Marian the plucky chicken has shown nothing can ruffle her feathers by emerging from surgery with amazing stamina.
She is the first chicken to be treated at Dr Paws veterinary clinic in Altona North.
Her owner, Little River resident Marissa Lang, said she was alarmed when she found her black copper maran lying motionless.
“I came home one day and I saw her lying on the ground … I thought she was dead,” she said.
While some might balk at paying a hefty vet’s bill for a chicken, Ms Lang didn’t think twice.
“She was one of my little favourites,” she said.
“She was always one of the first ones to come up when I let them out of the coop in the morning and she’d eat out of your hand.”
Marian was rushed to the clinic, where Ms Lang’s daughter works, and diagnosed with “milky eye”.
Unfortunately, the eye had to be removed and the underweight chicken’s chances of survival were given as about 50/50.
Ms Lang said Marian not only survived but had more than doubled her weight from 920 grams at diagnosis to a healthy 2.5kilograms today.
“We thought that she wouldn’t be laying eggs for months but, to our surprise, probably about three or four weeks after the surgery she laid her first egg,” she said.
