6 week-old Silkie (and me) attacked by a hawk yesterday

[Swbertrand1]

The last 4 days or so have not gone well. Lil Bit has steadily declined after her improvements through Wednesday/Thursday of last week. Her neurological condition has worsened despite the addition of vitamin-E in the last few days. She is not able to sit upright, but rolls to her side and cannot right herself. It's so heart-breaking to watch because we can hear her cheeps and we know she knows we're here.

It's worth noting that some of her problems may have come from mistakes we made in her feeding. Being so small, it was a struggle to get food into her crop when she can't feed herself. We think we aspirated her at least once since we only had flexible feeding tubes (rigid tubes arrived Sunday), and getting those into her crop without going into her glottis was a challenge in her small mouth even with four hands (she's SO SMALL!). She survived that too and is alive this morning, but it's just not a good condition she's in.

We're really out of options at this point, but we're still amazed that such a fragile little creature has held on this long (some 10 days). She brings and has brought so much joy and happiness to us in the short time she has been with us, and I'm so upset that I didn't protect her better :-(

Hard lessons learned are often the most difficult to reconcile since we second-guess ourselves over and over. I know that had I not had her out with me, she'd still be ok, but she LOVED to be outside following me around the yard. This one is going to take a L-O-N-G time to get over..................

 

[KRack]

The last 5-6 days have not gone well. Lil Bit has steadily declined after her improvements through Wednesday of last week. Her neurological condition has worsened despite the addition of vitamin-E in the last few days. She is not able to sit upright, but rolls to her side and cannot right herself. It's so heart-breaking to watch because we can hear her cheeps and we know she knows we're here.

It's worth noting that some of her problems may have come from mistakes we made in her feeding. Being so small, it was a struggle to get food into her crop when she can't feed herself. We think we aspirated her at least once since we only had flexible feeding tubes (rigid tubes arrived Sunday), and getting those into her crop without going into her glottis was a challenge in her small mouth even with four hands (she's SO SMALL!). She survived that too and is alive this morning, but it's just not a good condition she's in.

We're really out of options at this point, but we're still amazed that such a fragile little creature has held on this long (some 10 days). She brought so much joy and happiness to us in the short time she was with us, and I'm so upset that I didn't protect her better :-(

Hard lessons learned are often the most difficult to reconcile since we second-guess ourselves over and over. I know that had I not had her out with me, she'd still be ok, but she LOVED to be outside following me around the yard. This one is going to take a L-O-N-G time to get over..................

Praying it’s just a little set back for Lil Bit, and that the next update is about extreme improvement!

You can’t carry that, there’s no point. Every decision we make in life carries some risk. You’re not expected to know how every circumstance will end, so don’t expect that of yourself. If you would have left her shut in, maybe she would have chirped at you and you would have felt bad thinking she didn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed out with you, which brought her so much comfort and joy. Especially because the chances of this happening are really very small.

I consider these things a lot as I free range my birds, but ultimately our goal is to make them as happy and healthy as possible for the time they have here. I believe even if a year or more could be added to their lives in an enclosed space, my birds would choose the freedom they’ve experienced and risk their lives daily. I think you know Lil Bit well enough to know what brought her the most joy, and you provided her with that. She was doing what a loved to do, and she feels your love and care even now!

Keep us updated!