MaeM
Songster
- Dec 9, 2020
- 351
- 1,117
- 216
I started my flock in late 2020 with only two 7-day-old baby chicks: Mabel (who is now Mabelo) and Oreo. As they grew older and the weather got hotter, I started letting them out. One day, I did a mistake while supervising them and Oreo got stolen. We know that he got stolen because we found a trail of corn in the sidewalk. Some used it to attract him and pull him out of the fence...
I was heartbroken. He was a sweet baby that would climb on my legs, jump on my shoulder, and even preen me. And he was a breed that I had never had before: Plymouth Rock. I felt very upset because I didn't know where he was or how he'd be treated. I had cared for him a lot and I had lost him in a brief moment of carelessness.
My dad thought that I would feel better if I simply got another chick. So he brought me another Plymouth Rock chick who looked a lot like Oreo - but bald, because he came from a farm where chicks were being neglected.
While I knew from the start that he wasn't Oreo, I instantly fell in love with him.
I named him Anton.
Geez, he was such a sweet dude. Even after puberty kicked in, he kept being a sweetheart.
I loved him, and his ladies loved him, too.
He gave them food and never forced them to mate with him. Christ, I knew that one of them had started laying eggs because I saw her squatting in front of him. And he was like: "Oh, ok, if you want to..."
He was also friendly to people.
Here he is near a friend of mine who used to be afraid of roosters:
Anton even got along with Mabel, who ended up being a rooster and renamed to Mabelo.
In fact, Anton helped me keep Mabelo under control when puberty kicked in and he got aggressive. Whenever Mabelo tried to chase someone (either a person or a hen), Anton would peck him in the head, like: "Stop doing that, you moron".
Here they are guarding my door.
Damn, I felt so blessed.
Unfortunately, Anton got sick in October 2021. I went out and he was walking weird. He came to me and fell into my arms. I immediately took him to the vet. At the time, he was diagnosed with encephalitis, and got treatment for that.
Later we'd know that he actually had Marek's disease.
He survived, though. He never walked like a normal chicken again, but he could stand and move around, even run short distances. He couldn't roost, but he made himself comfortable in a nest box. And because he knew that he wouldn't be able to fight to protect his ladies, he put Mabelo in charge of them at some point. I know this because one day, the neighbor's cat came down into my backyard, and Mabelo was the one who tried to fight him, while Anton just took the ladies to a place to hide.
Unfortunately, chickens who survive Marek's often end up immunocompromised, and he got sick a couple times from October 2021 to April 2022.
On April 27th, 2022, I put him in a basket and took him to the vet for the last time. He had been isolating himself, letting Mabelo do all the "rooster job", didn't want to eat. (Note the pale/shrunk comb)
He was diagnosed with wet fowl pox, an illness with high mortality rates, especially in immunocompromised birds. The vet gave him treatment anyway. He taught me how to inject him because I'd have to give him shots for several days.
But as soon as I took him back home, to the place where I'd keep him isolated, he had some sort of convulsion, came to me, and died in my arms.
This is the last picture I took of him.
I cried a lot. (And oddly enough, I got plaques on my throat, too. Wildly somatizing).
It was so, so unfair. He was very young (~1 year and a half) and I feel like I didn't have enough time with him.
At least he stopped suffering. My mother told me: "Even if he survived this, he would've gotten illness after illness, that's not life for a chicken". For a long time, I didn't want to understand that, because the vet had just given him something to boost his immune system and the medicine "simply" hadn't had time to work, etcetera etcetera etcetera... Now I've just accepted that this is how things turned out, and perhaps yes, it was better this way. The convulsion lasted less than a minute, and he died in my arms, where he felt safe and loved.
RIP Anton. I will miss you and love you forever.
I was heartbroken. He was a sweet baby that would climb on my legs, jump on my shoulder, and even preen me. And he was a breed that I had never had before: Plymouth Rock. I felt very upset because I didn't know where he was or how he'd be treated. I had cared for him a lot and I had lost him in a brief moment of carelessness.
My dad thought that I would feel better if I simply got another chick. So he brought me another Plymouth Rock chick who looked a lot like Oreo - but bald, because he came from a farm where chicks were being neglected.
While I knew from the start that he wasn't Oreo, I instantly fell in love with him.
I named him Anton.
Geez, he was such a sweet dude. Even after puberty kicked in, he kept being a sweetheart.
I loved him, and his ladies loved him, too.
He gave them food and never forced them to mate with him. Christ, I knew that one of them had started laying eggs because I saw her squatting in front of him. And he was like: "Oh, ok, if you want to..."
He was also friendly to people.
Here he is near a friend of mine who used to be afraid of roosters:
Anton even got along with Mabel, who ended up being a rooster and renamed to Mabelo.
In fact, Anton helped me keep Mabelo under control when puberty kicked in and he got aggressive. Whenever Mabelo tried to chase someone (either a person or a hen), Anton would peck him in the head, like: "Stop doing that, you moron".
Here they are guarding my door.
Damn, I felt so blessed.
Unfortunately, Anton got sick in October 2021. I went out and he was walking weird. He came to me and fell into my arms. I immediately took him to the vet. At the time, he was diagnosed with encephalitis, and got treatment for that.
Later we'd know that he actually had Marek's disease.
He survived, though. He never walked like a normal chicken again, but he could stand and move around, even run short distances. He couldn't roost, but he made himself comfortable in a nest box. And because he knew that he wouldn't be able to fight to protect his ladies, he put Mabelo in charge of them at some point. I know this because one day, the neighbor's cat came down into my backyard, and Mabelo was the one who tried to fight him, while Anton just took the ladies to a place to hide.
Unfortunately, chickens who survive Marek's often end up immunocompromised, and he got sick a couple times from October 2021 to April 2022.
On April 27th, 2022, I put him in a basket and took him to the vet for the last time. He had been isolating himself, letting Mabelo do all the "rooster job", didn't want to eat. (Note the pale/shrunk comb)
He was diagnosed with wet fowl pox, an illness with high mortality rates, especially in immunocompromised birds. The vet gave him treatment anyway. He taught me how to inject him because I'd have to give him shots for several days.
But as soon as I took him back home, to the place where I'd keep him isolated, he had some sort of convulsion, came to me, and died in my arms.
This is the last picture I took of him.
I cried a lot. (And oddly enough, I got plaques on my throat, too. Wildly somatizing).
It was so, so unfair. He was very young (~1 year and a half) and I feel like I didn't have enough time with him.
At least he stopped suffering. My mother told me: "Even if he survived this, he would've gotten illness after illness, that's not life for a chicken". For a long time, I didn't want to understand that, because the vet had just given him something to boost his immune system and the medicine "simply" hadn't had time to work, etcetera etcetera etcetera... Now I've just accepted that this is how things turned out, and perhaps yes, it was better this way. The convulsion lasted less than a minute, and he died in my arms, where he felt safe and loved.
RIP Anton. I will miss you and love you forever.
The heart can only take so much. 
You are a wonderful care taker of your flock and I can tell from your photos they feel your love. Thanks for sharing your joys and struggles. 
