Still a Work in Progress

Ophelia is my work-in-progress this week!

Ophelia has been in the house for about five days now and is doing very well. She's still not too active, but has been moving around a bit more each day. Best of all, her feathers are coming in very nicely!

I'm anxious to get her back outside with the rest of the flock, but it's still very cold out there and I'm not sure her new, baby-like feathers will provide enough warmth quite yet. I may do a test run in a day or so to make sure she can fly. If she can't get up into the coop on her own yet, then I'm going to wait a bit before releasing her.

I know it's crazy to have a chicken in the living room and it's not something I could handle long-term, but it's kinda nice having someone to share my morning toast and banana with.

Come join me at my other blog for WIP Wednesday ... just click Rosie's picture below.

Naked Chickens in My Living Room

As mentioned a week or so ago, poor Ophelia lost all her feathers.  I manufactured a little sweater for her out of a thermal shirt, but she somehow managed to get it off in record time.  I checked on her less than two hours after putting it on her and setting her back in the coop, so it didn't last long.

Most of the flock has been staying in the coop since it's been so cold, but I leave the pop door open so they can come and go if they choose.  Ophelia has been staying as far away from the pop door as she can, and has taken up residence in one of the nest boxes.  The smaller, somewhat enclosed space retains her body heat better, and it's well packed with shavings.  The other girls will roust her out of there when they want to lay, but she pops back up in there when they're done.

Because it's so cold, I've been going out there every two hours or less to freshen their water, uncover the feeder (lots of shavings flying around in there) and check on Ophelia.  The last two days I've had to go out every hour because Ophelia has been jumping out and holing up underneath the coop and can't get back in.  She can hop up a little but without feathers, she can't fly up onto the step to get into the coop.

Under the coop has plywood around two sides and part of the front so she was somewhat sheltered from the wind, but it's still pretty darn cold out there (20s and 30s) for a naked chicken.  She doesn't walk around and peck at anything, just stands in the corner.  Earlier this afternoon I picked her up to deposit her back in the coop and while I attended to the water dish, she turned around and hopped out the door again.

I give up.

Because I'm in and out every hour of the day checking on chickens, I'm getting nothing else done.  Enough already.  Back to the house I go, with a naked chicken under my arm.  Drag out the dog crate/plant starter/chick brooder/kitten house to make a temporary home for Ophelia in the living room.

Right now I've just got a towel covering the bottom, but I'm still contemplating a better solution, perhaps the big tub the chicks were in, or maybe I can put cardboard or some old paneling around the sides of the crate.  She seems to be doing fine so far, eating and drinking and much less curious than the two dogs and two cats.

All of the hens just came off another 10-day regimen of antibiotics, but I'm not sure how much medicated water Ophelia actually consumed.  She's still got a little spot of bumblefoot on each of her feet, but it's very small and I still don't think the feather loss is related to that.  She weighs next to nothing, and if I don't see rapid change in the next 48 hours, I think I'm going to have to make a tough decision.   I can't keep a chicken in my living room, I can't leave her outside to fend for herself, and I can't spend more time checking on them 8-10 times a day.   I know she's got to be miserable (I know I am), and I can't see prolonging the inevitable.

That's the update on Ophelia.  Here she is in her new, temporary digs.

My friend Angie brings up some good points about keeping a pet chicken in the house.  I sure hope the local constable isn't going to show up at my door because I'm in violation of some ordinance.  It's only temporary, officer, I promise!

Bumblefoot and Naked Chickens

Sad to say, I'm still dealing with bumblefoot in my little flock, several months later.  I've done antibiotics.  I've performed surgeries and pulled some of the nastiest things I've ever seen out of my chickens' feet, packed with antibiotic ointment, and applied dressing and vet wrap.   I've had to soak, medicate and wrap 6-7 of the 9 remaining hens several times a week, and I'm about spent from it all, and of course they're none too happy either.  After a spell where they got considerably worse, we seem to have turned a corner and they're getting some better, but we're not over the hump yet.   I know I have to get rid of it completely or it'll be back with a vengeance.

I still don't know what caused Bessie's demise at the end of Oct, and now I'm dealing with a naked chicken.  Poor Ophelia started losing some feathers last week and I didn't think too much of it as they can go into a molt at the weirdest times, but 2-3 days ago I noticed a large amount of chicken feathers on the ground and in the coop, so this is no ordinary molt.  She's pretty bald now and with it dropping to the 20s at night and 30s during the day, I knew I had to do something or the cold would kill her.  I imagine it would be a slow, horrible death as she weakened, so was determined to get her some relief today.

I crochet and was going to make her a sweater of some sort, but that will have to wait for another day.  I pondered several different ways to attack this, but decided to try the arm off an old thermal shirt.  I cut slits for her wings and with a little help from a buddy, was able to slip it over her head.  It's not the prettiest thing and there are still some bare spots not completely covered, but I'm sure it's helping some.  It's not really restrictive, but she hopped around oddly for a bit as she got her balance.  Of course I'll be checking on her several times throughout the day.

Awaiting her 'fitting'

Not perfect, but it'll work for now

The fitting room after dressing Ophelia.
You can see she lost even more feathers during the process

I started antibiotics again two days ago and I'm going to give it this one last ditch effort to get the bumblefoot under control, and hopefully that will also address whatever's going on with Ophelia.  I'm at a loss as to what else I can do, and if I don't see rapid improvement soon, I may just cull them and admit defeat.

Ophelia, in better days

I'd love to get you back into this shape, Ophelia. I'm trying girl, really I am ...

Loss of a Good Ol' Gal

Today is not starting out well at all.  I went to let the girls out at dawn and found that poor Bessie had died during the night.  She was laying right in front of the door and already stiff, so she had been dead for several hours at least.

Bessie is one of the six original hens I brought home on Dec 1st last year and I believe the girls were about six months old then, so she wasn't an old hen.  She did bring a nasty case of scaly leg mites with her that I'm not sure ever cleared up.  I treated her legs and while it never spread to the bedding or any of the other chickens in the last 11 months, her legs never did get over that icky, scaly look.  Maybe I killed off the mites but the scales on the legs were too far gone to close up and look normal again.  I would imagine if she still had them, that at least some of the other girls would have picked them up before now.

Bessie nesting in her dishpan, before outside nest boxes were built

I'm still dealing with bumblefoot and it seems to be a losing battle.  I've treated and treated, both individually and the entire flock, but the girls that had it bad just can't kick it.  I've tried two different antibiotics as well as soaking and topical ointment and just can't eradicate it entirely.  It's been a while since last treatment, and Bertha, the worst case, is looking pretty bad once again. Bessie might have had a small callous on one foot, but hers never got out of hand so I don't think the bumblefoot infection is what killed her.  Hard to say.

The newer additions to the flock have been with the older girls for months now, long before the bumblefoot was noticed, but none of the younger girls has shown any sign of infection at all.  I don't know if it has to do with the age or breed, but it's very puzzling.  I'm hopeful that with cold weather and snow not far off, that it will kill whatever is out there and I can treat them all one last time and be done with it.

Bessie was a nice ol' gal, and I'm hoping whatever the cause of her death, it doesn't pass to her sisters.

Bessie showing her butt, second from right

I hope there's lots of scratch where you are now, Bessie ...

Bumblefoot Hit my Flock

Lucky me ... bumblefoot has hit my flock.  I noticed bumps between the toes of my largest hen (Bertha) a couple of weeks ago and knew immediately it had to be bumblefoot.  Picked her up and sure enough, the bottom of her feet had the large, hard callous on them, one foot much worse than the other.

Large callous from bumblefoot, a bacterial infection

As I researched how to deal with it, I noticed one of the other hens (Yvonne) had small bumps between her toes too, so knew I had a real problem on my  hands.  I looked online for the best way to handle it and set about getting supplies ready.  I didn't have epsom salts on hand, so I soaked their feet in peroxide initially and picked off as much of the softened callous as I could.  Most of what I got off was dried poop; the texture and smell reminded me of picking horse hooves.



I soaked, picked and cleaned as best I could and applied a topical antibiotic ointment that's the best stuff I know (Mela-gel, put out by Melaleuca) then wrapped their feet.  Yvonne's responded well, but Bertha had a long way to go.  My local pet store had Ornacyn (erythromycin for birds)  which stated it was for avian bumblefoot.  I had a heckuva time figuring out the dosage for a larger bird and on a broader scale,  but did the best I could and hoped it would be enough.  I had no way to isolate the two hens completely for the duration, so opted to give it to them individually with a syringe several times a day.  I didn't want to medicate all 11 chickens (ten hens) unnecessarily and have to forfeit the eggs if they didn't have the infection.  Egg production had finally picked up and I'd been getting 6-7 eggs from eight or nine hens (Bertha wasn't laying, and I wasn't sure about Yvonne) and didn't want to lose it all.

Bertha's bumblefoot is more severe. The left
cyst  is large and filled with infectious fluid

Smaller cyst on Yvonne

Again, Yvonne responded well as her case wasn't as severe.  Bertha was getting better, but one cyst between her toes was still pretty large and fluid-filled.  I opted to lance that one, soak in epsom salts, then applied the topical antibiotic and wrapped it.  With the continued antibiotics orally, it was definitely getting better and she seemed more her old self (cackling all day), but it still wasn't gone.

Yvonne sporting her new shoes

"I don't see no stinkin' bumblefoot"

"I'm liking the new house shoes"

Yvonne showed no signs of bumblefoot after several days of treatment, but after a week of antibiotics, Bertha showed improvement but still far from cured (again, not sure she was getting enough of the antibiotic the way I was administering it).

This will be an ongoing process, so stay tuned for more on how I'm handling it, and what  is and is not working.