This story begins with some bad, sad, hard news: in early December we lost one of our two sweet tiny twins to an in-coop hawk attack. More about “coop maintenance (super hard) lessons learned” to come.
This left our sweet Renata a tiny gal without a tiny pal. Chicken body language can be ambivalent at times, but in the weeks after Tasse’s death (murder!), Renata looked nothing but sad. She was hunched, moving about little, with her tail leaning with gravity (vs. defiantly perky). Sure, those were cold winter days, but this was more than winter blues. Once, when I went out to check on Rennie, she peeped quietly and nudged with her beak what I am sure was one of Tasse’s lingering feathers. Cue waterworks and a thorough raking of the area.
Happily, the force is strong in little Rennie and she found her upswing. She has returned to enjoying treats in the special “high up” place, defending her “high up” roosting spot as best she can (sometimes with mommy’s help), preening like a grande dame, and maybe even seeming just a little bit bigger than she ever was before.
We did contemplate integrating a few new adoptee bantams from a middle TN-based breeder with sexed pullets available for purchase, then the crazy cold spell (-4 F, y’all!) of late January 2024 landed, we stalled, and . . . Renata has rallied. We might revisit the adoptee idea at some point this year, but in terms of chicken pecking / social order, it kinda seems best (like a lot of things) that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And, right now (peck wood!) it ain’t broke.
So, after Renata’s big journey through loss and change, we had an “oh no” moment on Valentine’s, of all days. I was closing the chicken houses up for the night (carabiner’s on the doors, y’all!) and looked in to see Renata’s little face, safely roosted but sporting wildly inflated wattles—like two tiny pre-prank whoopie cushions bulging from the sides of her lower mandible.
Internal dialogue: What the #%*@? That and, Dear Chicken Gods, can we please give little Rennie a break already?
Then, with the help of a headlamp, I spotted it, tucked stealthily into her neck feathers behind her left wattle: the shiny grey-green rear end of a tick.
Eh law!
I finished the chicken yard close-up and walked back to the house to prep:
- set up the chicken ICU: small pet crate with puppy liner, water dish, a little food;
- pull out the ever-growing first aid kit and find the (now) chicken-only tweezers and alcohol;
- position a desk lamp on the arm of the love seat where I’d wrap soon Renata in a towel and carefully pluck off the icky tick
Then I was back out for one more forward bend that day, to lift Miss Rennie from the roost and bring her inside.
What follows is kind of what you’d expect, some understandable chicken disliking and resistance to being wrapped in a towel. Then mommy triumphs with wrapping and tick removal, a little alcohol wipe, and into the ICU for overnight observation. Everything I could think to do for a chicken with a tick bite.
It’s important to note, other than her obscenely swollen wattles, Renata seemed totally fine. However, a bite so close to her throat, with swelling so evident, I wanted to make sure she could rest easily, should breathing become tricky.
All was well when we woke the next morning. Like really well—Rennie was fluttering, squawking, and pretty much just hating being inside and in the crate.
If a chickie girl is sick, they’ll generally take the opportunity to rest with isolation. Renata’s unwavering protest was a good indicator of no secondary symptoms or suffering. Just, weally, weally swollen, Mommy. Back out she went, deposited in one of her high up places with some black oil sunflower seeds, to have a snack, take a tiny breath, and regroup before landing within the flock.
I’ve mentioned before, there are good reasons not to take a hen out of your flock for any amount of time if something is up but she does seem a lot more OK. than not. Reintegrating (whether they are at the top or bottom of the pecking order) is a stressful event. In our experience, if a chickie girl has been out for a spell, reintegrating during free-range time is easiest so that the awareness of the re-entry is overwhelmed by the rest of the flock’s excitement (hyper-focused-ness) in scratching for bugs and worms and eating clover.
That morning, because Rennie had been out just a few hours and mostly during sleep time, no one seemed to notice her dropping back in. She re-integrated smoothly: eating, drinking, pooping, and preening in all the ways that indicate a happy, healthy bird.
It was the next night when I checked on Rennie at bed time, in her high up roost, that I had a stress-out moment. At that point, her wattles were still good and puffy (though a bit less) but her normally red wattles and face were a very unwell grey-green-red shade. And, maybe my over-projection, but she seemed to look a little woozy and cockeyed.
Fueled by Mommy Panic, we took to the internet seeking (consistent!) recommendations for treatment of and prognosis for a chicken with a tick bite. There were several forum posts where people reported similar swelling and “blue face,” with varying recommendations for treatment. Of course there were the “visit a vet,” recommendations (Who do you think I am, Nicole Richie?) and a few comments about antibiotic ointment. One or two mentioned Benadryl, which we learned with bee sting experiences offers little to no support for chickens in terms of allergic reaction, though it might knock them out. Nothing clear, nothing consistent.
After maybe an hour of fruitless searching, frustration and h-anger dictated—it was time to eat dinner and just let it be. As per usual, S. offered a wise prognosis, “She’s probably just processing something through her system, and she’ll be just fine.”
Why I continue to think our chickie girls are bone china tea cups in a demolition derby and not the rough and resilient little gals that they are, I don’t know. Sure, Renata is an extra tiny chicken, maybe 2 pounds wet, so there’s greater worry in terms of impact to chicken ratio, but S. was right. It’s been ten days since the tiny-whoopie-cushion-face incident and Renata is just fine. No signs of suffering, eggs are being laid… tiny adorable eggs, and her sweet wattles are back to normal.
So, what can I say learned about helping a chicken with a tick bite? What outcomes can I report that we did not find on the forums and sites that we searched? Outside of removing the tick, cleaning the attachment site, and a precautionary close watch for a day or two, there was really nothing more that little 1.5-pound Renata needed. A different tick or a different chicken, maybe a different story, but based on this single data set, prognosis for a chicken tick bite is your little girl might swell up in slightly troubling ways, but she’ll probably be just fine.
And, Miss Tasse, we miss you, forever. May you fly up onto shed roofs, sunbathe, and balance on clothes lines to your tiny heart’s content, in the great chicken beyond.
