Henny Penny was looking rather sick yesterday.
I noticed that when I let her out she was walking really, really slowly - as if she was stalking like a cat :?
soon after she just kept falling asleep on her feet, wasn't interested in anything around her - NOT EVEN THE JUICY WORM IN FRONT OF HER!!
Eventually when she did snuggle down asleep in the middle of the lottie, whilst there was lots going on around her that she usually would be interested in, she did so very carefully but kept her back end raised up.
I took her home to clean her up (she had very runny poos - just looked like someone had spat on the floor) so I gave her a gentle, warm shower to her back end. This helped to clean off the poo that was stuck to her feathers, but she still was just falling asleep in the bath!
Her back end seemed to be a bit rounded, but not being a connoisseur of chicken bums I wasn't sure if this was normal or not...
After cleaning the poo off her feathers I decided it was time to take the plunge and see what was the problem 'up there' as she was 'flexing' her vent but nothing happened. Anyhoo, vasaline on the finger (I have very small hands and slim fingers too which was useful) and finger up the bum and she suddenly squeezed out a smelly soft shelled egg and her whole back end suddenly wasn't so swolen anymore!
This seemed to be the problem - an old egg that didn't come out that was causing her problems, however, during my inspections I noticed strange 'winnets' of stuff at the base of her feathers and these didn't come off with washing... see below...
could these be mites? I'm going to give all of the girls a dusting tomorrow but none of them seem to be giving any signs of having mites and they are not on any of the other feathered areas - I checked yesterday. Is it possible that this is just old poo that's stuck on?
I dried her off with a hair dryer a-la-Babes suggestion in a post many moons ago :roll: and set her back with the others. They were fine and I tried to give her some yoghurt to perk her back up again but she just wasn't interested :cry: The other two on the other hand finished the whole lot off!
This is a pic of them eating the yoghurt in the background and HennyPenny just feeling sorry for herself in the foreground.
Today however, I got to the lottie knowing that she would either be OK or would have passed away during the night (couldn't keep her at home - 2 cats and nowhere to keep her safely). When I got there she was just as perky as the other two and back up to her old tricks again so is all well again! Yay!