Warning, this is a rant. Do not read if you don't want to hear it.
Ever have one of those days where the troubles seem to start even before you open your eyes? that's how mine has been so far today. I woke to my dog moaning and groaning and her hunching her back as if she was having stomach problems. Checked her out and her stomach did seem a little hard, no fever, no vomitting. At 6 am on a Saturday, there isn't much you can do for phone calls so popped her into the truck and started driving to a Vet recommended by a family member, hoping they would see her if I brought her to them. Saw another neighbor about a mile down the road and asked her opinion about the Vet I was heading for, she said I'd better go home and call as they didn't do drop-ins. Wait until after 8 am and called, by this time the dog seems to be more comfortable, was told they couldn't see her as they were short staffed. Called the animal emergency hospital and was told they'd need a credit card to see the dog. Cash is no good? Yadda, yadda....now I have to wait until late this afternoon for someone with a credit card for her to be seen. by this time it's way beyond time to do the chores, get out there and start in and just keep moving. Until I get to the pen that had my Control Group #2 in it. There lying on the floor is the one rooster with these girls. I had just gotten rid of the other two when we processed the meaties. There goes my hopes of getting a third group. Could I get more eggs from my first group from Marek's survivors, probably. I usually have a 60% rooster hatch rate here. Do I even want to try? I don't know....I really just want to throw in the towel and have done with it all. Today is a bad, bad day and I won't make a decision today, but I am really at an extremely low point. It looks to me as if he and the roos in the pen next to him were fighting through the wire. No marks on him that I could find, but the position of him was such that it made me think he had flown at the wire between them. Was it Marek's the disease? Doubtful, nothing up to now has pointed in that direction. Inside mess ups because of it? Possibly. I just don't know and with everything else will not have a necropsy done.