And then there were 8...

Warning, not a happy chicken blog post.  If you get sniffly easily, go get tissues before you read on.

In a previous post, I wondered when I would be considered a true urban farmer.  I think I have the definition now.  If you're home alone and one of the critters acts sick and you spend half the night scrunched under the coop (in Child's Pose, if you understand yoga), dripping water down a chicken's beak and the other half scouring the Internet for the poultry version of WebMD, you're an urban farmer.

It all went down last Friday.  I let the "kids" out of the coop before work and everything was fine.  It was a hot day, but not too bad (we haven't hit the "it's so freakin' humid you can drink the air" days yet) and they had plenty of water.  By the time I got home from work that afternoon, things were different.  Tweetie was scrunched under the back, lying beak down in the dirt and panting heavily.

Shit.

I ran into the house and started digging through all the chicken books I've bought over the years.  None of 'em had any sort of diagnostic section, so I did what any 21st century chicken owner did.  I posted an SOS on Facebook.  My chicken owning friends leaped into action, suggesting that she might be eggbound (not at 2 months) or overheated.  Ok, I'll buy that one.  There was a steady breeze coming off the river, so I didn't have to drag out a fan.  She was relatively near the water but I thought she might be too weak to get to it so I grabbed a water bottle and crawled under the coop.  The Internet suggested squirting water down her with a syringe but I don't keep those things around so I poured a little water into my hand, held it up to her beak and gently poured it down her as she swallowed.  I bounced between the Internet and under the coop for hours and she seemed to be ok after a while so I got the other chicks into the coop.

New problem - how to get a huge, sick chicken out from under the coop.  I sure as heck wasn't going to leave her under there, not with raccoons and wandering neighbor dogs and who knows what else.  There were a couple of long plastic baskets that I'd put under the roosts to serve as "litter boxes" (which they never use) so I put extra bedding in there, gently lifted Tweetie into the basket and dragged her out as I crawled backwards, still in Child's Pose, out from under the coop.  I got her tucked in, so to speak, and went to bed.

I ran back out to the coop the next morning and she was gone.  The other chicks were standing in a clump, watching her from about a foot away.  She reminded me of a rubber chicken, except for feathers.  Her feet were straight out behind her, like a rubber chicken. 

Cra-aaaap.

I don't do well with dead things.  If there's a dead mouse in the house, I go get Bud, my husband.  Unfortunately, he and the boys were out of state on a dirtbike riding trip and wouldn't be back until the next day and there was no way I was leaving a dead chicken in the coop.  I got my gloves on, pulled out the plastic "gurney", picked her up, put her in the gurney and set her in the shed. 

Double cra-aaap.

We had a funeral the next afternoon, after the guys came home.  The kids cried, and I cried seeing them cry.  But this is farming gang, it's not all cute boots and tomatoes that cooperate.  Ever since, I've been trying to figure out what happened.  My chicken friends say sometimes it just happens, and Bud and my mother in law had been saying something wasn't right about Tweetie because she didn't run around and play like the others.  The Silkies and other Orps are just fine.  The feed wasn't contaminated, they didn't get too hot, they had water, no signs of disease or injury.  It apparently was just one of those things.

It still sucks though.  Farewell Tweetie, you were a good bird.