Lucy, My White Crested Blue Polish, Recovers Thanks to Lakeside Animal Hospital

On Tuesday morning we discovered that our white crested blue polish chicken, Lucy, was not acting normal. Normally the spunkiest of the bunch she was sitting in the corner with her head facing the wall, panting and not eating or drinking. This was so unlike her that we took her to the most amazing animal hospital I have ever been to, Lakeside Animal Hospital. They immediately began to examine her and determines that they did not know what was wrong and the most appropriate course of action would be to hospitalize Lucy, force feed her, give her antibiotics and provide her with oxygen.


That night everyone was convinced she was not going to make it, she was pale, not eating and not responding to humans. It was awful, she was nothing like the Lucy we knew. I wanted her to be OK more than anything. She continued on oxygen but surprising began to eat a recovery formula provided by Harrison's Bird Foods. Here is a link to Lakeside Animal Hospital's facebook with a video of Lucy beginning to recover:

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lakeside-Animal-Hospital/140428356167322?rf=374899499280676

Over the next three days she continued to recover surprising everyone and today we brought her home and are continuing to feed her antibiotics. I can not thank Lakeside Animal Hospital enough for being so helpful, generous and amazing to both us and Lucy, it is absolutely amazing that she recovered and I am so grateful. Here are pictures - she is currently staying in the house in a crate until she is well enough to be re-introduced to the flock of 6 chickens.

Before any of this happened, as I should have posted sooner, we got our first eggs. Three of the chickens, Ricardo (Golden Buff), Mertz (Golden Buff) and Ricky (Black Frizzle Cochin Bantam) are all laying eggs. Below is a picture of the cartoon of fresh eggs (it took them a week to lay this many). 

                                              

So far they have laid 2 1/2 dozen and it turns out the egg laying process is quite funny. My chickens hop into their nesting boxes and dig a little hole in the hay. Then then lay down and make insanely loud squawking noises for about 1/2 an hour, they also continuously stand up and look under them to see if the egg has appeared. 

Ricky, who I mentioned above as laying, just started to lay this week while Lucy was in the hospital. Being a bantam her eggs are... well... smaller than the others. I know he has tried his best but as you can see in the picture below compared to Metzes egg her egg size leaves much to be desired!

Stay tuned - I am going to continue to post about Lucy's recovery, the chickens eggs and advice and stories about taking care of and raising healthy backyard chickens.