Genius, MC!!
Should I buy eggs or wait it out?
- Thread starter okallthis4eggs
- Start date
Love the RNP pic cheeka, she was a beauty! We are at -0- eggs today with about 40+ chicken hens. Even the quail took a break. Its close to winter solstice, 1 more month. It was 64 degrees, and my geese thought it was spring! Scovies too... those boys were sure chasing the girls, just have to wait for spring! We dumped 10 loads of mulch each into the 2 main pens and it was a feast for all the birds. Its composted really well, lots of bugs running around. Did 8 Loads in the hog pen, and my girls were rolling and happy, My boar kept flipping Bacon out of his way
Put My buck Bo in with his ladies for a May birthing on my goats.Missing our goat milk, but I don't want to wear out my girls so they are dried up. Added Midget white turkeys last weekend and they are pretty awesome turkeys. Settled in and joined the flock like they have always been here. (Very good friend was the owner) Incubator has been off for a month... waiting for spring and eggs!
I learn the most interesting things in the truck. :-D
Hi MC!!! We hope that you had a great Thanksgiving!!
Agree, my SIL drives a truck and is always telling us interesting, as well as funny stories. You certainly have to be inventive at times.
Hey guys. Fell behind again! It has been crazy around here the last week. Sorry this is super long and I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to read it!
For the last month our dog has not been eating normally. She usually LOVES to eat and we feed her twice a day and when she food goes in she gobbles it right up. She had started to not eat at all or only eat a bit of her food. It would often take her several days to eat one days worth of food. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here but I feel like I might have, our first thought was that she had worms from eating all the chicken poop. Maybe the whole kit n caboodle needed worming. I had it checked out and no one has worms. Then we chalked it up to various other things including the fact that we had moved her dish...but we moved it back, washed it, tried all kinds of things and she just wasn't right.
We took her to the vet and he declared there was nothing wrong with her. She hadn't lost any weight and she appeared totally normal. We agreed with that part but insisted there was something wrong with her. We almost had to push him to do some basic bloodwork. He assured us she was fine and urged us to add chicken stock to her food to make it more tempting for her, in spite of us telling him several times that she has food allergies and can't have chicken. We also knew that it wasn't just that she was uninterested in the taste of her food. There was something going on.
Bw came back somewhat inconclusive. A bunch of stuff was messed up. Mostly low proteins. Vet continues to insist we trick her into eating by either switching her food or adding chicken broth to it. Then he says "Although I don't want you to be mad at me for suggesting that because I know you don't want to do that." Did he miss the part where we CANNOT give her chicken or just switch her food willy nilly?? Why does he seem so keen to make my sick dog sicker?? At this point she still appears totally normal except for the whole not eating thing. He orders another test. He wants to do a urine sample and a protein/creatinine ratio test. He's thinking kidney problems. Thanks to the holiday, the results won't be in til friday. This was tuesday.
Wednesday she was more or less the same but we were quite pleased when she actually ate a full serving of food in the evening. I was up until midnight cooking some things for thanksgiving and kinda puttering around and she was outside and not asking to come in so I just left her out there. At midnight I was ready to go to bed so I let her in. I probably wouldn't have noticed anything except she sort of stumbled as she came in and I looked down at her and I could see right away something was wrong. She is normally quite thin, possibly a little underweight. She is a German Shepherd so we keep her lean to help avoid hip problems which they are prone to. When I looked at her, she appeared to be very fat. She normally has a very defined uptuck behind her ribs and it was gone, her belly weight straight across after her ribs. I felt her belly and it felt distended and firm. Her ribs were also looking like they were rounder than usual.
I was quite alarmed. I woke hubby up and asked him to look at her and he agreed something was wrong. I suspected bloat right away. Perhaps her body was so unused to her eating a full meal that it was too much and she'd bloated. It's very common in her breed. We went around and around about it for a half hour and then I left to take her to the ER vet. It was almost 1 am and now a holiday and the roads were TERRIBLE. No one in their right mind would have been out.
Long story short about the Evet is that they agreed she was bloated but xrays showed no gas but tons of fluid. Her entire abdomen was full of free fluid. They drew some off to see if it was blood and it wasn't. They looked at it and couldn't really tell what it was. It was nearing 4 am by then and I was exhausted and pretty upset and was totally overwhelmed by all the information and options being lobbed my way. There were about a zillion tests they wanted to do but I was keenly aware that we were very quickly racking up a pretty substantial bill. She was talking about admitting her for the weekend (holy $$$) and referring her to an animal internal medicine specialist (woah $$$) who would do more tests and ultrasounds and stuff. Without her being admitted, this specialist couldn't see her til dec 8th. Without more tests at the very least, the evet didn't know what was wrong but was pretty sure it was liver failure.
I couldn't see the point in doing more tests there since it seemed that really extensive testing would be needed to really diagnose her and i was hemorrhaging hundred dollar bills pretty much for nothing. I asked if she was stable enough to bring home and she was so I just brought her home so I could have time to process and talk to my husband and stuff. Basically by then we were $800 in and no farther ahead than we had been before. My feeling when we left there was that she had some kind of problem which would take about $2k to MAYBE find a diagnosis and then MAYBE it would be something treatable, maybe not. The outlook was pretty grim.
That day was Thanksgiving so we just had to kind of grit our teeth and hope for the best. We prepared ourselves to have to put her to sleep Friday if she declined significantly again. She had some pain pills to make sure that the fluid in her belly wasn't causing her any pain so we just loved on her and waited to see what would happen. Her condition did not change. Friday morning we called our regular vet and took the first available appt which happened to be with a different vet than we had seen previously (the stupid one who told us she was fine and to just feed her things she is allergic to).
This vet reviewed her case and suggested two of the tests the Evet had also suggested. Basically these were the last two tests we could do for things that are manageable and treatable. Pretty much the last reasonable steps we can take before we get into the whole specialists and ultrasounds and surgeries and stuff. She had to be fasting for these tests so we had to wait until monday (yesterday). They kept the dog to drain all the fluid out of her and then put her on a diuretic to keep it from building up again over the weekend, which I feel like the evet should have done but whatever I guess. She came back with a shaved belly and several injection (withdrawl?) sites. It was hard to see, but she did look better.
Over the weekend, the medication worked great and not only did she not refill but when she came back friday she still had a noticable amount of fluid left in there and by monday it was all gone. She looked normal and when I checked her belly it felt normal. By no means was she cured but I was just happy she was looking good. It was really sad seeing her with all the fluid in her belly. she went in yesterday for her tests and now we wait. They might take until friday to come back.
With as good as she looks right now, it's so hard to imagine that she is as sick as she really is underneath. We are so happy we didn't have to put her to sleep friday like we originally thought we might, and for now I've put it out of my mind. We're $1500 in now, and this comes right on the heels of another $1500 or so of unexpected expenses in the last few weeks so that is stressing me out a little. Obviously we love our dog and she is worth every penny and we're willing to do it but after these tests the waters get pretty muddy. The next steps are significantly more expensive with zero guarentees. Quality of life is hugely important to me and I won't put her through a bunch of stuff without an awesome prognosis and at this point there isn't one. Either it's one of the two things we're testing for now which should be managable or it's something that will require a lot of drastic action and still we may not be able to save her.
I have decided not to think about or worry about what is going to happen. Today she is here and today she looks great (she's still on the diuretics) and that's what I am focused on. I don't know what's coming but I guess you never do anyway right? It's been super stressful but we're muddling through.
And my eggs have been freezing and cracking GRRRRRRR.
So that's that lol.
For the last month our dog has not been eating normally. She usually LOVES to eat and we feed her twice a day and when she food goes in she gobbles it right up. She had started to not eat at all or only eat a bit of her food. It would often take her several days to eat one days worth of food. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here but I feel like I might have, our first thought was that she had worms from eating all the chicken poop. Maybe the whole kit n caboodle needed worming. I had it checked out and no one has worms. Then we chalked it up to various other things including the fact that we had moved her dish...but we moved it back, washed it, tried all kinds of things and she just wasn't right.
We took her to the vet and he declared there was nothing wrong with her. She hadn't lost any weight and she appeared totally normal. We agreed with that part but insisted there was something wrong with her. We almost had to push him to do some basic bloodwork. He assured us she was fine and urged us to add chicken stock to her food to make it more tempting for her, in spite of us telling him several times that she has food allergies and can't have chicken. We also knew that it wasn't just that she was uninterested in the taste of her food. There was something going on.
Bw came back somewhat inconclusive. A bunch of stuff was messed up. Mostly low proteins. Vet continues to insist we trick her into eating by either switching her food or adding chicken broth to it. Then he says "Although I don't want you to be mad at me for suggesting that because I know you don't want to do that." Did he miss the part where we CANNOT give her chicken or just switch her food willy nilly?? Why does he seem so keen to make my sick dog sicker?? At this point she still appears totally normal except for the whole not eating thing. He orders another test. He wants to do a urine sample and a protein/creatinine ratio test. He's thinking kidney problems. Thanks to the holiday, the results won't be in til friday. This was tuesday.
Wednesday she was more or less the same but we were quite pleased when she actually ate a full serving of food in the evening. I was up until midnight cooking some things for thanksgiving and kinda puttering around and she was outside and not asking to come in so I just left her out there. At midnight I was ready to go to bed so I let her in. I probably wouldn't have noticed anything except she sort of stumbled as she came in and I looked down at her and I could see right away something was wrong. She is normally quite thin, possibly a little underweight. She is a German Shepherd so we keep her lean to help avoid hip problems which they are prone to. When I looked at her, she appeared to be very fat. She normally has a very defined uptuck behind her ribs and it was gone, her belly weight straight across after her ribs. I felt her belly and it felt distended and firm. Her ribs were also looking like they were rounder than usual.
I was quite alarmed. I woke hubby up and asked him to look at her and he agreed something was wrong. I suspected bloat right away. Perhaps her body was so unused to her eating a full meal that it was too much and she'd bloated. It's very common in her breed. We went around and around about it for a half hour and then I left to take her to the ER vet. It was almost 1 am and now a holiday and the roads were TERRIBLE. No one in their right mind would have been out.
Long story short about the Evet is that they agreed she was bloated but xrays showed no gas but tons of fluid. Her entire abdomen was full of free fluid. They drew some off to see if it was blood and it wasn't. They looked at it and couldn't really tell what it was. It was nearing 4 am by then and I was exhausted and pretty upset and was totally overwhelmed by all the information and options being lobbed my way. There were about a zillion tests they wanted to do but I was keenly aware that we were very quickly racking up a pretty substantial bill. She was talking about admitting her for the weekend (holy $$$) and referring her to an animal internal medicine specialist (woah $$$) who would do more tests and ultrasounds and stuff. Without her being admitted, this specialist couldn't see her til dec 8th. Without more tests at the very least, the evet didn't know what was wrong but was pretty sure it was liver failure.
I couldn't see the point in doing more tests there since it seemed that really extensive testing would be needed to really diagnose her and i was hemorrhaging hundred dollar bills pretty much for nothing. I asked if she was stable enough to bring home and she was so I just brought her home so I could have time to process and talk to my husband and stuff. Basically by then we were $800 in and no farther ahead than we had been before. My feeling when we left there was that she had some kind of problem which would take about $2k to MAYBE find a diagnosis and then MAYBE it would be something treatable, maybe not. The outlook was pretty grim.
That day was Thanksgiving so we just had to kind of grit our teeth and hope for the best. We prepared ourselves to have to put her to sleep Friday if she declined significantly again. She had some pain pills to make sure that the fluid in her belly wasn't causing her any pain so we just loved on her and waited to see what would happen. Her condition did not change. Friday morning we called our regular vet and took the first available appt which happened to be with a different vet than we had seen previously (the stupid one who told us she was fine and to just feed her things she is allergic to).
This vet reviewed her case and suggested two of the tests the Evet had also suggested. Basically these were the last two tests we could do for things that are manageable and treatable. Pretty much the last reasonable steps we can take before we get into the whole specialists and ultrasounds and surgeries and stuff. She had to be fasting for these tests so we had to wait until monday (yesterday). They kept the dog to drain all the fluid out of her and then put her on a diuretic to keep it from building up again over the weekend, which I feel like the evet should have done but whatever I guess. She came back with a shaved belly and several injection (withdrawl?) sites. It was hard to see, but she did look better.
Over the weekend, the medication worked great and not only did she not refill but when she came back friday she still had a noticable amount of fluid left in there and by monday it was all gone. She looked normal and when I checked her belly it felt normal. By no means was she cured but I was just happy she was looking good. It was really sad seeing her with all the fluid in her belly. she went in yesterday for her tests and now we wait. They might take until friday to come back.
With as good as she looks right now, it's so hard to imagine that she is as sick as she really is underneath. We are so happy we didn't have to put her to sleep friday like we originally thought we might, and for now I've put it out of my mind. We're $1500 in now, and this comes right on the heels of another $1500 or so of unexpected expenses in the last few weeks so that is stressing me out a little. Obviously we love our dog and she is worth every penny and we're willing to do it but after these tests the waters get pretty muddy. The next steps are significantly more expensive with zero guarentees. Quality of life is hugely important to me and I won't put her through a bunch of stuff without an awesome prognosis and at this point there isn't one. Either it's one of the two things we're testing for now which should be managable or it's something that will require a lot of drastic action and still we may not be able to save her.
I have decided not to think about or worry about what is going to happen. Today she is here and today she looks great (she's still on the diuretics) and that's what I am focused on. I don't know what's coming but I guess you never do anyway right? It's been super stressful but we're muddling through.
And my eggs have been freezing and cracking GRRRRRRR.
So that's that lol.
Oh Mortie. I feel your pain. Our furry and feathered kids mean the world to us. Does she have bloat? Isn't that caused by a turned stomach? Poor thing. I hope she gets better. Hugs....
She does not have bloat. No gas at all, she has fluid loose in her abdomen. It's from her blood protein levels being low. Your blood is partly made up of water obviously. Without sufficient albumen, your blood vessels will leak the fluid right out of your blood vessels and it pools inside your body. For her it was all collecting her in abdomen.
If she'd had bloat it would have been much nicer. Easy diagnosis, surgery, and good prognosis likely.
If she'd had bloat it would have been much nicer. Easy diagnosis, surgery, and good prognosis likely.
- Oct 5, 2013
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Oh hugs Mortie! Our animals are family but I'll be the first one to say I would not spend thousands of dollars for a chance. A cure maybe but not a chance. I think you are doing the exact right thing and you'll continue to figure it out.
Sorry about your pooch, mortie.
Hope she's feeling better today. How old is she? I have my suspicions about what's causing the ascites and will be interested to hear the lab results.
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