Rural Gardening: UGH! I;m so mad!, 0 by smedgekles

smedgekles wrote:
Yesterday it was doing better and it opened one eye partially! It can see!!!!! I could tell it would turn its head and look at the food. It was also doing much better in the eating department. We made it a paste of yogurt and chick starter it loved. We put it in a box under a light and made it a fake momma in the corner (piece of fur placed in a corner so that it could crawl up under it).
We kept it in all yesterday and last night and this morning I cleaned its box and fed it and it still only had one eye opened. I decided to take it out to the SIlkie pen and see if the momma would come for it. She did, she clucked and came, so I let her out of the pen and put the baby down to see what it would do. She clucked and called and picked up stuff and dropped it for it and called, but it ignored her. I was worried momma wouldn't want baby, didn't think baby wouldn't want momma. She kept calling and clucking and I noticed it strain to get the other eye open, and it did, just a slit, but it opened the other eye and it looks good!! It still didn't go to momma, so I finally took it and picked her up and tucked baby close and took them over to the day pen we had been putting them in and put them down. Momma kept calling and clucking a scratching and baby just stood there and went about its own business. Momma didn't give up, she called it again and all of a sudden it went running to her, it was a happy reunion. So now momma and baby are back in their pen, baby is a little cautious, but momma just goes on about her motherly business and calls it for food and it comes to her now. So glad, I think baby will be mush better off with her momma. It took probably 10 minutes for the baby to accept the momma and in all that time the momma never gave up.

Poor baby still has a messy looking face, matted or no fluff around the eyes/ears and a bit bruised looking, but I think it will be okay and be able to see with both eyes. What a relief!

This picture is of it when we had it in its box, you can see the beat up head. It was a nice fluffy white chick all over before it got attacked.