My lovely little Lacey (GLW) was put down today
We took her to the vet on Wed last cos she was not really able to walk. It came on rather suddenly. I checked her feet, and she had signs of Bumblefoot with the black plug on the bottom of the foot....one larger on one foot and a smaller one on the other. The vet said upon examination that she felt what she thought was an egg...and I told her that she hasnt been laying for a while. She is (was) 4 years old, and I had read that they sometimes slow down drastically. So we came home, Lacey in tow, with instructions to give her pain meds, and antiinfammatory meds, as well as a plan to wash/soak her feet in epsom salt and iodine drops in water 2x a day. Her feet didnt seem to be getting any better...and she kept listing over to the one side...like her side was bothering her. She almost looked like she was propping herself up with her wings.
Well, she decided to not eat, or drink by the end of the weekend... I was making sure she got water syringed into her and force fed her some food per vets instruction. She looked so unhappy
She had XRays done yesterday to see what was going on, and to have a second examination. She had already lost quite a bit of weight, and she was not wanting anything to do with the water or food that we were trying to give her.
We got the report back this am that the main vet who works with birds looked over the xrays, and saw a mass in her abdomen that looked cancerous/tumourous. We chose to put her down today rather than see her suffer more than she already was. So we took her outside before the appt and let her sit on the ground with her favorite roses, and have a nice long soak in the sun. At the vets office, they allowed us to be outside in the grass. She went very easily and painlessly (from what i could tell) to sleep with me telling her about all the roses she could find on the other side when she got there, and she took her last breaths in my arms as I rubbed her wattles like she loved so much.
The question is since this was a good sized mass apparently...how long could she have been hiding this? We saw nothing at all wrong with her until Tues last week when she just seemed to have the problem with the feet. There have been no changes in appetite, breating, mannerisms....
The other girls were beating the crap out of her, so I removed her right away to the garage so she could be better cared for. We saw no signs of illness with either her feet or her chest cavity...even the vets said she looked really healthy considering her feet (at the first visit). We are just sort of kicking outselves for not seeing...but would she have hidden it so well that we couldnt have?
I am just feeling terribly guilty atm. I know I did the right thing by lettiing her go the way we did...but I cant help but wonder if we could have gotten it sooner...and if so could there have been anything that we could have done? And was the Bumblefoot a possible side effect? or something totally not connected...
Thank you for letting me vent....I miss my little girl
We took her to the vet on Wed last cos she was not really able to walk. It came on rather suddenly. I checked her feet, and she had signs of Bumblefoot with the black plug on the bottom of the foot....one larger on one foot and a smaller one on the other. The vet said upon examination that she felt what she thought was an egg...and I told her that she hasnt been laying for a while. She is (was) 4 years old, and I had read that they sometimes slow down drastically. So we came home, Lacey in tow, with instructions to give her pain meds, and antiinfammatory meds, as well as a plan to wash/soak her feet in epsom salt and iodine drops in water 2x a day. Her feet didnt seem to be getting any better...and she kept listing over to the one side...like her side was bothering her. She almost looked like she was propping herself up with her wings.
Well, she decided to not eat, or drink by the end of the weekend... I was making sure she got water syringed into her and force fed her some food per vets instruction. She looked so unhappy
She had XRays done yesterday to see what was going on, and to have a second examination. She had already lost quite a bit of weight, and she was not wanting anything to do with the water or food that we were trying to give her.
We got the report back this am that the main vet who works with birds looked over the xrays, and saw a mass in her abdomen that looked cancerous/tumourous. We chose to put her down today rather than see her suffer more than she already was. So we took her outside before the appt and let her sit on the ground with her favorite roses, and have a nice long soak in the sun. At the vets office, they allowed us to be outside in the grass. She went very easily and painlessly (from what i could tell) to sleep with me telling her about all the roses she could find on the other side when she got there, and she took her last breaths in my arms as I rubbed her wattles like she loved so much.
The question is since this was a good sized mass apparently...how long could she have been hiding this? We saw nothing at all wrong with her until Tues last week when she just seemed to have the problem with the feet. There have been no changes in appetite, breating, mannerisms....
The other girls were beating the crap out of her, so I removed her right away to the garage so she could be better cared for. We saw no signs of illness with either her feet or her chest cavity...even the vets said she looked really healthy considering her feet (at the first visit). We are just sort of kicking outselves for not seeing...but would she have hidden it so well that we couldnt have?
I am just feeling terribly guilty atm. I know I did the right thing by lettiing her go the way we did...but I cant help but wonder if we could have gotten it sooner...and if so could there have been anything that we could have done? And was the Bumblefoot a possible side effect? or something totally not connected...
Thank you for letting me vent....I miss my little girl
