A strange day

This morning both of us walked down to the allotment. I was dreading it because I had no idea in what state we would find Dolly. Thankfully when we arrived, she was mixing with the other girls although clearly at the bottom of the pecking order. Whilst my husband sorted out their food, I popped up to the shed and got the syringe and filled it up with a dose of cider vinegar. When I got back to the coop, my husband managed to catch Dolly and we began.

Using a clean thin stick, I held her beak open and managed to get out a few small bits of gunk. Dolly was not appreciative of my efforts and managed to scratch me down the length of my arm with a claw. Undeterred, I managed to remove a large chunk from her beak and as it came out, it sort of peeled off the side of her beak. There was quite a big hole and hopefully the skin will go back into its usual place in the next few hours. Unfortunately, there is still a bit left and it is pushing her tongue to one side. I didn’t want to stress her out any further, so we let her go. After some head shaking and adjusting, she went to the water bowl and had a sip of water.

Leaving her to recover from her ordeal, we walked up to the greenhouse and said hello to Leia and Rey. Neither had bothered laying eggs yet but it was a couple of hours earlier than they have been laying. I filled up their food bowl and left them with stern words to get on with laying eggs.

Geoff kindly left us two containers with fresh water with a dose of cider vinegar in. He said that if parts of the blockage had done, it would help Dolly clear the rest. I hope he is right! Their water replaced with the medicated water, we left after watching Polly have another bigger drink. She has eaten a little this morning and without the main part of the blockage, hopefully she feels better. Tomorrow we will try to get the remaining gunk out and hopefully she will be back to her usual happy self.