I am cautiously optimistic about Ruby today. Gave her a dose of penicillin orally yesterday on the advice of one of Karen S Roberts co-workers. Obviously won’t help with the viral cold infection, but did seem to help with her secondary bacterial bronchial infection. I have been using a syringe to force water, broth, juice, etc. down her beak. Has not been fun for me or Ruby. But, as she has not been drinking or eating on her own, I wanted to make sure she did not become too weak or dehydrated. I have also been mixing a tiny dose of children’s Similason in with her liquids to help with her congestion. Yesterday she did drink water of her own volition. Stood in a patch of sunlight with her feet in the runoff from the water tub and kept dipping her beak in over and over for almost an hour. I took that as a good sign. I also saw her poop for the first time in days. But, when I went in the barn today, she had not gotten out of bed yet. She did have the blanket off, but had not eaten or tried to get up. Her eyes were less crusty and she was less snotty, but she had been getting herself out of bed until today. Well, since giving her antibiotics yesterday, I knew her little tummy bacteria were probably all out of whack. So, I mixed some applesauce with some yogurt and syringed that into her. The yogurt will help re-balance her digestive system. And it’s the most solid thing she’s had since this started. After getting a few mls into her I put her out in the sun. When Levi got home from school he was very insistent on helping me take care of her. He got a little dish of chicken food and every time she moved he put it right in front of her. And finally she did eat some. I am thinking that’s a good sign. I have also been giving her over-the-counter homeopathic pink-eye drops and I have noticed she was mostly keeping her eyes open tonight, instead of keeping her third eyelid closed. I gave her some more yogurt/apple sauce mixture as I was finishing up with chores. Put her down while I fed the rest of the hens. She actually joined them and helped herself to some scratch. She is definitely not herself, you can tell she does not feel good, still congested and lethargic, but she is acting better than she was. And if she is eating, that has to be good, right? Put her to bed, covered her with her blanket, and she did not snuggle right down and go to sleep. She actually pecked a little bit at her food dish before going to sleep. Fingers crossed that she has turned the corner!