Room Service

Because of all the other chicken stuff going on, I haven't mentioned Rooster-o has been sick. He's our first, and smallest rooster and usually doesn't like to be handled. The one with the biggest wattles. For this reason (and because birds in general are pretty good at hiding their symptoms) we didn't realize he had lost a lot of weight. Several weeks ago Rick found him in a very debilitated state and we brought him in to be nursed back to health. I feel badly that I did not notice this sooner.

When an adult chicken is underweight from illness and not eating, I cook scrambled eggs with a little nutritional yeast sprinkled in for them. I know this sounds strange, except egg is what they eat inside the egg, so it is their first complete food. After a few days of seeing they will eat this, I begin top this with fresh chopped cabbage, grated carrot, crushed garlic, and sliced grapes or raisins, a little parsley.

Upon close observation of Rooster-o, it appeared his extremely hooked bill was making it very difficult to eat the pellets. I used the dog toenail trimmers to remove the tip and an emery board to sand the edges down. I figured he would resist, but he got a very pleased and relaxed look on his face during the process, not unlike how I must look when I get a professional pedicure! I think I can probably safely take a little more off now, and will add this to my monthly routines.

Before trimming...


After trimming.

He's doing much better, and is back out in his apartment in the main coop today, but still getting room service!