Lottie the Leghorn

It’s been a week since we took “Lottie” the Leghorn to the vet for her Bumblefoot and she is looking so much better! She is still getting antibiotics twice a day and her pain medicine once in the evenings, one of which smells delicious.

Her foot is no longer bandaged and she can walk around her coop just fine, she runs from us when it’s time to give her meds! When I took her bandage off, she balled her foot into a fist twice, poor thing. I know she was happy to get that off.

We thought she was getting lonely because she complained during parts of the day. We brought in our smallest hen, “Betty White” the silkie for company. She is fluffy but wouldn’t take up much room and she is an older hen and very sweet.

As soon as she got in there, Lottie kept pecking her. We walked away for a little while to see if they’d calm down but it only got worse. I tossed a blanket over the coop to make it darker but we could hear them going at it. I found poor Betty huddled in the corner, so I took her away. It was causing too much stress to keep them together.

Lottie is laying an egg a day which we have to throw out due to the medication she is taking. I read that we will have to continue to do so for 10 days after her last dose of medicine. But this means that everything is moving along healthwise I suppose.

You know, sites like EasyCoops have great coop plans but never discuss the brooder, the place where you keep the babies until they feather. We have Lottie in the hallway in a 4 x 4 x 2.5 brooder, the one she was raised in as a chick. It takes up some room but it’s a great place for her to mend and we all see her whenever we move about the house. Many people will put their babies in a tote of sorts, which is fine, but I loved that George built this larger one because it can also be used as a sick bay for adult chickens. She can fully stand and move about and it can be taken apart and laid flat in storage. If you are interested in how he built this, let me know and I can write up the directions for you.

Instead of using the cardboard and tarp we used for the babies, we bought a few packs of cheap shower curtains for the brooder to sit on thinking we could just lift the sides of the bottomless box and wrap up the bedding to put in the compost when soiled…but she has pecked holes in the curtains. Needless to say, we are glad the floor is vinyl! We wish we’d used that tarp!

That’s it for now on the trials of Lottie the Leghorn. Thank you for taking the time to read up on how she is doing. Wishing you all the best.