At this point, i just want to write out what happened with my Barred Rock, Esther. She was about 11 months old. Up until last weekend she had seemed fine. she had started laying a little less, but otherwise was not showing any signs of illness. however, last Saturday we let them out of the coop/run to wander the back yard.
She was limping and laying down a lot. My husband pointed this out and i picked her up to examine her. i didnt see anything wrong with her. no injuries, comb was still upright and normally colored. I decided to separate her just to be safe. I put her in a dog kennel on the porch and fed her gatorade and added egg yolks to her diet.
Throughout the next week she got worse. Stopped walking all together, wasnt drinking anything (water or gatorade). I added ACV to her water (on the advice i read on here!) but she wouldnt drink it. I used an eyedropper to get water into her and started soaking oats in gatorade and feeding the soggy mixture by hand. That worked once on friday night. then she wouldnt eat from my hand again after that.
Saturday night her comb turned black and a sore appeared on it. and her legs had sores on them from her constantly laying on them. She smelled like Amonia from the dehydration and she wasnt even moving after she went potty so she was sitting in it constantly.
So saturday night i gave her a bath and considered my options
Sunday she was disoriented and pecking me every time i came near her. So i decided it was time to let her go. We searched for painless ways to euthanize a chicken and settled on putting her in a plastic bag with a rag soaked in starter fluid (ether). Then we sealed the top and held her while she stopped breathing.
So thats the whole forensic story. Now i keep reevaluating if it was right to put her down, maybe she would have recovered? what if the ether wasnt as painless as i thought? what if she suffered? I have had that girl from a little chick. She had pasty butt so i wiped her little booty two times a day and put vaseline on her little vent. I handled that chick so much. I never had to put a dog down as a kid or anything so i've never known how that feels. Now im a grown woman with two kids of my own bawling my eyes out over a chicken i had to put down with my own two hands.
I think most people think im being silly being so sad since most people think of my pet as food but really im just very very sad. anyone else been through this?
She was limping and laying down a lot. My husband pointed this out and i picked her up to examine her. i didnt see anything wrong with her. no injuries, comb was still upright and normally colored. I decided to separate her just to be safe. I put her in a dog kennel on the porch and fed her gatorade and added egg yolks to her diet.
Throughout the next week she got worse. Stopped walking all together, wasnt drinking anything (water or gatorade). I added ACV to her water (on the advice i read on here!) but she wouldnt drink it. I used an eyedropper to get water into her and started soaking oats in gatorade and feeding the soggy mixture by hand. That worked once on friday night. then she wouldnt eat from my hand again after that.
Saturday night her comb turned black and a sore appeared on it. and her legs had sores on them from her constantly laying on them. She smelled like Amonia from the dehydration and she wasnt even moving after she went potty so she was sitting in it constantly.
So saturday night i gave her a bath and considered my options
Sunday she was disoriented and pecking me every time i came near her. So i decided it was time to let her go. We searched for painless ways to euthanize a chicken and settled on putting her in a plastic bag with a rag soaked in starter fluid (ether). Then we sealed the top and held her while she stopped breathing.
So thats the whole forensic story. Now i keep reevaluating if it was right to put her down, maybe she would have recovered? what if the ether wasnt as painless as i thought? what if she suffered? I have had that girl from a little chick. She had pasty butt so i wiped her little booty two times a day and put vaseline on her little vent. I handled that chick so much. I never had to put a dog down as a kid or anything so i've never known how that feels. Now im a grown woman with two kids of my own bawling my eyes out over a chicken i had to put down with my own two hands.
I think most people think im being silly being so sad since most people think of my pet as food but really im just very very sad. anyone else been through this?
