Well I figured I'd better get a few things down since I'll be leaving for Grand Marais on Thursday and will likely be quite shattered for several days after the workshop. Very excited that G surprised me with the gift of a new camera body-a D7000. If only I could upgrade my sore shoulders too...It's been a tough winter already on the bod!
It was a busy and VERY COLD week, with five inches of snow dumped one night. I tried my best to save the little banty, but now I know why it was a losing battle. I got the preliminary results from the pathology lab at the university:
A 310 gram bantam chicken (hen) is submitted for necropsy. The abdomen is enlarged and contains 2.5 ml clear fluid. The ovary is firm and irregular, being largely replaced by a 2.5 x 2.5 x 2 cm. white to yellow mass with two attached yolks (2.0 cm diameter ) each. The small intestines are slightly adhered and the mesentery is white to grey, nodular and firm. The caudal pole of the left kidney is replaced by a 1.5 cm diameter round, white mass with yellow caseonecrotic center. Feed is in the crop and gizzard. No other gross lesions are noted.
Preliminary diagnosis: carcinomatosis- suspect ovarian carcinoma with abdominal dissemination. Lymphoma or chronic, sclerosing peritonitis remain possibilities pending histopathology. Ovarian carcinoma is not a transmissible condition, but is a common cause of death of aged hens. Additional results will be reported when complete.
So now we know. It puts my mind at ease for sure. There was nothing to be done, I was only trying to manage symptoms and keep her comfortable, and there was certainly no recovering from such a thing. A little puzzling though since she wasn't even two years old.
Petunia our bantam white rock hen (one of our originals!) was puffed up and looking unwell on Thursday night, and then again on Friday morning before I left for TRC. She was still looking 'not herself' when I got home, so I quickly washed and bleached little banty's hospital cage and prepared it for our next patient. Her crop was huge and too firm. I could only assume dehydration as a symptom (or cause) of her odd behaviour, and left her in the computer room while I finished the evening chores. Late that evening I was so wiped out I could only manage to make a bagel and salad for dinner, and Petunia sat beside me on an old bed sheet while I watched some tv. She hasn't spent a lot of time in the house over the years, but her tameness and how much she knows me certainly shows. She'll be five years old this spring! What a friendly and easily tamed breed. One day I'll have a whole flock...
I felt an egg-shaped mass in her abdomen, and thought it was a displaced egg that was stuck. She could barely defecate, so that was also why I was considering egg binding along with dehydration as a reason for her to be 'off'. The next day despite oral fluids I gave her she could barely manage a bm, but by the afternoon I realized that the rock hard mass had not moved, but she was starting to move something through, so I assumed that her gizzard was just full and impacted, just like her crop, and that's what I was feeling. Most of the time when an egg is where it's supposed to be you can definitely feel it, centrally, and the hen will be pumping her tail and appear to be straining as well. Petunia's sister Marigold was eggbound on the very first egg she laid. After a short but great life in Victoria she died one night in our kitchen, the typical way. I was alone and G was travelling. Why is it always like that????
: ( My vet back home predicted that she died from some sort of reproductive 'event', given her history. I didn't do a necropsy. She's buried under the cedar tree in our backyard, and I planted snowdrops over her grave. White and pretty like she was. Miss those Vancouver Island flowers!!
I brought Petunia to my vet friend Saturday night just as G was on his way back from Vancouver. Fern and Tulip also joined me, for some check ups and blood work. Petunia was indeed dehydrated, her blood was dark and sludgy. No egg seen on xray though, but a very full gizzard. Whenever I'm transporting chickens from place to place I wonder what the cops would think if they happened to pull me over for something...'Don't mind me, I'm just out for a drive with my chickens' ; ) Don't get all judgy now...
I haven't been writing much since I've had some severe pain in my right hand. I had an xray done the other day, had the joints adjusted by my chiropractor, and some ultrasound. He's wondering if I have some nerve compression damage. The funny part is that he still tells me to rest it, and not use my hand. Taping, I can understand, but he knows what I do here for the most part. So I certainly just can't park myself in front of the tv for a week while I heal.
I feel a little better today, despite shovelling about two feet of snow off the deck, along with the regular chores. I hope it won't flare up in time for my photography workshop this weekend. Good timing though that I will skip my TRC shift, because I had a very fractious great horned owl to restrain and she was enormous...almost 2kg. It did hurt--and my right hand is the hand that restrains those incredibly strong feet, so for my safety along with the vet and the bird itself, if my hand is weak I would not be a reliable or safe handler.
Tuesday:
We've had a few gorgeous days here--it was -17C this morning with very little wind, sunny and bright, and I end up overheating much too easily during morning chores! Can't complain. It just sounds so cheery out there, a pair of nuthatches nyeeping at each other constantly, the black-capped chickadees chirping incessantly, and the occasional shy cardinal. It sounds rather like a Disney movie set in winter, if you get my meaning. We had 14 ring-necked pheasants in the back yard recently-quite a sight.
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| The horses don't mind the snow : ) I just have to melt the ice off of their eyelashes as it forms. |
G is busy planning for spring as more and more seed catalogues arrive in the mail. Even though this is our third winter here in Minnesota he really hasn't adjusted to the seasons so well. There will be no cherry blossoms in February like there are in Victoria, there will be no crocus, snowdrop, Siberian squill, fawn chocolate lilies like at some of my favourite parks on the Saanich Peninsula.
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| Shooting stars, Horth Hill, N Saanich. copyright ME! This one made it into an online newspaper in Sidney. |
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| The Saanich Peninsula, from the top of Bear Hill. |
I sometimes wonder whether we will end up moving back home before I find those type of magical places here...It would be a shame, really. I'd meant to join a local Audubon chapter (a great way to get involved with field trips and meet like minded folks), but driving into St. Paul in the evening just isn't something I have been that motivated to do when we have all of this on our farm. I joined the herp society, but the meetings are all on Friday nights-a rather sacred time to be with G! I'll figure it out someday....What I'm really craving is to get out on the water. The St. Croix river is gorgeous, and I have still never kayaked it.
But back to farm planning for the coming year. We agreed that we wouldn't be adding any more members to our (feathered) flock. We've had huge additions pretty much continuously since moving here, but I think we need time to settle in and enjoy. I want time to work with the horses and sheep, and for some art, photography and yarn projects. We had a credit from the Sandhill Preservation Society http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/ when we cancelled our order for Chantecler and Dorking eggs (we ended up raising our own 'barnyard mix' of Wedge's offspring of course). So the owner has agreed to let us use the credit towards seeds instead, which works out just fine apparently since his breeding stock took a huge hit after being attacked by some sort of gnat (awful beasts that bite Oakley's ears and make them bleed--which is why I never ever shave his ears even in the summer).
Almost every night I find G looking on Craigslist for tractors, manure spreaders, and small-scale haying equipment. We talk about fertilizer, yield, plant types, fencing, rotational grazing. We have decisions to make and money to put aside, and the more we plan ahead, the more successful we'll be. What's feasible for this size farm equipment wise? How much hay can we really produce on our own to cut down on the expense of buying it? I really don't like imposing on our wonderful neighbours to help with haying. As it was we lost two thirds of our second cut since we had to wait until he baled his own fields, then came late to do ours, and the rain came down in torrents...Not his fault, but our loss.
Funny how our lives have changed, and how much we've learned. It's been a ride, alright.
There won't be any seed planting for a good while! Sorry G....Just keep on dreaming as you always do. In the meantime, this is pretty gorgeous, isn't it?
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