Ascites fluid still draining hours after needle removed

[Wyorp Rock]

The seeming presence of a roughly 2 year "expiration date" for so many hens continues to hard for me to accept despite having been through a number of other losses due to reproductive disorders, and despite this hen's series of bizarre problems starting to unfold after just a year.

I think this is likely to be her last night. She is still with me at the moment, at least in sone sense, but fading. She is calm but weak, and she just wants to sleep...and sleep, and sleep. I think I basically bought her a week of being able to breath freely, rest comfortably, and have a sleepy end rather than a panicked and painful one. I suppose that's something. I would do the same again.

She had quite a time being a house chicken over the winter; she would have been dead months ago if kept outside due to her metabolism not being able to handle the temperature swings here...and dead months before that without a lot of TLC and shorter stays indoors. I know she loved running about in the house getting up to naughty things, and getting many nibbles of tasty human snacks. A good life for my animals is what matters the most to me regardless of how long they spend with me. And I think she had a good one.

I think she's had a lot of love and good life too.