Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

Tuff is doing a wee bit better. I drained about 80ml of fluid off her abdomen, and her breathing is good this morning. She ate some layer mash I made for her, drank some sugar water and is now picking at some grass.

She was very interested in Mr P who was putting on quite the display for her through the fence. Right now she is having a conversation with Blanche.

I wonder if he comb will ever go upright again

View attachment 3568880View attachment 3568879

Good to see her out in the grass being a chicken.

 

[BY Bob]

Peanut is not doing much better on the painkiller. Just talked to the vet call center, she's looking to see if the vet on duty can come here tomorrow to help Peanut pass. She offered to check if I could bring Peanut up there today, but unless it's cancelled due to thunderstorms (actually likely) I have a gig in the opposite direction today and have to leave here by 4. It also would be added stress on Peanut to travel, it would be altogether less stress all around, me included to not travel for it...

I'm sitting with her with the side door to the nestbox open. She's confined herself here today, and though the Meloxicam has perked her up as far as catching flies, preening a little, gathering a little nest box hemp to her breast, she's not moving much except to adjust her sitting and raise up a bit and forward to poop. She doesn't want to drink any water. She is taking some blueberries and a little scrambled eggs & sunflower seeds. Her crop seems full and I wonder if things aren't moving.

Her belly is not tight like it was but it is filling again, and she is panting and seems hot. She stood a bit wingspreading and then slowly settled down like she didn't want the strain of standing. Or I'm imagining that. But the chopped hemp is warm and holds her heat. I might put her on the roost platform next to this where it is much cooler, especially since there's a big hole below with hardware cloth and screening in the poop tray now. If she wants to move back I'll help her if she can't.
Edit - I just left her there on the hemp. She might be feeling vulnerable and wants to feel hidden in the nest box darkness.

It's never easy to watch them fade away.

 

[BY Bob]

Another great one, oh Queen! Heartwarming and comforting to me today, thanks.

I'm glad it helped.

 

[Ponypoor]

Our well pump went bad when I was in high school. It was one week of showering at the school, collecting rain water for the chickens, and borrowing drinking water from the next farm up until the parts to repair the pump showed up.

Water is my bane - my dug well at the barn would run dry in the summer, I finally had another well put in. But we didn’t swap out the underground piping, and I know I have a slow leak that I will need to deal with.

I need to dig up the water line; replace it and backfill.

But many times I have had to run a hose from the house to the barn I’m summer

Black chickens and sun bathing when it's really hot out. What's up with them? View attachment 3570150

I was just asking myself that yesterday - Penelope, Dorothy, Rico, Penne... all flaked out in the sun sound asleep. I had to go and wake them and move them into the shade I was so worried about them!

Mind you the white chicks were also doing the same thing

 

[Ponypoor]

What temp is "freezing"?

Anything under 72F for me hahahaha, need a bit of humidity also

Today it is 55F and here in my office it is 68F (20C), I seriously thought of putting on the heater in here, my feet are cold! It's too much of a change from the hot, hazy, humid weather from last week. (which BTW I really do like )

 

[Ponypoor]

Black chickens and sun bathing when it's really hot out. What's up with them? View attachment 3570150

So - no hint of going broody yet? I am still beyond shocked about Sophia! The only thing that would be even more shocking would be Penelope (don't tempt the Fates!).

 

[BY Bob]

Here’s the full ending of this house!View attachment 3569526View attachment 3569527

So sad. Looks like a total loss.

 

[rural mouse]

Anything under 72F for me hahahaha, need a bit of humidity also

Today it is 55F and here in my office it is 68F (20C), I seriously thought of putting on the heater in here, my feet are cold! It's too much of a change from the hot, hazy, humid weather from last week. (which BTW I really do like )

2 words: wool socks.

 

[RoyalChick]

I made the decision today that the Meloxicam is not enough to help Peanut live a good chickeny life. She really can't move, or doesn't want to move much, it must be too uncomfortable, and there is no promise of recovery from cancer, things will be getting worse, and quickly I think. So I'm taking her to the vets tomorrow (turns out they don't do weekend house calls). She hasn't wanted to leave the nestbox today, at least through 4 o'clock when I had to leave to work, and I don't want to leave it until she is suffering even more.

For those of you who have done this, and those who haven't, I'd appreciate your thoughts on travel companion(s) for Peanut - I brought Butters (a calm hen) with her as a companion on her treatment visit previously. Do I do that again, with Butters, or maybe everyone, so there's less loss of company on the return trip, or take her there by herself, with no one (which doesn't seem right as far as how I did it last time)? And then later, if she is in a box, maybe, put her somewhere in the run back home, where they can see her, say goodbye, or know she has died? Or is it better for them if she just disappears and doesn't leave the box?
@RebeccaBoyd @Ponypoor @rural mouse
@RoyalChick @featherhead007 @bgmathteach @BY Bob @micstrachan

So sorry. And I know how difficult this is.
I don’t know that I can help. Of all mine who died, they died at home and on their own timetable.
Typically they retreated somewhere quiet like a nestbox for their final 24 hours and I spent a lot of time sitting with them.
Mostly other chickens stopped by like theybwere saying farewell. That was most noticeable with Eli as I posted here (may have done the link wrong).

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-26930660

I am not sure that staying still is only about pain. I think it is what happens as we die. Maggie spent her last 24 hours without moving and every hour I thought of ending it. But she responded to my voice with a tiny chirp and I decided to let her go on her own terms.

I did once take Bernadette to be euthanized because her leg wasn’t improving and she was holding back her brooder mates. She couldn’t walk and it was no life. I took her on her own but at the vet she staged a recovery so she came back.

Honestly all this is a long winded way of saying that we can all only do our best by them and to think carefully that we are acting genuinely in their interests not our own.

 

[Ponypoor]

Good to see her out in the grass being a chicken.

BIL couldn't get here last night (he has the commute from H E double L getting home - 4 hrs for a 1 hr commute).

He will come down today and I will drain her again, I am just glad her breathing isn't so laboured. It really was scaring me.