The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

That's not too bad of a report about Finn's eye problems. They do CATaract surgery on felines too, but I'm not sure what the cost is.

That would be in the thousands, Cheryl, sadly, not possible for us to consider. Who knew cats got CATaracts?

 

[speckledhen]

Honestly, some folks just want to argue with me about chicken disease. I get it here and I get it on my YouTube videos at times. They think they can look up symptoms and determine for themselves if something is contagious by symptoms alone. There are just too many respiratory illnesses that have very similar symptoms to be able to do that, plus add in the emotion factor (they don't want it to be contagious, maybe it's just a "cold", can't be something serious, right?) and it's not likely to be the right layman's diagnosis. Sigh. God forbid I put up a video on how to cull a chick! They think I'm the Ripper or something for even suggesting it. They'd rather let a chick with its intestines on the outside die slowly than end its tiny life quickly. Good grief.

 

[getaclue]

Euthanasia is a sad, but necessary part of responsible animal ownership. It's sad that some are not willing to be as responsible as they should be.

 

[seminolewind]

It's a very long story. When I first "met" her, they lived in Oregon, then moved to Kentucky. Her husband was a younger man by a few years, a disabled veteran with severe PTSD issues that became increasingly abusive. I tried to get her to leave him and come live with me because it was becoming obvious that he would be physically abusing her soon, not just verbally, but she was obstinate about giving up on her marriage. Eventually, her health declined and her heart was compromised, she was severely hyperthyroid, etc. The straw that broke the camel's back was him pushing her down the stairs and breaking her hip. She never fully recovered. By then, her daughter had been kicked out, her chickens were farmed out to others, she returned her Arabian mare to our friend, Beth, in NC where she came from-everything she had other that him was gone, as I told her it would be. There was other horrific things he did, including having a fit and shooting into the chicken coop, hitting and killing Isaac's son I gave her, a rooster she adored beyond words. That rooster once got between her and a snarling pitbull that wandered onto their land. After that, I said he was never welcome to set foot on my property ever again. I had visited them in KY once and they visited here once and she did with Cheyenne a couple of times as well so I saw things go downhill with her husband over all those years, become progressively dangerous.
She eventually left her husband and moved to Wisconsin with her daughter, but it was too little, too late. By then, her heart was only at 20% capacity, and I only rarely heard from her. Previously, we had talked about an hour a day by phone. That man tortured her by telephone until her daughter bought her a new one and he didn't have the number, but the stress was too much. She called me one week a few months ago to tell me that her elderly neighbor in Kentucky, a sweet lady who I'd gifted many chickens in the past, had died. The next week, I got a call from Cheyenne about her mother passing away, said she fell and hit her head in the bathroom, but I think her heart gave out, causing her to fall, not the other way around. She was 7 years younger than me. So, my dear sweet friend is gone and I still can't believe it. I want to tell her things all the time, stories of the chickens she loved here. There is a lot more to the story, of course, and I think if she'd left him five years ago, she might still be alive today. Stress is truly a killer and I can't imagine enduring the stress that she did.

I knew you guys were tight, I always loved seeing pictures of Cheyenne. Sorry you lost your friend, and sorry she had a rotten life beforehand.

 

[seminolewind]

Honestly, some folks just want to argue with me about chicken disease. I get it here and I get it on my YouTube videos at times. They think they can look up symptoms and determine for themselves if something is contagious by symptoms alone. There are just too many respiratory illnesses that have very similar symptoms to be able to do that, plus add in the emotion factor (they don't want it to be contagious, maybe it's just a "cold", can't be something serious, right?) and it's not likely to be the right layman's diagnosis. Sigh. God forbid I put up a video on how to cull a chick! They think I'm the Ripper or something for even suggesting it. They'd rather let a chick with its intestines on the outside die slowly than end its tiny life quickly. Good grief.

I know what you mean. I had a horsie friend who would ask me questions to have me answer so she could argue herself being right. Down to whether or not we (disagreed) with a speaker. I had to leave that friendship.

 

[speckledhen]

I know what you mean. I had a horsie friend who would ask me questions to have me answer so she could argue herself being right. Down to whether or not we (disagreed) with a speaker. I had to leave that friendship.

Seems some just love to argue. I couldn't stand being friends with someone like that. I'm going to upload a video tonight, something like "Can You Handle the Truth? Harsh Realities of Chicken Keeping". Some just can't see that by being "kind" to one chicken, you're endangering a number of others. I'm the worst for doing the deed, can't stand it, literally hate it, but we can't always avoid it.

 

[seminolewind]

I know you SpeckledHen. I know you're the type of person to replies to someone and you always say or infer that it's your opinion or even best guess. How the heck do you argue against that ?

I always feel if they ask for my and others' opinions, they get my opinion, what they do with the info is beyond me, and I don't discount others replies.

 

[seminolewind]

I had a crazy month, July. My DH got Covid and got taken to the hospital twice with symptoms that may or not be from Covid. I tested myself + and got a terrible head cold and a cough, but for a few days.

I had severe stomach pains for several months but it got more painful. They were like episodes. So I go to a Gastro Doc that I have to wait 3 weeks for an appt. and he wants me to schedule for a Colonoscopy and another scope into my stomach. The appt. was cancelled due to my + Covid status. Another appt. was made and they cancelled it due to Covid being + so recently. So now they will reschedule for October!!! You don't see me sad!!!!

So being months of nothing done , I went to the ER of a big hospital. Well, they admitted me and every test under the sun to dx this pain. Finally a surgeon came and told me that I had gall stones that may have been getting stuck in the bile ducts and backing back into the gall bladder. This is causing Spasms!!! Sometimes I had them all day , with spasms up to the 9's. So he gave me antibiotics and wants to see me again to discuss surgery.

My cancer markers have been going up but my PET scan shows no changes. What a relief.

My poor oldest chicken died, a Houdan I called Psycho because she always wanted to be picked up and then Peck me. Weeks before her death, I found her purple and and making funny noise and gasping. I picked her up and held her until she turned pink. Then I filled a bucket with lukewarm water and held her in the water thinking she may be overheated.

Well being a few weeks later, I found her dead. She was my oldest chicken, about 7/8 years old. So there was my good cry. I know she knows how well I cared for her.


Now a question. I have a Polish girl who has lump in her crop that won't go away. I've tried oil saturated bread with a bit of milk X 2 days, now super wet mush for 2 days now and crop messages. Overnight, the lump is still there!!!
So what is my next step??? (no I'm not waiting to argue, LOL

 

[speckledhen]

I'm sorry about Psycho. I know how it is, even the most difficult ones, you really hate to lose. I was like that with the Tiny Terrorist. I really thought she could live to be twenty.

As far as your girl's crop lump, my last Delaware hen, Georgie, was 12 years old when she died. She survived a stroke, slowly recovered to live two more years, but at the end, she had a lump in the crop that palpated as sort of fibrous and attached somehow in there. I figured out that she had developed a crop tumor. So, Georgie-girl always had a lump in her crop and it didn't seem to interfere with her eating much or the crop emptying. Could be that, of course, Karen, but I've also had Brahmas with very stubborn crops. I had some success with a concoction of lemon juice and a pinch of baking soda plus cinnamon and a couple other spices I can't recall. I got it off a parrot site of some kind. You syringe that into her and it seems to dissolve whatever is impacted in there within a day or two, as long as it's not a tumor, of course. Anything acidic like tomato juice is supposed to help with that. An NPIP tester for GA told me that tomato juice is good for impacted crops. Actually, he is the breeder of the Marvin Stukel Barred Rocks from which he sent me eggs about ten years ago. He's been breeding almost as long as I've been alive so I take what he tells me to the bank. I haven't heard from him in a few years. He's Pine Grove on BYC, but I don't believe he's been active for a long time now.

 

[getaclue]

I'm sorry to hear about Psycho. You've mentioned Psycho fondly in some of your posts.