Honey up a Chicken's butt.

Aside from the odd stumbling onto a pile of fresh chicken poop in your bare feet... 

There is one thing I NEVER thought I would do. 

What is that?

Stick my finger up a chicken's butt. 

Yep. 

Let me put the cherry on that by telling you I also inserted honey up that chicken's butt.

Have I lost you? Perhaps you think I've lost it...

Let me back up and explain myself. 

This is May.

 Do you remember when we first got her?

She is an Ameraucana Bantie and lays small green eggs that we love!

She was born on Muffin's bday, and was her birthday gift. 

She is very much loved in this house. 

A few weeks ago, we noticed that she wasn't laying regularly. Shortly after, I noticed that her butt was covered in 'white'. I brought her inside to clean her up and investigate the situation.

Prolapsed vent. (I will spare you the photos of that.)

This can sometimes be remedied, but often times not. It can cause infection, egg binding and will eventually lead to death.

I know... she is just a chicken, and we eat chicken. I can't tell you the irony of treating a chicken by bathing it with tender love in a giant roaster while a chicken roasts over my BBQ. One gets a medicated finger up the butt, and the other a beer can. I get how silly that all is... and perhaps it sounds naive. However, she is our pet and we need to give her a good shot at overcoming this.

The remedy? (Honestly, this may not be of any interest to you at all - so please do not read any further, unless you are interested in the gruesome details. ;)

Well we first put her in quarantine. A large dog kennel with clean shavings and a blanket to cover her at night. This kennel restricts the amount of sunlight... keeping her in the dark so she doesn't get the urge to lay anymore eggs.

Then we give her a good long warm water soak (yes, a roasting pan works perfectly! lol). We follow that up giving her a bum a good scrubbing to get all that poop off. Then I spray her with an expensive vet spray antibiotic.

Here comes the good part... are you ready?

This is wear I put on my latex gloves and gently smear her prolapse with Preparation H... yes, hemorrhoid cream to encourage shrinking. Then even more gently... push her rectum back inside while Muffin keeps her in a trance by softly stroking her head. We then follow that up by applying Preparation H inside her vent.

Then, we get up in the morning and do it all over - because it's hanging out again.

One week, and we have not been able to fix her. I have now moved on to using honey instead of Preparation H. Don't ask... I don't know why honey - it is just what 'they' recommend.

I fear that this is not going to work. I believe what she really needs is a stitch. I think she may have torn her vent a little somewhere along the line and that is what is causing her butt to fall out. (Very technical terminology)

But what adopting parents can afford a couple hundred dollar vet bill? Ugh... Dan and I have seriously spoken about how or if we could do it ourselves... but I don't think there is a youtube tutorial for that one.

( One more week of treatment before we abandoned hope. Well wishes appreciated - as I have a little girl who has had two hamsters die of cancer, dog die of cancer... replaced with a bird for her (thinking  long life span, low chance of cancer), to have the bird bond with her brother only... she can't get near him without him biting her. So she is very sad. Out of the 3 chickens we have... hers was the one who gets ill. )