Nearly out for the Count.

[dinosaw]

The Count that is, he nearly died today. He had a huge stroke of luck in that he happened to keel over when I was clearing up the run. I saw his beak open, he was gasping and his comb had gone blue, then he just keeled over and started flapping. By the time I picked him up his eyes were shut and he had nearly had it, not entirely sure but I think he was choking rather than having a heart attack. I did something that veered between heart massage and the heimlich manoeuvre and he revived but was still struggling to breathe, he lay on his front half collapsed beak open for about a minute and then got up and started to violently try to retch for a while before taking himself off into the bushes by himself where he finally seemed to recover. Not going well for him at the moment, he has chosen a bad time to moult and his son Nitwit has taken over the flock, no evidence of fighting but he is petrified of him poor lad.

 

[Marigold]

A video of this would have been most instructive, Dinosaw - how on earth do you do a heimlich on a chicken? I was expecting the story to include mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, quite a relief when it didn't. I'm so glad he recovered, well done.

 

[dinosaw]

Well in my case it involved a good hard squeeze of his chest, not sure I could replicate it if I wanted to.

 

[rick]

Glad he came through OK - very lucky. Having seen your pictures of The Count, Nitwit must be quite something to have knocked him off the top spot.

 

[dinosaw]

He's a big lad, bigger than his dad and a bit more mobile but the Count is looking very bedraggled at the moment, had he moulted quickly he may have been ok but it has dragged on and he is looking a shadow of himself at the mo. Will get some photos of the two of them and post them up.

 

[LadyA]

Gosh, that was quite the dramatic event! poor Count! I hope he made a full recovery.

In my last batch of hens, I had a single black hen. She was a beauty, and the largest of them, but the most timid. She had a dramatic moult, literally waking up naked one morning, with all her feathers on the henhouse floor under the perch! The other hens bullied her unmercifully, and she took to hiding in the spare henhouse all the time. I even had to give her food and water in there. She was quite a sight when her feathers started coming through! Like a zombie chicken!

 

[dinosaw]

He seems absolutely fine today Lady A, thanks for asking. Still got a bluish comb but that is nothing unusual with regards to him.

As promised here are some photos of Nitwit, who is a cross between the Count (Orloff) and one of the Silver Sussex, he has inherited their wattles and his dads comb. He is a bit too confident for my liking, though hopefully he has just inherited his dads propensity for lurking rather than him being in the process of weighing up a challenge to my role as Supreme Leader

As you can see the Count is looking very raggedy and watching his behaviour I would conclude that he has "lost his bottle".

 

[Marigold]

Nitwit looks a really splendid bird, dinosaw. A really good cross there, I think. Interesting that, as a Silver Sussex x white orloff, he's come out with such wonderful colours. Where did he get them from?

 

[bigyetiman]

Nitwit is very striking. Glad the Count recovered. I would have loved to have seen you perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, quick thinking on your part.
Hope he is soon back to normal