You can get one for £5 in Tesco
So Rosie has a runny eye. She has from the beginning. Not at all uncommon in chickens, it could mean any number of things, serious and not so serious. As she was happy and lively and eating well, I chose to ignore it…until it finally got pretty gunky and awful. Field trip!
Every time we go to our local veterinary practice, it’s a different guy. Or woman. Usually a foreigner. This fella seemed English, though — and, even better, he declared he loves chickens and doesn’t see enough of them in his practice. Good start.
He thinks it’s a scratch that got infected, so he took her in the back and cleaned her up (I could hear her screaming bloody murder) and gave me eye drops.
I’m putting drops in a chicken’s eye twice a day. FML.
If it graduates to a sinus infection, though, it means an operation. He took great pleasure describing said operation in the most graphic of terms, until he seemed to realize he was being creepy. I’ll spare you the details — unless she actually has the operation. In which case, for all that money, I’m by-god getting a post out of it.
There it is, though — the bad eye all cleaned up. And it only cost me a little more than it cost to buy all three chickens.
Posted: April 5th, 2016 under animals, birds, personal.
Comments: 14
Comments
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: April 5, 2016, 8:08 pm
Rosie! I hope you feel better soon. What did you name the other two girls?
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 5, 2016, 9:32 pm
Jenny and Colette.
Notorious Edwardian women. (Rosie and Jenny were the Dolly Sisters).
The eyedrop, it did not go so well…
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: April 5, 2016, 9:37 pm
Keep an eye out for that sinus infection, Stoaty.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to imagine the sound of a hen blowing it’s beak…its gotta be significantly unique.
Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: April 5, 2016, 9:46 pm
The eyedrop, it did not go so well…
To put eyedrop in chicken eye, first catch chicken.
I have this video playing in my imagination, with a Benny Hill soundtrack when suddenly Daisey May appears to help catch chicken, as only Benny Hill would do it.
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: April 5, 2016, 11:17 pm
Chicken sneezing:
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: April 6, 2016, 12:24 am
Oh, cool RF!
They kinda squeak! Who knew?
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: April 6, 2016, 12:38 am
Best wishes for Rosie’s speedy recovery.
Comment from Nina
Time: April 6, 2016, 1:20 am
You could always remind her of the possible alternative: fricassee.
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: April 6, 2016, 1:29 am
Can you sedate a chicken with alcohol? Kernels of (cracked) corn soaked in corn squeezing, or fermented juniper berries. When she falls over, then you can rinse out her eye?
Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: April 6, 2016, 7:17 am
I had no idea chickens sneezed so impressively! Nina, James Thurber wrote about getting chickens drunk. While living in France his landlady gave him some calvados that was pretty rotgut, so he soaked chunks of bread in it, and tossed it to the chickens.
He said the landlady, when she saw the chickens staggering around, was convinced that some horrific new chicken plague had arrived. Thurber said that while the chickens looked OK the next day, he thought it was probably their worst day, mentally.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 6, 2016, 7:36 am
I don’t know what that chicken is doing, but I don’t think it’s a sneeze. When my chooks sneeze, it sounds no different from a cat sneeze.
Did I tell you about the time Mapp farted?
Comment from unkawill
Time: April 6, 2016, 5:14 pm
No Sweez, Please do tell us about the Flatulence of Mapp.
Comment from Janna
Time: April 6, 2016, 5:48 pm
Damn, Merle Haggard died today, on his birthday. That sucks.
Comment from Sam Hall
Time: April 10, 2016, 6:59 pm
Had a vet hold a feline urine sample inches from my ryes and start telling me, “As you can see, it’s quite cloudy…” I kind of grimaced,and backed my head away from it with a look of “It’s cat piss, doc. Get it out of my face.”
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