Today I noticed an overall improvement in Dolly. Thank God! When I opened the coop up this morning, she was in her usual nesting box. Her crop was firm but smaller and almost flat. I removed her from the box, wrapped her in a towel and gave her medicine. I also gave her some water via the syringe. She was feistier about having me give her the medicine. I viewed that as a good sign.
I returned her to the run and then closed the coop door so that I could clean the coop. While I cleaned, she socialized scratched, ate and drank. All while I cleaned the coop, I heard knocks on the door. “Who is it?”, I asked. That would be proceeded with another knock; so darling.
After cleaning, I opened the door, and the bigger girls immediately went in to rearrange, decorate and explore the new bedding. Dolly remained in the run. She didn’t seem to care that the door was open and she was free to run back to her box. After about a total of 15 minutes outside of the box, she eventually did return to nest on her invisible eggs. Slowly but surely, we are all getting the hang of dealing with a broody hen, even the hen herself.