Waiting for the next shoe (or chicken) to drop is the worst thing about this. It's bad enough losing Gracie, who I took from a cold, standoff-ish chicken and after five years finally made her into a cuddlebunny. She was wonderful.
No on the necropsy. I took Grace to the Humane Society for euthanization - they were very, very nice. When they took her from me I could definitely see one foot forward, one foot back. The aviary specialist thought it was Marek's and from everything I saw in my extensive research I had to agree. I thought Grace was starting to feel some pain and I've never heard of a successful recovery from Marek's so I had to do it. It's really hard deciding when an innocent, feeling, living being would be better off dead.
Supposedly, the eight feed store bought chickens I had (3 different batches) - including Grace - were vaccinated. The new Silver-Laced Wyandotte hen we found wandering the neighborhood on 8/28/11, I don't know. I kept her in
the garage for a few days and she seemed healthy and I felt sorry for her stuck in the garage by herself and one of the neighborhood chicken people said she'd never had a problem with new-found chickens and against my better judgement, I let Bessie in with my girls.
That's when the stress began. I was worried the old gals would pick on Bessie but she came out fighting. She was top dog right away. I witnessed a big confrontation between Grace and Bessie (Grace lost). Bessie still chases most of the chickens. Only one other chicken is above her in the ground pecking order (Chip, who was broody when Bessie first came to town so she hadn't challenged her yet). Now all the girls are picking on each other. Lots of screaming and feather pulling. Very stressful. It was very peaceful before. (All girls)
I do remember though that when we got our first batch - with Grace - there was a chicken who had a wing problem for a couple of days, Chickadee. From my research, it sounds like that was a mild form of Marek's that can be overcome (and was) so I'm not so sure that chicken supplier vaccinated them properly. The only other remaining chicken from that batch is Romie, my precious White Crested Black Polish who can't see because of the feathers in her face and is tiny to boot (and totally, totally adorable). Romie is chased relentlessly by a couple of the chickens. I hear her screaming all the time and she jumps straight up - like in cartoons - a foot or so. All of this started now that bossy Bessie is around. I thought it was so funny and good exercise before but now I'm worried about Romie's stress level.
Also, there was a distinct smell to Gracie at the end which I now smell on Chickadee. And I noticed today that Chickadee is sometimes acting a little psycho - like something is chasing her or she's chasing something. We'll see how that goes.
Man, I hate loving pets. Very painful.
