Sick Hen Part 2

Big City, Little Hen.

Arriving in the leafy village of Radcliffe on Trent Bob took our Beatie to the newly opened All Creatures Vetinary Practice. The observant among you will have noticed this is not the first time I have mentioned these lovely people. I am slightly biased because they were so helpful and so accomodating. You will see why.

The practice opened its doors for the first time on Monday off last week. Beatrice was one of their first patients and as it happened the new digital X-Ray machine needed christening. Beatrice Chicken to the rescue....sort of. Our lovely hen made her presence felt by vomiting mightily on their new fixtures and fittings. I suppose when a vet takes a hen's temperature a degree of surprise is to be expected-after all a hen cannot keep a syringe in her beak. I'll leave that one to your imagination.

Her temperature was normal but on palpation Erica was unable to tell whether she was feeling lymph nodes or something more sinister. So the X-Ray became necessary. These days it isn't necessary to wait hours for films to be developed. The digital image comes up on a computer screen and the vet can see immediately if there is a problem. Erica and Mandy have kindly allowed me to show you what this looks like.

My chicken anatomy is probably not a lot better than yours but the long white things on the right are leg bones and the shorter ones at the top are her wings. The large white speckledy mass near her leg bones is not, as I feared, an impacted egg but the pro-ventriculus. This is a part of the digestive system that contains grit to help the chicken break down it's food. I'm pleased to say this is normal. However the gassy area above it? Not so much.

Glad to know she wasn't egg bound Erica gave her two injections. An antibiotic and something to stop her being sick. Being an holistic practitioner she also gave us some Aloe Vera Gel to give her to help settle her stomach and restablish normal gut flora. With which Bob put her back in her basket and got back on the bus.

Over the next couple of days we kept her in and she started to look a great deal better. She was still sleeping inside so she didn't get chilled when out of sorts but able to scratch around in the garden a bit. 

We were starting to feel hopeful again.

Sleep well. Beatrice is.

Katherine