Monday, July 12, 2010

impacted crop

no photos as I had mislaid my camera.....

This weekend Daisy had a very heavy lop-sided neck. A quick look on the internet told me it might be an impacted crop. I gave her a couple of drops of olive oil and massaged the lump, it felt very heavy and firm, a bit like modeling clay. I squished it around a bit gently and then left her alone....next morning it had cleared up, but by evening her lop-sided look had returned, but not as heavy as the day before, perhaps she is ok and is just lop-sided naturally, I will keep an eye on her. There is a suggestion on the internet to feed them live white maggotts, these maggotts eat the food around the grass or whatever is causing the blockage, sounds disgusting, but a lot better than cutting her crop open, or sticking a tube down her throat to flush it away...euwww....

This morning I could only count 2 hens.

I felt foolish as I went around the garden calling and thinking one of them was hiding, but the other 2 girls were following me making a new 'noise' if they had been human they would have been pointing and shouting "she's over there".....!! some how one of them ( Letty) had got over an 8ft wall! We had trimmed all the feathers we were shown to trim by the farmer so hadn't expected any escapes. I went quickly to the neighbour with the large dog to see if Letty had got into his vegetables, but no, not there, instead she had flown into the garden of a bird phobic lady who had got her boyfriend to chase the poor hen around the garden and was going to shoo her on to the road!!!! I was just in time ( the neighbour didn't know I had hens because the girls are very quiet ( usually ) ), needless to say a quick session of wing clipping later they are safe in the garden again....phew
I thought keeping hens was a peaceful pursuit....lol

oh yes, one of them is laying double yolkers, yum :-)

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