Bumping this up for another loss.
Marka passed away in the night after several days of exhibiting the exact same symptoms that her mother, Margaret, had had at the end, and at almost the exact same age that Margaret passed, 8 and a half. Marka was always a pretty low-key part of the flock, that is until last year when she was finally able to shine as the single best broody hen I have ever had raise chicks. Among several other hens who would forget their chicks or expect them to do way more than tiny day olds could ever do like hop all the way up to roost on their own, Marka was patient, gentle, calm, and fiercely protective of her babes. She taught them the best places to free-range, reliably warmed them and stayed with them when they were too small to get to some places, she helped them integrate smoothly into the flock, and she weaned them gently without terrorizing them or chasing them away so they were able to grow independent on their own time. I was
so looking forward to letting her hatch to her heart's content this year, knowing that she would do an excellent job as before and not cause me worry over my 'grandchickens'. I'm filled with such regret that over the years, so many, many times, she wanted to brood, yet for various reasons I could not allow her to until just last year.
I hope, now they've had some practice at it and to some extent seen Marka work her magic, that her nieces, Amaretto and Peanut Butter, can go on to shine this year as Marka did at rearing chicks.
With her gone, I no longer own any pure Silkie hens, just my two boys Reuben and Winter, and the half-Silkie hens Peanut Butter and Amaretto. I don't necessarily want any more Silkies, as I'm pretty happy with the Cochins and don't care for crested breeds anyway, but I'm thinking perhaps I should hatch from PB or Amaretto soon, just to keep some of that blood in my flock in the future. I do want to hatch from Gwenyth crossed to one of the silkied Cochin boys this year, so perhaps one of her sons would be fun to cross to PB and Amaretto next year. We'll see, I suppose.
Been a brutal past several months for losses here. Lots of old birds leaving us.
Here's hoping we're getting to the end of that now, though.
Editing in another because I don't want to bump the thread for it again. Vira passed away sometime in the night, January 12th-13th. She had been having some bloating in her lower abdomen that I was not able to pinpoint the cause of nor resolve, so not exactly a surprise that she's gone now. She was such a sassy girl, and one of the most memorable for her constantly weird feathering, doing things such as feathering in with 'eyebrows', keeping her juvenile feathering for over a year, feathering in mostly white with black 'shoes' on her feet, etc. Gonna miss my little fashion icon.
Yeah, with the weather the way it's been lately, the mud has been ridiculous. I thankfully haven't noticed any major mud balls on mine so far. 
Thankfully, I never seem to have too much trouble with my Cochins keeping their feet clean!
Hopefully the dirty bum is a one-off and you don't have to keep cleaning him up! One of my Silkie roosters got a dirty butt recently when he'd never had that problem before in his life--and I definitely let him go to roost before dealing with that because he's a pain in the butt to grab!
But everyone's still running around and acting like normal despite the temps, so I'm trying not to worry about them too much. I can't wait for this cold snap to end, though 
I'm not sure about the shed with no ventilation, these birds do put out a lot of moisture but if it's only two then they might be okay in there... But the 60° building probably would be fine as well. The room that I moved my birds to is about 55-60° right now and they seem okay with that.
