{"id":17009,"date":"2016-09-14T22:59:39","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T22:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=17009"},"modified":"2016-09-15T05:49:52","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T05:49:52","slug":"caramels-visit-to-the-vet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=17009","title":{"rendered":"Caramel’s visit to the vet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am going to update even though I know I have covered a lot of this in the comments but I want to give the full story.<\/p>\n

Yesterday we had our busiest day for a long time and I felt torn about wanting to take Caramel to the vet and needing to get the work done. We were flat out all day in the heat and I worried about Caramel all day but I felt glad that at least she was still eating.<\/p>\n

This morning I was really worried because Caramel wasn’t eating and I know that if a chicken doesn’t eat they go down hill fast and she is too small to not eat for long. I decided to give her sugar water from a pipette to the side of her beak and it did seem to give her a burst of energy.<\/p>\n

I then rang my usual vet and they said that the guy I usually see, who is the only one with chicken experience, was on holiday for a couple of weeks. They said they couldn’t help me and I should try somewhere else.<\/p>\n

I remembered that I had taken\u00a0my friend\u00a0Jackie to a vet in Bourne End, which is near me, when she had to have her old girl, Clover put to sleep.<\/p>\n

I rang them and explained the situation and they told me to bring Caramel in right away. They were amazing and I have now registered with them and will use them in the future. They had told me that they had their first appointment at 10.00am and if I went in straight away, it was now 9.00am, they would get me in first.<\/p>\n

They were so good with Caramel. They weighed her first and then the vet sluiced her eye with saline and cleaned around it with a cotton bud in saline. She then gave her antibiotic eye drops to start treating from the outside. She then gave her baytril, antibiotic, through her beak and then a pain killer through her beak. She then gave her lubricant drops to her eye.<\/p>\n

She has given me lubricant drops to give her twice a day and the baytril, antibiotic, plus the pain killer, to give in her beak once a day. She asked me to return at 9.00am tomorrow so that she can check on her.<\/p>\n

I was pleased that when I returned her to the patio area she went straight to the food dish but I then had to go out to do my lunch deliveries.<\/p>\n

On my return I separated Caramel and gave her sunflower seeds and corn and realised that she is having trouble picking them up. She wants to eat but pecks and misses a lot of the time, only swallowing a few seeds. She seems to be struggling to see them accurately.<\/p>\n

I gave her some more sugar water to her beak to keep her strength up.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately she is scratching at her eye which is probably what is adding dirt and making it worse every time it starts to get better. I am thinking of letting the vet clean it again in the morning.<\/p>\n

At bedtime she went into the chicken shed first once more and was later followed by Pebbles.<\/p>\n

My plan of action is to give the medications and drops but also to put her in the cat box a few times a day with a choice of food items. I will put in water and chopped pellets, sunflower hearts, corn and chopped grapes, to give her a chance to eat what ever she can without any competition. I will also give her sugar water each time I give her her meds.<\/p>\n

I hope this will help to keep her strength up. The next few days will be crucial. If she can continue to eat enough she could recover but she must eat.<\/p>\n

She has been sat by the water which is a typical poorly chicken thing.<\/p>\n

\"She<\/a>

She is staying by the water<\/p><\/div>\n

\"She<\/a>

She is trying to eat<\/p><\/div>\n

She has been trying to eat pellets which is good. She has her eye open sometimes and closed at other times and I have noticed it closes when she tries to eat.<\/p>\n

The next few days are going to be crucial to her. If I can keep her eating enough she has a chance of beating this but I know from past experience that she mustn’t give up on eating.<\/p>\n

I will update again once we have been back to the vet tomorrow. I am keeping everything crossed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am going to update even though I know I have covered a lot of this in the comments but I want to give the full story. Yesterday we had our busiest day for a long time and I felt … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17009"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17051,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17009\/revisions\/17051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}