We lost Blackbird (formerly known as Scruffy Butt) last night. She'd not been doing well for two days. Lethargic, didn't want treats, wouldn't eat or drink last night. We'd hoped she'd get better since until last night she'd still been roosting with the others, but she didn't. We're not really sure what was wrong with her. She had no wounds or bites, the others hadn't been picking on her or acting abnormally around her. After some searching on Backyard Chickens our best idea was she was either egg bound or had some kind of infection.
There wasn't much we could do. I gave her a couple warm baths and massages to try and help if she was egg bound like was suggested, but she hadn't been leaking nor did her abdomen feel like there was a hard lump in it (described symptoms of egg binding) so I don't know that it did anything helpful. She kept making these sad "I don't feel good" noises, and I just didn't know what I could do. I feel like we did something wrong but I know it's just the way it happens sometimes. A friend said Lorpys are like that. They don't show they don't feel good until they're ready to drop. Since we have no car currently we couldn't take her anywhere, if there even is a vet that sees chickens in the vicinity. It's hard enough to find a vet that takes more then the usual pets, let alone in a small town. We did the best we're able. She fell asleep in the lower nest box last night and apparently never woke up. Poor girl. It's just Mal and Elphie out of the Lorpys now. Seven left total.
I chose Blackbird as a Lorpy name as more of a Glee reference, not because I'm a particular Beatles fan. She was always the one getting in trouble first. Running around the front, breaking away from the others to make it harder to supervise them all, trying to hog all the food. It's how I noticed she wasn't well, she never spent that much time just chillaxing.
Expectedly, our egg production is way down now, with three eggs being a really good day. It was starting to seem like the Lorpys were carrying most of the laying duties, and now with only two left it's looking like we'll have to be getting some new chicks this year if we can afford them. It will be a bigger challenge then the last two times, since now we don't have the same amount of room to keep them indoors and separate until they're old enough to be outside as we did before.
It's pretty certain we won't be getting Lorpys again. We don't really understand why they're the only ones we've had problems with. They've lived in the same coop, with the same conditions and feed as the Americaunas but they're the ones having issues despite being the younger group. Course I'm sure the Americaunas will start having their own problems eventually, they're getting on in years. Not sure what breed we'll go with, we'll have to do some research. TMU is thinking just more Americaunas, but I'm hoping for variety. I like having different colored eggs from different groups, and heaven help me if we do get Americaunas again and I wind up with more lookalikes. The Lorpys were bad enough!
We found a website that sells fertilized unhatched eggs. TMU was interested in giving that a try, but it requires more equipment then chicks do. A friend just has one of her hens be the hatch momma, but not knowing how well any of ours would do at that I don't know we want to risk it and waste the eggs if they don't do well with them. Also found a site through Pinterest to help with techniques to raise chicks to be more cuddly. Our girls are sorta friendly and tolerate us but they're not exactly snugly, even the Lorpys, which are supposed to be a more affectionate breed.
In the meantime we're continuing to perfect our chicken stuff as much as we can. I've built a new extension pen just for Bertha that I'll make a post on next. We've got a new plan for feeding them that hopefully stops them from throwing food everywhere once we get them - can you believe it took me this long to think of using pet food dispensers?? Pinterest always has plenty of ideas for treats and toys and tricking out nests to have as happy a coop as possible. Hopefully it will be awhile before we have more health problems.
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| Taken the first day she was sick. |
Life goes on.
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