Fondly called "Orange Chicken" |
Jasmine was in triage for couple of days and quietly died on Friday night.
Here's what happened. She was my best layer, 28 out of 30 days a month!!! She started a late molt in December, and then in January just seemed kind of 'off'. Usually she jumps up for the food cup when I enter the coop, she will jump up on my back if I bend over, and she will sit on one of the human 'perches' with me when I'm down there.
But, none of that. I chalked it up to the molt. The girls just don't like to be touched when their 8,000 feathers are falling out because new little pin feathers are poking through.
She was hunched over for a couple of days and not interested in much and was taking herself to bed at 4 pm, way earlier than normal and ahed of the others. I thought she just wanted a preferred spot, which everyone did want - the end of the perch by a window.
I made an appointment with one of the vets in town that handles chickens.
And, on the very morning I was going to take her in, she laid this!*#%!*#!@!!!
The middle 'thing', photo on left.
A bad fingerling potato - ha ha ha!
Scooped it up to take with me, along with some poop incase she was suffering from tapeworm and they could analyze the droppings.
And, on the very morning I was going to take her in, she laid this!*#%!*#!@!!!
The middle 'thing', photo on left.
A bad fingerling potato - ha ha ha!
Scooped it up to take with me, along with some poop incase she was suffering from tapeworm and they could analyze the droppings.
Vet said no worms and thought the egg-y thing was yolk collection.
She seemed better for a few days. I treated her with my favorite 1-2 punch, goldenseal and echinacea in a tea and eye-dropper in her mouth for a couple of days but didn't continue.
Several days later, the same withdrawn behavior repeated. And, she had diarrhea. Brought her up to the house when we came back from looking in Ashland, Oregon, for our new home on Wednesday.
Did lots of googling and ran across the info on the 'egg' she laid, which is nicknamed "lash egg" and isn't an egg at all !!!!!!
It's a collection of [usually] pus from an infection that gets into the oviduct and excreted like an egg. Oh no...a sign of a larger problem and the term for the condition is salpingitis. A viral or bacterial infection which can maybe be handled by antibiotics if it is bacterial and caught in time. But, I didn't know in time: my antibiotic tea of oregano, goldenseal, cinnamon, with electrolytes just too little too late and I couldn't save her.
She ate well on Friday morning and drank my herb tea, but then didn't want anything else the rest of the day and she was ok sitting and sleeping in my lap. But, I think her organs were just slowing shutting down. Yes, I have tears in my eyes now because I hate to see how fast she went downhill and how powerless I am to help.
I don't know if, had the vet known this, that antibiotics would have worked 3 weeks ago. He didn't even know this condition. Dare I say that I wonder how chicken-knowledgable he is??
Chickens are really good at hiding a lot of problems and, drat if they could only talk and tell us what was going on, they'd get medical treatment from their flock owners right away!!!
I haven't observed any major shifts in power yet. Fearless has kinda stepped into the top spot when Curious died. Jasmine was leader of the New Girls and challenged by Kiwi, one of the small Buttercups.
It remains to play out what the new pecking order will be.
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