So we returned from holiday hoping that all was well, alas it was not. Bellatrix (formerly the most aggressive of chickens but now the friendliest) was ill. She had a dirty vent and instead of pecking around with the others she was lying down, closing her eyes and generally not being her self. So off to the vets we went. The vet confirmed that she did not have an egg stuck and it wasn’t that she was coming to the end of her laying days he thought she had an internal infection. An injection was given and when on Sunday I feared the worst (she kept on shutting her eyes as I sat by the cat carrier crying) by Tuesday she had eaten her own weight in mash potato and escaped her makeshift pen.
So it was time to rejoin her sisters in the big pen. At the weekend we had a bit of bad news (a shattered egg, dunno if it was laid like that or just soft shelled) Bellatrix was stood by it and clearly distressed so we took her out for a wander of the garden while we cleared it up and we haven’t had any more since so fingers crossed it was just the antibiotocs working their way out of her system. Second up for coming back from the brink is my beautiful vine Vinnie.
Jam bought him as a present for me last year from our local nursery. I had been wanting a vine for ages and Vinnie seemed perfect as not only was he a high yielding vine he also had beautiful large coppery red leaves.
May came however and he was still looking quite dead, the recent heatwave however seems to have agreed with him as he now looks like this. What a lucky girl I am to have them both still here. We managed to take a video of Bellatrix dust bathing & here it is [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpjHEFLgFow]
