Smokey the Chicken a.k.a. Bungee:
This situation started when I noticed
one of the Blue Andalusian chickens in my backyard lying on her side. I tried to get close to her to figure out what was wrong,
but she would get up and run away. Then one Tuesday morning I got her and unfortunately she looked like she was attacked and
had a huge open wound on her right hip and leg (about 4 to 5 inches across and she was not even a full grown bird!). I took
her in the house and my visiting guest and close friend from Phoenix (who used to be an ICU nurse and is a bird fanatic) held
her while I got a towel. Then I wrapped her up and got tweezers so Carol could pick out the debris and wood shavings from
the wound. Then we spritzed the wound with diluted Melaleuca oil to prevent infection (there was some green tissue). Next
I set up a bed (dog kennel) in the living room with chicken bedding, food, and water. Considering the open wound (and how
long it took Carol to clean it), Carol insisted on putting a towel over the shavings to keep the wound clean. The chicken
was so wild we did not get to close to the kennel (except the dogs would lay by it) and couldn’t let her out for a couple
of days. After a couple of nights, I again cleaned her wound (cut all the feathers that were sticking together and had dried
blood), then more Melaleuca spritzing. The wound was healing and closing steadily. The bad thing was that in order to keep
the wound clean to get it to heal she had to be on the towels which were slippery, so eventually she lost her ability to stand
up. Then I started putting her in a box swaddled in a towel to try and get her to keep in weight over her feet so she did
not end up struggling on her side with her feet flailing. By now I was taking her with me everywhere in a box to keep her
upright. During this time we started physical therapy and I would hold her up trying to get her to balance on her feet. One
day I noticed tiny bugs (but ignored it, even though I noticed one on my arm). Later that week on Sunday, we (friend Carol,
dogs Jack & Diane, and chicken Smokey) went to Fresno. On the way home we stopped at the grocery store and Carol
went in. I held the chicken on my lap and we were working on standing. Then when I was petting her I undeniably noticed the
tiny bugs. I mentioned it to Carol and even admitted to feeling funny things on my head. Carol wanted to get out of the car
as soon as possible. I dropped her off at home and was going to meet her later that night for yoga and dinner. Meanwhile,
she called her mom and while on the phone found two bugs on her forehead. This was the beginning of her twenty-four hour freak
out. Mites?! Lice?! Or Worse?!!! (Things always have the potential to be worse when you search the Internet as Carol did,
and her calls to her mother, also a nurse who happens to have a veterinary Merck Manual, did not help). Even yoga could do
nothing for her spinning thoughts. After yoga and during dinner we found out there was an experienced lice inspector in our
group, so after dinner everyone (Carol, myself, and Smokey were inspected). Two negative, one positive – Smokey. It
turned out Smokey had poultry lice, which only lives on the host bird. Smokey was susceptible because she was injured, could
not take her usual dust baths outside, and spent so much time wrapped in a towel (where she could not preen herself). Even
though poultry lice only live on the host bird, this did nothing to stop the cleaning effort inspired by Carol. Her dad offered
to pay for a hotel room (actually this offer was made the day she arrived when she reported I was remodeling), but she wanted
to stay in her “nest” in my office. I bagged all the bedding and vacuumed like I was trying to remove DNA samples
from a crime scene. Carol spritzed everything with Melaleuca cleaning products. We would be a perfect a haz mat team. It was
well past midnight – I think this went on past one, or maybe even two. Once Carol was settled I went to sleep and was
immediately out like a rock. Carol, on the other hand, could not sleep. The next day I went to the feed store and got some
citric acid based spray for the chicken to treat the poultry lice. I also admit, as a precautionary measure, I used it on
myself. Carol, on the other hand, took a different approach to coping with the lice and rode her bike to Coulterville and
back (5+ hours up and down steep hills). With that under control, we had to start stepping up Smokey’s physical therapy.
She had not stood on her own for almost two weeks. She was still in the house (her wound was still partially open and she
was in quarantine - I could not risk infecting other birds). I knew she needed to constantly be held up so she could work
on supporting her weight (like a toddler learning to stand in a walker). So I told my licensed general construction contractor
that he needed to make her a support. The crazy thing is that he actually did. He made a sling out of course burlap with holes
for her legs and hung her from the ceiling fan with bungee cords. This is what I found upon returning home from Mount Madonna
in Watsonville where I dropped Carol off for a retreat (the potential complications surrounding the idea of being at a retreat
with lice was partly to blame for her feelings of extreme panic). Anyway, for the next four days Smokey spent most of her
time slung up in the family room. By Sunday she was not showing any progress. By this time she was so tame it seemed like
she was not putting any effort into her physical therapy sessions. So, I skipped feeding her for a couple of meals. Once she
got hungry, I would hold food where she had to stand up and lean forward to eat. Finally, some slight progress. But again
on Monday, she was lying on her side, unable to get up. When my contractor saw her – he did not want to have to look
at her. It is true, we all felt bad because she was struggling. Although there were many times during this whole process when
I questioned whether to put her down, by this time I had so much invested in her I was not ready to give up, plus she even
responded to me verbally – very cute. More determined then ever, I decided to use a more aggressive, drill sergeant
style approach to her physical therapy. I took her outside, put her on the ground, clapped, yelled, and gently kicked. She
stood up and shakily walked a couple of feet! We still babied her inside, but outside – tough love. Eventually, by the
end of the week, she was well enough to stay outside again all the time. Excerpt from a thank you note from an actual house
guest: “It was so fun making cards, giving Peter [the contractor] a hard time, cleaning up the lice, all of it! I feel
so lucky to have a place to come to like Mariposa! And maybe next time beyond Coulterville I’ll ride even further to
Sonora!”
