Sparkle’s restaurant

This morning we tried to give Sparkle her medicine on a bit of bread. I held her while my husband offered her the bread but she was having none of it. He touched it against her beak and she clamped it shut and turned away. This wasn’t going to work. I felt annoyed with myself for wasting a dose of her medicine.

We resorted to giving her another dose by syringing it into her beak which actually isn’t too difficult so I think we will have to do this each morning as I can’t risk wasting more of her medicine.

She looked a little brighter, moving around although very slowly, but I was concerned that she wasn’t eating. She was drinking water but although I had put out two large dishes of mash in the hope that she would eat, I didn’t see her make any attempt at eating from them.

Sparkle by the water

I tried dropping bits of grape, sunflower seeds and bits of spinach in front of her but she was so slow that the other girls took them from under her beak before her beak could get to the ground. She had a couple of bits but nothing like enough.

I decided to put her back in the cat box at six o’clock which was when she started eating yesterday. I put in a dish of water and a mix of foods to tempt her. I put in a dish of mash topped with fish (sardines in olive oil), sunflower seeds, chopped grapes, chopped tomato, a wedge of tomato and spinach.

Sparkle’s restaurant

Sparkle tucked into the fish with gusto so I kept topping up the fish. At this stage I don’t care what she eats as long as she eats something and the fish provides protein. I held spinach leaves through the bars of the cat box and she pecked at it enthusiastically. She also pecked all the seeds and then the centre from the wedge of tomato. Like yesterday I felt so uplifted to see her eat. I think that at the end of the day she is hungry but she can’t compete with the flock and this allows her to fill up in her own time.

I will continue with this regime until she can eat properly in the run. Once she had stopped eating and had been just sitting for a while I returned her to the run. She immediately took up her position on the bedtime perch and started preening. Again I think this is a good sign. When I lifted her down to put her in the coop at dusk I thought she felt more robust.

I think this may be a slow process but I will continue in this way until she builds up her strength and is able to feed properly. I am hopeful that she will continue to improve but I think it will take a bit of time yet.