Poor Earline is dead. :(

[birdlover]

I posted about my stupid cousin putting eggs under Earline over a period of days and, so far, one had hatched. (I gave him my rooster and 4 hens last summer and it's his first tiime with chickens.) They took the baby in the house and Earline continued to sit on the eggs for at least a week longer. I got an email from my cousin's wife this morning. She found Earline in the sheep's waterer dead. She thought Earline was too weakened to get out. Now, I don't know how deep it is and if she drowned or had a heart attack trying to get out. In any case, it was an awful way to start the day. Oh, and she said 3 more eggs were fertile but didn't hatch as they got too cold.

(((

 

[hinkjc]

I'm so sorry for your loss.

 

[andehens]

thats just plain wrong!

 

[HennysMom]

I'm sorry you lost your bird

 

[Patchesnposies]

Birdlover-sorry about Earline.

She probably was too weak to get out.

We once had an ornery old jersey cow that was a chicken killer. Whenever one would hop up on her water trough to get a drink she would knock it in and I swear she must have held it down with her head until it drowned.

Lost a gorgeous rooster that way and saved my Americauna hen-just barely. She was nearly drowned in the middle of winter in SD.

I put her in the bathroom with the heater turned up and milked the water out of her craw, dried her off with a blow dryer on low and left her alone to recover. She warmed up and did recover, but was so traumatized that she expelled a bunch of eggs (no shells) in a big bunch and never laid another egg again.

She was our pet and favorite until she died of old age years later.

Again, I am very sorry!

 

[horsejody]

I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[birdlover]

Thank you, everyone. I guess one reason I'm so sad is she never got to be a mommy. When I had them, my buff orp went broody about a week before Earline. I let the orp hatch one egg but didn't give Earline any. After Taffy's egg hatched and they were out and about, Earline came off the nest and tried her best to steal the chick from Taffy. At first, Taffy chased her off but, after several days, she just sort of let Earline hang around and the chick basically had two mothers. I wish she could have had her own babies before this happened. Oh well. I guess life goes on.

 

[jimnjay]

That is just a heartbreaking story. I wonder sometimes how people reason things out. It baffles me sometimes.

 

[JanieMarie]

So sad. Seems like a tuff mornin for alot of people. Sorry.