Two Early Medical Emergencies.

Two early medical emergencies.

This post will not be about the rooster. For those of you who’s patience is growing thin, there WILL be posts in the near future about how and why he is a douche bag … but for now, I’m still kind of covering the vast and uninteresting body of tales about their growing up and our early experiences being first-time chicken owners.

When you obsess about your birds, you keep a close eye on them and delight in the wonderful little traits they exhibit. You also notice quickly when something is amiss and that can be the difference between a live hen and a dead hen.

Our first medical emergency came when they were still quite young. The time between finishing the chicken run and the birds being old enough to be out in the coop meant that a goodly bit of spring grass grew inside the run … as it is, I am against mowing for the sheer fact that I don’t like doing it and I wasn’t about to attempt to drag the mower INSIDE the chicken run to mow the damn grass.

So, chickens as I said, will eat just about anything and it’s quite healthy for them to do so. They will strip every green thing growing in a chicken run in short order. At one point (later on and not part of this tale) my wife had put a planter of flowers INSIDE the run. I asked her what on earth she did that for and she answered ‘so they can eat them.’ As if that were a natural thing for a person to do. I won’t state what sort of flowers because I don’t remember now, and I wouldn’t want someone putting flowers in their chicken run if they were the wrong sort! Anyway, the young pullets were in the run and the grass was kind of shaggy.

One fine Sunday morning I went out to the chickens and … because I obsess … I noticed Hildegard wasn’t quite herself. Not quite right. I called my wife outside to verify that I wasn’t crazy. She naturally stated that she felt quite secure that I was crazy, but not over this particular issue. There was something off about Hildegard. She was not eating, moving slow, and staying a bit away from the flock. We picked her up and offered a few mealworms to see if she would eat. She did look interested, but wouldn’t eat them. Her crop was swollen like after a full meal but kind of hard … not rock hard … but kind of hard. What is a full crop SUPPOSED to feel like anyway? (For the incredibly curious, I suggest you look up the digestive tract of a hen and you will discover what a crop is and what it’s for). We didn’t know what to do, but we knew that a chicken who was not eating could go down fast. To the interwebs we rushed to consult the various online chicken bibles!

Since the crop wasn’t hard as a rock, we deduced that it wasn’t overly serious and read the advice on just what to do. Now, you must remember that no person possessed of good sense would call a vet for a $6 bird … and with a small flock of them to take care of, those vet bills could quickly kill you. We had to learn this stuff ourselves. We figured by her symptoms that her crop was jammed up by the long grass that she had eaten and if it wasn’t cleared, she could die. Upon learning what to do ... including watching a couple of graphic videos on the subject of how to treat an impacted crop in your hen, I went out to try this REAL LIFE ACTUAL technique. I picked up frightened lil Hildegard, held her upside down, and massaged the mass in her crop to encourage it to dislodge and thus she would sick it up. I produced little to no results, but my wife patiently repeated the process over the next two or three days while I was at work and Hildegard passed what was stuck in her crop. She was as right as rain after that, my wife was relieved, and I was more in love with her than ever.

The next emergency came a couple of weeks later. My wife was out in the yard with the flock. She came running in flustered and exclaimed “There’s something wrong with Hortense! She's making a disturbing noise!” I’m not overly excitable, but still grew suddenly concerned. “What kind of noise? Chickens make a lot of noises.”

My wife: “No! This is not a ‘right’ noise, this is a ‘wrong’ noise!”

I followed and once in the yard over by the mulberry tree I spied Hortense happily foraging with the flock. “She looks fine.”
My wife: “No! I was right here and she made a noise! And keeps doing it! Something is wrong with her!”
Hortense: “EEP!”
Me: “Holy crap! Is that the noise???”
My wife: “Yes! See?”

I then grew very concerned, but put my fact-gathering analytical mind to work … it is kind of a crisis reaction for me.

Me: “Okay … how long has she been making this noise?”
My wife: “I’m not sure!” about a half and hour or so?”
Me: “And where were you when you first …
Hortense: “EEP!”
… heard it … Holy crap!”
My wife, now growing excitably concerned: “Right here!”
Me: “Okay … and where was she?”
My wife: “Right there!”
Hortense: “EEP!”
Me: “Anyone else making that noise?”
My wife: “No, just Hortense!”
Me: “Okay … stay here, keep a close eye on her … I’m going to find out what this is. If anything changes, come get me!”
Hortense: "EEP!"

Now greatly concerned, but determined, I rushed into the house to once again consult the chicken gurus about what could be causing this new horrible affliction. About fifteen minutes later of searching, reading, and even watching a couple of video-films on the YouTubes … I sighed deeply with realization of exactly what was wrong.

Knowing there was nothing we could do … helpless to change the circumstances under which Hortense was “EEPing”, I slowly strode back out to my wife. She looked at me with a disconcerting look of distress on her face, awaiting to learn what I may have discovered and what we could do to save the poor baby.

With a serious tone a broke the news to her. “Honey … she has the hiccups.”

To this day, when we occasionally hear a series of “EEPS!” from one of the girls, we still smile, partially out of a sense of relief that they are healthy and happy, and partially out of the humor of our own ignorance.