A Chicken has a Trip to the Vet

On the whole I have found that chicken health is binary. They are either perky, bright-eyed and perfectly fine, or they are dead. There’s not much in between. However, Henbley has busted my theory apart recently by developing a limp.

Poor old Henbley with her swollen foot.

She hobbled round for a while, full of plucky stiff-upper-beak and not making too much of a fuss, but on day three I concluded she hadn’t just sprained an ankle in a clumsy landing (following yet another successful Great Escape). Despite her stoicism, the problem wasn’t going away and she was starting to look a bit down. I can only imagine the histrionics we would have had if Chicktoria wasn’t feeling one hundred per cent, but Henbley has a can-do attitude. She’s an example to us all.

I had a closer look and found that Henbley had a puffy swelling on the bottom of one foot. This is rather charmingly known as ‘bumblefoot’ and is usually the result of an infected scratch. There are volumes of information about treating bumblefoot for the brave backyard chicken owner, but I took the easy option of going to the vet. I say ‘easy’, which it would have been if I’d gone to the vet on my own, but I had to take Henbley with me in a box and she wasn’t thrilled about that. Maybe ‘challenging’ is a better description.

I have a lovely sturdy pet carrying box that says ‘chicken’ on it and is perfectly suited to the job. I don’t think Henbley disliked the box, it was just getting into it that she objected to. After a bit of flapping (by both of us) and the liberal sprinkling of dried mealworms (bribery works with children and chickens – it’s worth knowing), she was in with the lid closed. 

I strapped the box into the car with the seat belt while Henbley muttered her misgivings, or possibly threatened revenge, it was hard to tell. The receptionist at the vets was very jolly and asked ‘what have you got there?’, slightly flummoxed I said ‘a chicken’ and held up the box with the word ‘chicken’ on it, to which she replied ‘I always ask. Last week someone brought in a seagull in a stationery box!’. There’s no reply to that.

We had to sit in the waiting room while every dog in Devon came in and gave Henbley’s box an enthusiastic sniff. Her day was definitely going from bad to dreadful. When it was our turn we got to see the lovely Saint Carmela the Chicken Charmer, and Henbley was as good as gold – she only pooped on the table once – and we came away with a bottle of pills to make her foot better.

The chickens peck about as usual in the absence of any vanilla yogurt!

How, you may wonder, do you get a pill into a chicken? Good question. Fortunately the capsules pull apart and you can tip the powder inside into something delicious that your chickem will greedily gobble up. I have found that the perfect recipe for success is a dollop of expensive vanilla yoghurt studded with dried mealworms. Henbley agrees that it’s well worth being shoved in a cardboard box if you get to dine on such exquisite cuisine twice a day for a week.

Now that it’s all over and Henbley the Hen is better, she still comes to the gate of the chicken enclosure first thing in the morning and looks at me longingly in case there might be a bit more mealworm à la yoghurt on the menu.