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I also have some sad news this morning from my flock. It looks like Nora is dying. 
I still can't find any signs of injury on her, so I don't know if it was just the stress of the event or what.
Delphine has sort of brightened up, though, so maybe there's hope there? I'm hesitant to get my hopes up too high with her because she seems very uncoordinated still, so I'm still thinking there may be nerve or brain damage from the attack that may mean she won't ever recover fully. I tubed water into her this morning with the hopes I can get things moving again for her at least. She acts like she wants to eat, but just can't get her muscles to cooperate, poor thing. If I can get her rehydrated today, I'll try to get some food tubed in her tonight so that she has at least a little energy from that.
Morena is moving around more, but still pretty hunchy. I noticed last night that Georgia was giving her a bit of a hard time, too, so that's not helping her I'm sure. I may see if I can fence her off a small area where she won't be harassed in there. I haven't let either of the outer coop flocks out of their coop since the attack, so I'm sure they're all getting stir-crazy by now.
I forgot to add this picture to my posting yesterday, but this was the sunset the evening I took Roxanne and little unnamed hen's remains to the back of the woods.
I don't know if I've talked about this much here, but my ritual with birds who have passed on is one of three things, depending on weather conditions and timing. For some, if they're particularly special to me, I'll find them a burial spot that I can visit occasionally. Dandelion and Zinnia, for instance, are buried right near their old pen, side by side. Some, especially if burial is not feasible (for example, the ground is frozen midwinter) but weather conditions and timing work out, I will cremate so that their ashes spread over the woods where they wandered in life. The third option, when neither of those works out for one reason or another, is to find them a nice, quiet resting spot in the woods, far away from the coops so that it doesn't attract unwanted attention to the still living birds. In any of those three cases, I try to lay them to rest with a flower, or if that's not possible then a leaf, a spring of berries, or some other kind of plant material as a sort of tribute. Roxanne got an oak leaf because it was reddish and small like her, and the little unnamed hen got a dried out old goldenrod flower because it was whitish and fuzzy like her mama was, miss Judy Booty.
Anyway, sappiness aside, yesterday was day 1 of what has become spring cleaning week. I scraped out the entirety of the mixed flock coop and deck, and I replaced their bedding with fresh. I'm beat!
But I've got to keep rolling because it's back to class next week, so the corner coop gets their clean out later today. If I can get up the gumption, I'll work on the outer coop as well so that those birds can have some time out of their coop while I'm right there to keep an eye on things. If not, they're on the roster for tomorrow.
Just one picture from this morning. I thought this was kind of funny because they look like 3 different types of 'morning people'. Kita on the left is a true morning person, bright eyed and ready to go. Findlay on the right is the grump who hates mornings but begrudgingly gets up. And the Splash girl in the middle, she looks like she needs some coffee to wake up still.
I still can't find any signs of injury on her, so I don't know if it was just the stress of the event or what.Delphine has sort of brightened up, though, so maybe there's hope there? I'm hesitant to get my hopes up too high with her because she seems very uncoordinated still, so I'm still thinking there may be nerve or brain damage from the attack that may mean she won't ever recover fully. I tubed water into her this morning with the hopes I can get things moving again for her at least. She acts like she wants to eat, but just can't get her muscles to cooperate, poor thing. If I can get her rehydrated today, I'll try to get some food tubed in her tonight so that she has at least a little energy from that.
Morena is moving around more, but still pretty hunchy. I noticed last night that Georgia was giving her a bit of a hard time, too, so that's not helping her I'm sure. I may see if I can fence her off a small area where she won't be harassed in there. I haven't let either of the outer coop flocks out of their coop since the attack, so I'm sure they're all getting stir-crazy by now.
I forgot to add this picture to my posting yesterday, but this was the sunset the evening I took Roxanne and little unnamed hen's remains to the back of the woods.
I don't know if I've talked about this much here, but my ritual with birds who have passed on is one of three things, depending on weather conditions and timing. For some, if they're particularly special to me, I'll find them a burial spot that I can visit occasionally. Dandelion and Zinnia, for instance, are buried right near their old pen, side by side. Some, especially if burial is not feasible (for example, the ground is frozen midwinter) but weather conditions and timing work out, I will cremate so that their ashes spread over the woods where they wandered in life. The third option, when neither of those works out for one reason or another, is to find them a nice, quiet resting spot in the woods, far away from the coops so that it doesn't attract unwanted attention to the still living birds. In any of those three cases, I try to lay them to rest with a flower, or if that's not possible then a leaf, a spring of berries, or some other kind of plant material as a sort of tribute. Roxanne got an oak leaf because it was reddish and small like her, and the little unnamed hen got a dried out old goldenrod flower because it was whitish and fuzzy like her mama was, miss Judy Booty.
Anyway, sappiness aside, yesterday was day 1 of what has become spring cleaning week. I scraped out the entirety of the mixed flock coop and deck, and I replaced their bedding with fresh. I'm beat!
But I've got to keep rolling because it's back to class next week, so the corner coop gets their clean out later today. If I can get up the gumption, I'll work on the outer coop as well so that those birds can have some time out of their coop while I'm right there to keep an eye on things. If not, they're on the roster for tomorrow.Just one picture from this morning. I thought this was kind of funny because they look like 3 different types of 'morning people'. Kita on the left is a true morning person, bright eyed and ready to go. Findlay on the right is the grump who hates mornings but begrudgingly gets up. And the Splash girl in the middle, she looks like she needs some coffee to wake up still.
but, he was little. It was summer and all through the woods is nettles. I wasn't fighting them. He got buried behind the shed area in my yard.
Hopefully the girls and the runners don't have too long of a mourning period. 
Debating making a thread in the emergencies section to see if any of the experts there might have more advice on how to handle her ongoing care.
This was the crowd waiting oh-so-patiently for me to dish out their food this morning. The door to the yard was open, they just were so starved that they all crowded onto the deck behind me to wait for their breakfast.
I think I probably could have been more thorough on the last pen I did, but I was so exhausted by that point that I didn't think I could do any more than what I had. The coops are all much fresher now, and I'm sure the birds won't complain either way!
