors and grabbed the first hen. Mabel was less than impressed with my chicken grooming, and her beautifully rounded undercrackers are now severely lopsided. Oops. It isn't an easy task, though, and requires more hands than I actually have. I've had to adapt the technique, and the results are functional but not particularly aesthetic. Grabbing a handful of the poo coated bum fluff, I gingerly trim them below said poo. At the same time, the hen is desperately pulling in the other direction in a bid for freedom. Therefore, when the last feather is snipped, the chook goes bombing up the garden, totally unprepared for the sudden release. Bloody funny to watch.

So now they all have clean underwear, but I'll never make a hairdresser.