Our first farm Christmas didn't start out too well. On Tuesday, Nathan went outside again after morning chores and called me right away in a tone that I could tell meant nothing good... Skyler (our white Ameraucana) had flown over the fence into our neighbour's yard and been half eaten by their dog. It was pretty awful to see her like that, and to know that she died that way.
We both felt so sad that it had happened but we said "at least it wasn't one of our four older girls". The 4 oldies (Dorothy, Denise, Speckles and Mother Clucker) have a special place with us since we got them from a not-so-nice living situation and they're the most friendly, personable chickens on the farm. I guess we spoke too soon :( The next afternoon, we went outside with some compost and noticed Denise hiding under the porch of the coop gasping for air. We thought she must be choking on some of the bread that was in the compost, but after trying everything we could think of (gave her some oil, apple cider vinegar, emptied her crop, looked down her throat) we realized there was something more going on. We separated her from the other girls but it wasn't looking good at all... by the morning she was barely responsive and she had died a few hours later. I tried to do a necropsy, mostly to check her throat and to see whether she'd had gape worms (they live in the trachea). I would have felt even worse than I already did if she had died from choking or from treatable worms. Her trachea and esophagus were both completely clear and healthy looking and her crop was empty other than some grass.
We gave those chickens a really good life. Even though they're 'just chickens' it's hard to see our layers go...we get so much entertainment from watching their antics around the farm every day.
The rest of our Christmas was lovely! My family came to visit and we had a campfire out in the sun.
And this happened:
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