One of our hens fell into the sheep water trough today. It is 50-something degrees outside, water may be colder. We don’t know how long she was there before she was discovered lifeless and barely breathing. We brought her inside wrapped in a towel. Her eyes were closed and she was barely breathing; breaths were slow and shallow and she was occasionally twitching. We towelled her off, blow-dried her, placed her in a box cardboard box with a heating pad, and gave her some pedialyte with a dropper. I observed her swallowing the liquid. About a half hour later, she started opening her eyes an little and her breathing rate improved. I gave her a bit more Pedialyte and left her to rest. After another 30 minutes or so, we checked in on her and found her pretty alert standing in the box, looking like she was going to jump out. So we placed her on the floor. She projectile pooped and jut stood there.
She doesn’t seem to be interested in walking at all. We’re not sure if she hurt a leg struggling to get out of the trough, or maybe she’s just tuckered from her ordeal. We offered her some very diluted Pedialyte in a bowlwhich she readily drank. We’re going to keep her confined in the house in a makeshift crate tonight and see how she is in the morning. We don’t want to stress her by putting her outside during this recovery period. She’s not moving around much. Just kind of standing there looking at me. She closes her eyes from time to time and we gave her some crumble and some corn which she is nibbling at. I thought she might be stressed and lonely so I played a YouTube video of chicken sounds and she became very alert and started looking around. So, now I have a question: I’m asking for wisdom about whether I should continue playing these sounds for her or whether it might stress her out and infuse her even more.
She doesn’t seem to be interested in walking at all. We’re not sure if she hurt a leg struggling to get out of the trough, or maybe she’s just tuckered from her ordeal. We offered her some very diluted Pedialyte in a bowlwhich she readily drank. We’re going to keep her confined in the house in a makeshift crate tonight and see how she is in the morning. We don’t want to stress her by putting her outside during this recovery period. She’s not moving around much. Just kind of standing there looking at me. She closes her eyes from time to time and we gave her some crumble and some corn which she is nibbling at. I thought she might be stressed and lonely so I played a YouTube video of chicken sounds and she became very alert and started looking around. So, now I have a question: I’m asking for wisdom about whether I should continue playing these sounds for her or whether it might stress her out and infuse her even more.
