About a month ago, I lost my two buff polish hens. The rooster is a gold polish, and he's still fine. One hen got injured in the pen with the rest of them. Her leg was shattered, above the knee, up against her body. There was no way I could splint it, and she wasn't having the sling either. After a trip to the vet I realized that repairing her leg was going to be almost impossible. It would heal, and she would walk again... but with a VERY serious lameness, and the bones would be seriously mis-shapen. So we had to put her down. I was pretty devastated, and I actually posted something about the loss in the emergency/illness/disease forum. I admit I was crying when I was typing, too! My buff polish were my babies. Their limited vision actually made them super-friendly to me, and they would always come running when called, and stand by my feet (also known as ON my feet) when I was outside for "protection".
The other one was moved out of the main pen immediately after this issue, and put into the breeding pen for her own safety, away from the bigger ones. Unfortunately, that night a raccoon managed to reach into the pen and killed her. He didn't get her body out (it was too big to get through the fence), but his little hands got in and the damage was done. The raccoon coincidentally ended up in the live trap a couple of days later, and someone stopping by to purchase chicks took him home, killed him, and put him in her freezer.
Unlike many of my other chickens who have passed for whatever reason, I didn't have any offspring from the buff polish hens to keep around. And they were my favorites so I DEFINITELY want more! I've just never seen tollies (as I call them) that were so BEAUTIFUL!
