I finished cooking some choc chip cookies and went outside to see the animals and to collect any eggs (there were three but I didn’t notice one on the ground and trod on it…..sorry chicks).  Some of the new youngsters have started to lay small, brown, pointy shaped eggs.  Well done girls.  Then I went into the Silkie run to check  on Mum and Dad and their three growing brood.  Mum was hovering at the door to the hen house and when I went to stroke her she hobbled across the ground, holding her right foot in the air.  I bent down to take a look and a large hardened ball of mud was wrapped around her foot and was rock solid and stuck. 

I put her under my arm and walked towards the house.  The ball of mud was like a stone and I couldn’t dislodge it.  I filled a kettle and boiled it and then poured some water into a dish and held the foot and mud above the steam, occasionally dipping the ball into the water but not her foot.  Then I took a pair of special scissors that are sold as “cutting through anything”and I began to work on the slightly softened mud.  The ball fell but Mrs Silk’s toenail was embedded in the material.

Her toe began to bleed all over the floor and my coat and I rushed out to the cat barn where we keep lambing gear, hen dusting powder and some universal purple antiseptic spray.  I sprayed the bleeding toe, stroked her feathers and returned her to the Silkie run where, fortunately, we have two housing units.  She is now in the larger house on her own, closed in with food and water and I will check on her later.  Poor Mrs Silkie.  I hope she survives this unexpected and rather peculiar accident.  Any ideas on treatment for chicken foot injuries gratefully received.