Guess what - I’m going back to the vet tomorrow with Cynthia. She’s just not right. As predicted she shunned my attempts at getting some bio live yoghurt into her, whilst the others gathered round and stuffed their faces with it. Pattie in particular has a penchant for bio live yoghurt, and when she’s had a bit she looks as though she has a milk moustache (see pic). Anyway as that failed miserably I resorted to putting some CCF in their water in the vague hope that it would do something good.

Rich doesn’t really agree with me, but I’m sure Cyn’s crop still isn’t right. It has definitely got food in it at the end of it day, but it’s just not packed quite as solidly as the other girls. She had such a pooey bum again that we had to give her a bath and a blow dry this afternoon. Seeing as it’s been pretty darned chilly today I think she quite enjoyed the hairdryer, she didn’t fuss about it at all. And she looked beautifully fluffy afterwards. She’s seemed a bit down in herself, but it doesn’t help that Yoko keeps picking on her.
The other thing that’s really worrying me is that she feels quite large and distended underneath, just like Yoko did. Not quite as large as Yoko got in the summer/autumn (Yoko has shrunk down to a normal size now, long may it reign), but considerably larger than Pattie (despite eating like a horse, Maureen is a stick, so she’s not a good comparison). I mean, if it *is* another case of EYP, I will be heartbroken, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m just praying that I’m just being completely and utterly paranoid and she’s just got a bit of an infection.

But the thing with hens is, you rarely go to the vets and come back with a definitive answer, unless they’ve got a half prolapsed egg hanging out of their bottoms, or bumblefoot. Everything else seems to only be diagnosable (is that even a word?) through a series of tests, prods, cultures, or some other method that leaves you hanging for days on end for the half-conclusive results. I’m just dreading the rigmarole, and I’m dreading having to do the countless phonecalls to get results, then finding out she has to go back in for some sort of investigative surgery or more tests. Having to give her maybe another course of baytril and nystatin (will be looking up homeopathic remedies). I just want it to be straightforward, treatable and non-life threatening. So you can imagine how I’m getting all wound up and anxious tonight about it. We’re going to take Pattie along as a comparison (and some company). They always think our birds are a bit thin, but ex-batts are just bred like that, with quite pronounced keels.

So…I’m not a happy bunny at the moment. I have quite a bit of work to keep me semi-occupied and in an attempt to do some healthy comfort eating have managed to munch my way through half a box of fruitful shredded wheat. I will keep the blog updated, but I’m pretty sure we’re just looking at more tests….

Happy Valentine’s Day by the way. We’re grumpy old beggars, we don’t really bother with it, bit of a commercial con unless you’re a lusty 15 year old…I think I’m losing my romanticism in my old age…

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 7:14 pm and is filed under hens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.