Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RebeccaBoyd]

Cake has been served. Hen-Rietta has had corn, watermelon, meally worms. Iced water (because it’s hot out)
Now they are working on the cornbread cake. View attachment 3568191View attachment 3568192View attachment 3568193View attachment 3568194

Happy birthday Henrietta!! Enjoy your cake. Make sure you get the most of it and all the meal worms you want. It is your birthday so no need for sharing.

 

[featherhead007]

Happy Hatch-day!

Have a splendid day Hen-Rietta

Very sweet, I will show it to her

 

[featherhead007]

My chickens are contrarian.

It is 91 degrees and everyone is hot. Will they drink from the nice bowl of water I gave them with huge blocks of ice in it so I can get a Thirsty Thursday picture? Will they heck!

Will the chickens with black feathers that absorb the heat stay in the deep dark cool shade where I watered the dirt to cool it further? Will they heck - they are running, RUNNING around in the sun. It makes me overheat just to watch.

Will any of them eat the chilled strawberries and macaroni leftovers? Will they heck? What chicken in its right mind rejects pasta and nicely chilled berries?

Now I have to go back out in the heat to try and get photos.

Mine stay under the air conditioned porch. But come out for Hatchday cake

 

[RoyalChick]

Finally - my only chicken with brains!
Babs is drinking the ice-water.
She seems to feel the heat more than Bernie who isn’t panting and isn’t even holding her wings out.
Babs seems energetic enough but she definitely looks hot so I am glad to see her drinking some nice cold water.
Happy Thirsty Thursday evening everyone.

 

[Ponypoor]

Cake has been served. Hen-Rietta has had corn, watermelon, meally worms. Iced water (because it’s hot out)
Now they are working on the cornbread cake. View attachment 3568191View attachment 3568192View attachment 3568193View attachment 3568194

I would eat that Hold the meal worms I already had my fill!

 

[featherhead007]

All the fun had to stop for a while. Coco dirtied herself badly. I took her in for a bath and clean up. (now we both are all wet)

 

[bgmathteach]

Cake has been served. Hen-Rietta has had corn, watermelon, meally worms. Iced water (because it’s hot out)
Now they are working on the cornbread cake. View attachment 3568191View attachment 3568192View attachment 3568193View attachment 3568194

Happy Hatch Day, Hen-rietta! Looks like someone is treating you well on your hatch day! So nice of you to be generous and share. Enjoy the mealy worms - less starch = less extra heat from digestion (I think?)

@Ponypoor very nice rendition for Henrietta!!

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Oh no. Poor Peanut. I have been down this road a few times and as @BY Bob mentioned, I have drained my own hen. As you know, treatment outside of draining would depend on the cause. In Ruby’s case, hormones, along with occasional antibiotics, kept the swelling at bay for years. However, her fluid was deep behind a thickened abdominal wall and had to be drained by an avian vet using ultrasound to guide the needle.

With Lucky, draining helped quite a bit and I was able to do it myself. I used these butterfly infusion needles with a 60cc luer lock syringe. (I had tried before with a regular needle attached, but it seemed more dangerous.) She would continue to drain for hours and it provided almost immediate relief.Do you think you could get your hands on supplies?

Aspirin can also help ascites. I would give one 81mg aspirin to a standard sized hen over 5 lbs. After that, you can cut them in half and give half as much. I preferred a whole one. It’s only for a couple (2-3) days and not long term use. Lily of the desert aloe detox also seems to help, but it takes longer. You can syringe 4cc orally, but it takes awhile not to aspirate. I like to put a full “shot” (1.5 ounces) into some damp feed and let them all eat it. They love it.

I have also had hens swell up and then reabsorb the fluid on their own. Millie used to swell up during laying season and then it would subside when her hormones changed during molt or broodiness.

If Peanut’s ascites came on quickly, I would recommend an attempt at draining to buy time as Bob suggested. I’m so sorry for both of you. This is so hard. I have done everything from treating as much as possible and taking to too far to immediately opting for euthanasia, as well as everything in between. If an avian vet could see her, that would be great. They just might not know what’s going on, either.

Best wishes, good luck, and please keep us posted.

Thank you, Michelle!
An avian vet did see her, and X-rays showed cancer. I saw a lot of tumor, especially later when we looked at Butters X-ray which was clear, it was plain this was not quick as I had thought, that I did not catch how her behavior changed from very mellow to stand-offish. I know better now that the belly I felt a few weeks ago, more firm than usual but flat, was this, when I thought then she might have to lay.

So I am not surprised Peanut is not moving around much. The goal now is comfort until she can’t do chickeny things and be “happy” however that is defined… which she is not doing, right now. Earlier today I thought the time for euthanasia is now, she was sleepy alternating with awake and deftly catching mosquitoes and flies when they came near to her set position. I think the possible heart failure related to tumors could be at work. She’s perked up a bit since then, maybe because of the lower heat, the food and painkiller, and if the meloxicam can make her comfortable for awhile then the inevitable will be some more days.

Today she did move herself 50 feet to the winter run from the coop, back 40 feet to the cool moist woody chips and dirt underneath the lilacs, then back 40 feet to the run when there was a brief shower. I didn’t see her do any of these. She is not inclined to move much when she’s set herself down, so she is not acting comfortable yet, on one dose of meloxicam so far. She was eating and drinking well when I got under the lilacs with scrambled eggs and blueberries, and I snuck the meloxicam in a blueberry. Later she ate the rest of the scrambled eggs, some sunflower seeds, a few walnut bits and a bit of oatmeal.

Popcorn came over but interestingly got the message that this was mainly for Peanut and didn’t try too much to get around my arm (Popcorn got some specially handed to her though, and I would call her name), and she went away after awhile.

This vet expressed willingness to help me learn lots of things, she was explaining how she was doing whatever she was doing and mentioned training me on tube feeding if it came to that with Butters (as a jump-start to eating she said it can help, for instance). But this is not a situation of repeated draining yet, at least it doesn’t seem to be, as Peanut hasn’t really perked up to her old self since this one.

Today is the Buckeye’s Hatch Day, three years old. I’m sorry it’s not a happy day, but I am thankful the other three seem to be doing okay. Butters and Hazel are eating some, but weirdly, hopefully only because they are molting, and Popcorn is her same zany zesty self. I have a “flock check” scheduled with this mobile vet for the 19th, where she will come here and see Popcorn and Hazel for the first time, and re-check Butters. I doubt poor Peanut will be alive then, but we’ll see.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

It hurts the most to those of us who care the most. I know it is hard - but I also know you will do right by Peanut. I am so sorry you and Peanut have to go through this.

Thank you, BG!

 

[featherhead007]

I would eat that Hold the meal worms I already had my fill!

Do you put your meally worms on ice cream? I do, or at least I tell the store cashier that I do!