Meet Sideways Sally. She was a Silkie egg that had a bad temperature drop due to electric outage. She had the best personality, so snuggly, sweet, and calm. We all loved her very much. She wasn't growing and her beak was getting worse, to the point that she could barely drink. DH put her down yesterday so she wouldn't suffer anymore. I will miss her so terribly. She was buried under our old apple tree and we will remember her forever.
We got her from the pound after she'd been confiscated from her former owners. She was most definitely abused, and was skin and bones when we got her. We had just gotten her healthy again when she was mauled by a big dog that had been allowed to roam free. She was in a full body cast with tubes sticking out of her for almost a month. Shortly after she was healed up from that, we discovered that she was not, as the animal shelter claimed, fixed. Though she gave birth successfully, the nursing of the puppies drained her considerably and she ended up malnourished. We ended up having to bottle feed the pups. Not long after that, my sister went through a bad breakup with a real prize of an individual, and he decided the proper response was to come to our house and shoot at our animals, killing her cat and hitting Lucky in the leg. She caught kennel cough from the time she had to spend in the vet's office dealing with that wound. Once she was healthy again, we moved to a two story house. Her first attempt to walk down the stairs resulted in her dislocating her leg, having to have it put into a cast, as shown here.
Aside from a touch of arthritis, she's fairly healthy now. She stays out of the war between She Who Dwells in the Staircase and She Who Dwells in the Coop unless either bothers her, in which case she educates them on the fact that youth and vigor are no match for experience and crankiness.
*yes, actually, we did debate changing her name several times.