Last Friday we had to have Rusty put to sleep. She was our favourite chicken, and our lives have a Rusty-shaped hole in that won't be easy to fill. Rusty came to us in February 2019, rehomed by the British Hen Welfare Trust, along with Beaky (who we lost in the summer), and Bessie, who has now lost both of her best pals in the same year and is looking a bit forlorn. The three of them had spent their first 18 months in cages, and Rusty was tiny and lacking many feathers. At the time, I wrote that she was our smallest and quietest chicken, and this was a phrase that followed her through life - while she remained the smallest, she soon found her voice, and was often found in our front porch shouting to be let in. Rusty was the bottom of the pecking order for a long time (until we got our new chickens last year). It didn't bother her though - she was opportunistic in her search for food, quickest to treats, and was often found wandering off in search of adventure. She was the only chicken to have ever wandered as far as the end of the drive, and we found her in the neighbour's garden, having hopped inside his house. We were driving past on the way home, and so we scooped her up, and she rode down the driveway balanced on a knee, flapping and wobbling about. Rusty was a great fan of jumping on things. She was always jumping onto tables, and visitors, in search of a treat, and no laptop or piece of furniture was safe. Once, we heard a great clatter and dashed to the kitchen, only to find Rusty on the draining board, and crockery all over the floor. Rusty invented what we would come to refer to as the Chicken Lift. She would hop onto your knee, then make such a big deal about getting off again that we started stretching a leg out and lowering it slowly so she could walk down. Eventually, she would jump onto a foot if you had your legs crossed, then wait for you to raise your leg so she could walk up. She was a pretty chicken, and in her later life developed a fine white collar of feathers. Rusty was pretty healthy through her life with us, although she did have a bout of egg yolk peritonitis about a year ago, which led to her having a hormonal implant to stop her producing any more eggs. This made her slightly quieter for a while, and her fine red comb shrank, but she was still herself, and I'm so grateful to have found a vet who knew how to do this. We had it replaced when it wore off earlier in the summer. We're still not entirely sure what went wrong. She seemed a little quiet and off her food - always a bad sign in a chicken. We took her to the vets, but her heart, lungs and everything seemed fine. She had a lump inside her back end for a while, but it didn't seem much bigger. She had a blood test, which showed very slightly increased levels of uric acid, but that might just have been because she wasn't eating properly. She had steroids to increase her appetite, and anti inflammatories in case anything was causing her pain, and a week later nothing much seemed to have changed. The next day though, her crop had gone squishy, and her breath smelled - a sign of sour crop. It was the weekend, and too late to get to the vets, but they prescribed antibiotics over the phone, and we made an appointment for Monday. They flushed her crop, and gave her Critical Care to top up her nutrition and fluid, and took a scrape of her crop. We carried on the antibiotics, and the scrape showed no sign of a fungal infection, meaning it might not have been sour crop at all. Four days later, she'd made no improvement. Her crop still hadn't emptied, and she still hadn't eaten anything new. She'd lost quite a bit of weight in four days, and the vet thought her lump had increased in size, although we'll never know if that was the case because she hadn't felt it herself before. She was looking very poorly by this point, and it was clear there was a blockage somewhere in her digestive system. We could have had a scan, but it was unlikely she'd survive any surgery anyway, and so we had to make the difficult choice to put her to sleep. We are distraught, and Bessie is sad. Rusty was everyone's favourite chicken - she was friendly and curious, and the most likely to sit on a visitor's knee or try to steal a sandwich. She charmed everyone, including us. Her and Bessie were inseparable, and Bessie always made a little cheerful noise when they both got on a knee together - I've not heard that noise from her all week. We seriously considered whether to stop keeping chickens. We adore them, but we are a complete pair of softies and we get so sad when they die. We decided in the end that it would be too sad not to have them, and, as our remaining three look a bit lost on their own, we have booked to take in another three rescues next weekend. We are gluttons for punishment, always.
So rest in peace little Rusty-o. As always, I'm glad you got to spend more time with us than in a cage. We will remember your mischief, your little noises in the porch, the way you would sit on a knee and stare searchingly at us. Bessie will miss you too. You've earned your spot in the memorial windbreak, and we'll always set aside an extra grape for you.
2 Comments
October was not really much fun around here. The builders were here all month (and still are), I have been back and forth to work, and we have had two poorly chickens - and lost poor Rusty at the start of November (I'll do a separate memorial post about her, she was a special little character). Progress was made though, and I hope by the end of November things will be even more exciting! The building work To start with - the building work. Lots of progress was made in October! The plastering was finished both upstairs and down, and the upstairs lights were switched on. Very exciting! We are delighted with our curved corners on some of the downstairs windows. The radiators were all attached, and after replacing the thermostat, the heating was switched on. Can't tell you how exciting it is to have a warm house at the twirl of a dial. The plaster dried out enough upstairs for me to paint a first coat on some of the walls, before the radiators were put on. We're going for a sunshiney orange, to try and make us feel more cosy over the winter. We also retrieved the sink from the garage and cleaned it up. It's one we found in a skip, but there's nothing wrong with it, and now it's almost as shiny as new. It's a bit sad looking back at these pictures of Rusty chicken, knowing she only had another couple of weeks with us. Chickens After an uneventful September, we had a flurry of chicken activity in October, with both Bonny and Rusty not being very well. Bonny was laying soft shelled eggs, and was given antibiotics - she seemed fine at her check up, but we're still keeping an eye on her. Rusty's ailments were more elusive - she had steroids and anti-inflammatories, and then we thought she might have sour crop, so she had her crop flushed, and antibiotics, but eventually whatever was going on (possibly a tumour blocking part of her digestive system, we think) got too much. At the end of October though, we were still holding out hope. Outside Outside was sorely neglected in October. I did a little more scything, but overall have done nowhere near as much as I wanted to this year. Of course, all the grass is soggy and flattened now, so isn't ideal at all for cutting, but I might plough on throughout the winter when there's an occasional sunny day. I've harvested barely anything from the garden this year. A few tomatoes, a couple of patty pan squash, and three apples, which were technically windfalls and too bruised to eat. Between work, multiple vet trips, and a constant merry-go-round of builders, October felt quite overwhelming and I'm not surprised that nothing much else got done really. I feel a bit like I'm making excuses, but it's tiring having people working in your house all the time - and it's been pretty much every day for over two months now. There are constant decisions to make, issues to raise, problems to solve, and on top of everything else it's wearing me a bit thin.
Still, we are hurtling towards the end now, and maybe November's update will show considerable improvement... |
Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
All
Archives
February 2024
|