Hen Chronicles: Now we’re calling her “the miracle chicken”

Apparently, cats are not the only creatures that have nine lives. Our Plymouth Rock, Snow, has now worked her way through several of her own.

The oldest, most assertive member of our three-hen flock, Snow has become egg-bound at least twice since we bought her in 2012. This is a condition in which a hen has an egg that she's unable to lay. I won’t go into the details here, but my wife Liz and I helped her through those crises.

Two years ago, Snow somehow managed to slice off part of her comb (the red appendage atop a chicken’s head). By the time I discovered this accident, there was blood everywhere. A frantic call to a vet, the application of corn starch to stanch the bleeding, isolation for close to two weeks and regular applications of Veterycin as a healing agent saw Snow through that one.

Which brings us to this week.

To make a long story at least a bit shorter, Snow was lethargic on Sunday, more withdrawn on Monday and nearly comatose on Tuesday morning. By then, her vent (aka, bum) was caked and dirty, so we gave her a bath and dried her off. That's when we noticed that she appeared to have a prolapsed oviduct, which occurs when part of the oviduct is pushed out through the vent. (Innards become outards.) So Liz lubricated a gloved hand and gently pushed the exposed tissue back in. We were winging it (so to speak), because we’d never dealt with a prolapsed oviduct before. Nor, for that matter, were we even sure about our diagnosis.

We then separated Snow from Nellie and Hope by placing her in isolation in a small pen. Once inside, she stood in the same spot without moving, eating or drinking for a full five hours, with her head tucked into her body.

Liz and I were heartbroken. Snow is the only surviving hen from the trio we bought in 2012.  We’ve had her for more than four years, and now we were convinced that she was a goner. When Liz picked her up at one point, Snow simply lay in her arms without moving. Then she closed her eyes.

We needed professional help, especially if Snow had to be euthanized, which I had no intention of doing myself. So I made a late-afternoon appointment with the only veterinary clinic in these parts that treats chickens.

Then, Snow’s luck began to change. Early Tuesday afternoon, hours before her appointment, she finally moved into a crate in the isolation pen and laid an egg. She revived a bit after that, and looked more alive than dead by the time we reached the vet’s office at 4 p.m.

Despite her age, Snow remains a prodigious layer of unusually large eggs. And therein lies her problem. By doing what she does best, what laying hens are supposed to do, she had injured herself. The vet confirmed that our amateur diagnosis of a prolapsed oviduct was correct, and that we had handled it properly. But there was more to be done. Although the oviduct was back in place (inside rather than outside), the vent was swollen and distended.

So now we’re under doctor’s orders to keep Snow isolated while she heals and to reduce her exposure to daylight during that time, which should temporarily discourage egg production. Oh, and one more thing. For the next few days, we have to treat her vent twice a day with a product I would never, ever have associated with keeping chickens: Preparation H.

Really. No joke. But hey, if that's what it takes to nurse Snow back to health, we’re more than willing to do what has to be done. After all, she was talking and eating and moving about somewhat yesterday. And we've already discovered that, when it comes to giving her a dab of you know what on her you know where, she's a very good patient.

Snow in the ICU (aka, her isolation pen in the garage) Wednesday afternoon. If I had taken a picture of her Tuesday morning and posted it beside this one, you wouldn't believe it was the same hen.