Back with the Flock!

The little chick who had been sick, (Seriously, I'm not trying to rhyme here), is now back with the rest of the flock!

We brought it back into the house last Thursday night after finding it with it's head tucked into it's chest and acting very lethargic. Thankfully, the next day the bird was able to eat and drink, which was a good sign. However, occasionally it would stagger backwards and experienced some very worrying convulsions.

I searched on the Internet and found out the chick was experiencing "Stargazing".  An odd name for it. The ailment is most likely caused from a deficiency in thiamine. I talked with a number of other farmers who had seen many chickens tuck their heads down but had never heard of "Stargazing". The site said I either had to find a medication called Nutri-Drench or get a hold of some Brewer's yeast. As the Food Co-Op would need to special order some of the solution and only sold 50 pound bags of yeast, it was time to call the Wine making store.

Now that was an interesting conversation! Apparently I was the first one to ever call them looking for help in doctoring a sick chicken. Who knew? When I went in to pick it up, all of the staff knew about me. They were so nice and wished me luck. It's inspired me to get back into wine making this fall.

Back home I sprinkled a small amount of yeast on it's food throughout the day, watched for any abnormalities in it's poop, massaged the back of it's neck often as instructed and made sure it had clean water. I was very concerned and was unhappily thinking of killing it. It's so horrible to watch an animal suffer. Maybe it was a cop out on my part but I decided to give it a few more days just in case.

So Tuesday came and after keeping an eye on it off and on all day I somehow just knew it was fine. There had been no more symptoms and the bird was restless and wanted out of that darn cage. That evening I took it out and walked it up to the barn holding it under my arm and placed it back with the flock. There were no issues. It was like it had never left. I've been checking in and since most of them all look the same the little sucker has blended right back in. Good news.