can you believe this poor baby suffered a dog attack last year and survived? it was gruesome as she had punctures on her back and her intestines were hanging out from her back end, the owner of the dog rushed us to the vet to get her fixed up and she came back home that same night.

i honestly didn't think she was going to make it over the first few days, i had her sleep next to me in bed, but it turned into a long recovery process of a few months with a LOT of monitoring... the stress and injuries from the dog attack slowed everything down in her, giving her crop problems i had to help aid her with. chicken crops need to empty themselves every night, if not it can be fatal to the bird!

she had to be kept inside for a week~ so her sewn up areas wouldn't get attacked by flies, ants, or even the other chickens. her poops were concerning as it was mostly liquid, and i think she even expelled some egg whites without a shell or yolk. she wasn't eating at first but finally took interest to some yogurt, i had to give her antibiotics; clavamox twice and meloxicam with food everyday for about a week.

as she became a little bit more stable and herself i couldn't keep her inside during the day anymore, so i made a separate enclosure outside where she couldn't have access to dirt, plants, or anything solid that she could eat or dirty her bare healing areas, then was brought back inside every night. unfortunately she managed to get out a few times, delaying the process of clearing out her slow crop even longer and eating something that seemed to have further blocked it. also getting dirt on her...

i fed her plain yogurt, raw or scrambled eggs, apple sauce, pumpkin puree, kefir, and kaytee formula with some oils like coconut and olive... however she eventually grew bored of these foods to the point where i had to force feed her sometimes through a syringe or else she wouldn't eat it.

i was almost at a loss because no amount of smoothie foods, water, and gently kneading of her crop resolved the issue completely, whatever hard object or matter she ate could still be felt in her crop and at this point i was considering taking her to a vet again for surgery to remove it. then i read some other possible solutions on a chicken forum, one mentioned a stool softener called ducolax, and after giving her the gel gaps for a few days... it worked, i no longer felt that hard bit stuck in her crop.

even with that issue out of the way i still continued to monitor her crop, most of her feathers have grown back at this point so i made her a separate space within the chicken run with her own special food. then i had to leave for a trip to NJ so my mom had to watch her for a week, but she was able to feel that her crop mostly emptied at nights and was able to free range again...finally being able to return outside completely after i had come back from my trip

...and here she is 5 months later after recovering from all that, the only remaining worries i had for her were her reproductive organs since she hadn't laid eggs, either from damaged organs or her body still in shock from the attack... but she finally laid an egg a few weeks ago! so i think it's safe to assume she's made it out of the woods

she's such a cuddlebug 🧡