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TexasMadness Profile
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Registered: 03-2007
Location: Austin, Texas
Posts: 3972
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Olympia the hen died on Saturday


What a day that was. It was 9:30 and I needed to leave the house at 9:45 to get to the airport on time for my flight. I had everything ready. I just needed to go out to the coop to dump some kitchen scrapes and check my email one last time, send you guys a note and turn the computer off. Plenty of time for all of that...or so I thought.

I went to the coop and saw Olympia hunkered in the corner. Uh oh. I knew it was bad. I've never had my own chickens before and I haven't had any problems with this bunch yet, so this was my first experience. But I've read a lot of books so I was kinda prepared. I picked her up and felt her abdomen. Yep, there was an egg in there...and it was sideways. Not good. So I knew she was egg bound and I had read how to take care of it but I didn't have time for a long procedure. I tried to coax the egg out but it was REALLY stuck and there didn't seem to be any turning it the right way around. Her abdomen was really swollen and it was hard to tell what was happening.

I tried another method that I had read about - put the hen in hot water to relax the muscles and the egg just pops right out in a few minutes. Ten minutes later, there was still no egg. I tried coaxing the egg out again. I could never see or feel the egg through her vent. The egg seemed to be really low (compared to pictures of chicken anatomy I've seen). She kept expressing a thick white liquid from her vent. The time to leave had passed and I panicked. I had no idea what to do. I knew Olympia would die if I did nothing and the woman taking care of the chickens has never been around them before so I couldn't rely on her for help. I'm a big wuss when it comes to killing animals. If I had the time to prepare myself, I might have been able to do it. But I also didn't feel like it was worth it since I hadn't "tried everything" yet - but I simply didn't have the time.

So I made the decision to drop her off at the bird vet just blocks from my house. I was disappointed that I hadn't been able to handle my first homesteading emergency, but the circumstances simply didn't allow it. I gave the vet my mother's phone number and my permission for her to make the decisions.

By the time I landed in New Orleans a few hours later, the vet had euthanized Olympia. She had a massive infection - that's what the swelling was. The vet was worried it might be contagious, so she ran a whole bunch of tests. Everything came back negative. I guess it was worth taking her since if she had died at home, I wouldn't have had her tested for anything and it could have been something that would have killed more in the flock. The vet just went a bit overboard with treatment - oxygen, x-rays, etc - to the tune of $400. I need to find a real farm vet, but I haven't found one in the area.

So that's $1100 on animals this week. Yikes.
3/11/2008, 11:40 pm Link to this post Send Email to TexasMadness   Send PM to TexasMadness
 
Saijen SilverWolf Profile
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Registered: 10-2004
Location: Upper North East Tennessee
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Re: Olympia the hen died on Saturday


Oh my Texas...I'm soo sorry!!!! emoticon

What a predicament to be in. Bless your heart! At least it was nothing contagious, so the rest of your birds are OK.

---
Blessed Be,
~*~ Saijen ~*~

~~*~~ .~~*~~
3/12/2008, 3:24 pm Link to this post Send Email to Saijen SilverWolf   Send PM to Saijen SilverWolf Yahoo
 
RantingHobbit Profile
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try to think big scheme


Not to piss on your parade, but if the hen was supposed to be a breeder, maybe in the big scheme of things it's best she isn't. I get a lot of flack once in a while for a hands off approach to livestock. It won't help with the sense of loss now, but next year when another hen that wasn't your favorite is leading a clutch of chicks around the yard you might feel a bit better for it.

We just lost another ram to the rut. Once in a while the young ones won't listen to the alpha and his discipline can be harsh. In the long run, the stronger genes survive and it fattens the pigs.
3/12/2008, 7:33 pm Link to this post Send Email to RantingHobbit   Send PM to RantingHobbit
 
TexasMadness Profile
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Re: Olympia the hen died on Saturday


It's definitely best that she's not in the flock anymore. I most likely would have had to kill her or she would have died if I had not been going on the trip. This was a chicken who developed a severe limp at 2 months old that lasted for almost 2 months but mostly got over it (still limped a bit...thus the name O-limp-ia). I had considered culling her back then but I didn't think there was anything really wrong with her. Once she starting scratching in the yard with the other hens, I figured that it must have just been a leg sprain and that was it.

The vet said she also had a heart murmur which is highly unusual for chickens. In all likely hood, there was something genetically wrong with her. It just sucks the way it happened with me not being able to handle it on my own. I'm more upset about that then the fact that she was put down. And a farm vet would have probably just squeezed around and told me it was best to cull her instead of doing x-rays and putting her on oxygen.

I can see spending $50 or maybe even $100 on one of my more favorite hens if it would save her life and she would be completely normal again. But not for a hen like Olympia who would likely have problems for the rest of her life.

3/12/2008, 8:21 pm Link to this post Send Email to TexasMadness   Send PM to TexasMadness
 


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