Eight days now since Evie found the bundle of feathers and stink that used to be Helen and eight days since we put Dolours in chicken sickbay. Chicken keeping isn't supposed to be like this. It's supposed to be feeding, watering, cleaning out and gathering eggs - not all this death and decrepitude.
Someone once told me that sheep are buggers too, always looking for fresh and inventive ways of dying, said that if they could die twice they would. Seems like hens aren't that far behind them.
The one that I call Dolours cannot walk. Apart from that she is well-feathered, alert and eating and drinking. I wish now that I'd taken her to the vet at the start, but I expected her to either die or get better within a day or two. She spent a good part of today in a shady part of the garden, nibbling seed and drinking water and looking around her like a gentlewoman enjoying a day at the seaside.
A vet's appointment is still an option even though I heard of a man, new to keeping hens, who was recently charged ninety pounds for a consultation and 2 grammes of lice powder.
The one that Martha calls Sugar has been trying to hatch eggs since Easter and a couple of weeks ago I got fed up with lifting her off her stash and anyways, I wanted to find out if our rooster actually is intersex. She started off with three marked eggs, two of which have disappeared so now she is putting all her energy into sitting on one egg which, if it hatches, will probably be another rooster.
I'm away out now to see if Dolours tried the freshly pulled lettuce leaves I pulled for her and in the meantime here is a photograph of the chaffinch that knocked itself unconscious by flying into a window. It recovered eventually.
She was still a little dizzy at this stage. I was worried she'd lose her grip on the branch and gently lifted her off whereupon she flew into a clump of lupins. I left her to it and the next time I looked she was gone.
2 comments:
It's like bird Emergency Ward 10!
I didn't even tell you about the wren! It was too sad.
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