Stump

On May 6 I went out to feed the chickens and heard a very distressed peeping, tracked it down and found Dot's chick. It had a very badly broken leg, was in shock and dehydrated. I knew it didn't have much of a chance, but brought it in the house to try to save it's life. A closer look at the leg showed there was no way it could be fixed, so I had to amputate the foot. I was relieved that there was no bleeding when I did that, though there was some later on, but not very much. This would have added to the dehydration problem. Also a good sign was when the chick drank water I held to it's beak in a jar lid. I named this baby Stump.

That day I had to go out to a friend's "last ride". He had always ridden motorcycles and loved to stop for pie, so 18 bikes and several cars took Gil on a last ride, his ashes on the lead bike, to his final resting place where he loved to go when alive, a view point over looking Otter Lake. Afterwards everyone went to O'Keefe Historical Ranch, another place Gil liked, and ate pie.

I felt I had to get fluids into Stump as much and as often as possible, s/he was willing to drink but only took tiny bits at a time. Soooo... I took Stump along on that last ride. It was a cold and windy day, but I kept Stump warm and gave frequent drinks of whey (the liquid off yogurt) I was told that whey has lots of nutrition, so figured it was a good fluid to use in this case.

I kept Stump in the house under a light bulb to keep him/her warm ever since, until yesterday, May 16. I decided that it would be better for Stump to be with Dot if at all possible. I will keep a close eye on them and make sure the other chickens aren't picking on the disabled chick. Even after 10 days apart, Dot was happy to accept Stump back. She is still sitting on the nest of what can only be rotten, non-fertile eggs, hoping to hatch out more babies.

I will upload pictures of Stump taken May 6, and hope the upload works properly today.