30 days of beautiful: day 5 / Update #11

~poor Bella~

Why a chicken, you may ask. Even more so, why a bad picture of a chicken? To answer the last question, the camera was running out of batteries, so I had to do it quick. The first question will take little longer.

Li'l Bella has sour crop crossed with impacted crop. Or something like that. It's a little gross, so be warned. I isolated her (on our front porch) for two weeks, giving her only water with apple cider vinegar, yogurt, and olive oil. I also massaged her bulbous crop everyday. I was trying to make her throw up, but it only worked twice. She seemed to get better at one point, but in the end we were right back where we started. I let her rejoin the flock (where she was pecked almost incessantly) to see what would happen. Yesterday, I successfully made her throw up four times, and this morning she looked so much better. 

As the day wore on, her crop filled up with food (like it should), but it got bloated again (like it shouldn't). I think earlier in the spring (it's been like this for at least a month and a half) she ate really long grass and then ate straw in her little cage, which created a hard ball in her crop. It can't pass on, so she still looks big.

After lots of hard work, it's wonderful to see her doing even the tiniest bit better. I hope and, yes, pray that she will continue to be all right. Update later.