Wolowitz Goes to the Vet
I want to tell you all about Wolowitz going to the vet. It all started when we noticed him limping. His right foot was giving him trouble, so we cornered the poor guy to capture him and take a look. Bobbie and I knew very little about chickens at the time, so there was some googling and reverse image searching, only to find out about a common chicken ailment called bumblefoot. We tried wrapping his foot up with Vetrap and using Epsom salt poultices, to no avail for this poor dude.
After a week of trying home remedies, it was time to go see the vet. Shout out to Tucson Exotic Pet Vets for getting us in so quickly! The waiting room was a hoot. It must have been bird day, because we saw parakeets, cockatiels, and even a giant gray goose!
When it was finally our turn, we went back into the exam room and got Wolowitz out of his carrier. After playing nervous for a minute or two, he decided the exam room was his and made himself right at home. He did a few hobbly laps around the room, pooping every couple of steps to really mark his territory. He crowed loudly enough that all the other exam rooms knew that he was there.
The vet and the assistant loved him right away, but for his exam, he had to be put into “air jail” so he wouldn’t get too crazy while they felt his foot and leg. We were prescribed more daily wrapping, some rest, and some injectable antibiotics for the infection in his foot so that it would not spread to the joints.
When the vet left the room to go get his meds, things took a bit of a turn. After having limped around for almost a week at the Corral, this little guy decided that he had a little more pep left in his step after all. He hopped onto the swivel doctor chair, then straight onto the computer desk. I’m sitting there thinking, “Oh, how cute,” so I get my phone out and snap a quick picture. That’s when all hell broke loose.
As soon as I got my photo op, this silly boy decided to scamper across the keyboard, simultaneously flapping his wings and hitting the touchscreen monitor. Before I knew what was happening, the computer was on some interesting settings-looking page. Right after the commotion, the vet walked back in. “Sorry,” I told her, and explained the Wolowitz adventure. She tried to exit out of the screen and get our discharge paperwork, but nope. She called in the assistant, who also had no clue how to get out of this new screen. After some time trying to figure out what IT magic Wolowitz had summoned, they decided to print from another room and call tech support in the morning.
So, it turns out Wolowitz is a bit of a computer nerd. Too bad he’s the kind of guy who likes to take things apart to see how they work… but is incapable of putting them back together.
I got a nice crash course in intramuscular injections for chickens, and that night he got some oral pain meds in a French fry from our drive-through detour on the way home. (You know the burger joint is a crazy place to work when the employees don’t even question a rooster in the passenger seat of the car!) After over an hour of driving, we were finally back home at the Corral.
I think Wolowitz’s favorite part of bed rest was that the vet approved his favorite girl to rest with him. Bernadette and Wolowitz got the recovery box in the coop all to themselves. We worried a little about the pecking order, but even from behind the chicken wire, Wolowitz was able to keep his top command in the flock and not let Ethel, our other rooster, take over.
After a couple of weeks of rest, we went back to the vet for the all-clear, and Wolowitz was all clear! No more bumblefoot, yay! Wolowitz has been doing amazingly well since his recovery, and the flock is thrilled to have him back in the yard and back on top.
Next week, Bernadette will go to the vet for a routine checkup and some bloodwork. We sure hope she is not the aspiring computer engineer that her best buddy is.
