u/taylormpriest

We had a 2.5yo hen, Nutmeg, who had “slowed down” over the past maybe month. At first, I attributed it to her age and just maturing and not needing to be SO rambunctious. Then about a week ago, I noticed she seemed a little lethargic and not as food driven. On Friday, her comb had become pale and she wasn’t coming for worms. Naturally it was a Friday so our local avian vet wasn’t available until Monday. We kept an extremely close eye on her and fed her separately. We got an appt with the vet first thing Monday morning. She seemed a little better Monday but we kept the vet appt. On our way there, they called to say they were canceling as they were not taking any birds due to avian flu season. We don’t have many options for avian vets in our area so, to say I was upset would be an understatement. We came home, she jumped right out of her travel box and started pecking the grass. I had a glimmer of hope that maybe we had turned the corner on our own. She seemed ok all afternoon, was pecking all around, eating, and even roosting on her driftwood in the run. This morning I didn’t see her in the run so immediately ran to her house and saw she had perished. Looking back at the ring cameras, it seems it happened around 5:50am. I refrigerated her body around 7:30a to take her for a necropsy.

However, all this to say…is it normal for a flock to sort of do their own post-mortem care? We have a mixed flock and 2 of our turkeys (one who we can’t get to leave her nesting box as she’s been trying to become a mom for months) held vigil for 1.5hrs and appeared to try to even cover her with bedding? They didn’t peck her body aggressively but seemed to just lay with her/clean up the bedding around her. Once I took Nutmeg out, Booker went right back to her nesting box and Pepper went to eat breakfast.

We are all a little crushed this morning and feeling defeated. If only I had taken her to the vet sooner we may have avoided this horrible outcome.

Rest in peace, sweet Nutty girl 🩷 we love you and are so sorry to have failed you. Thank you for 2.5 adventurous years.

Edit: disregard pic 6. Must have accidentally clicked a recipe photo through teary eyes.

Meet our sweet girl, Abby! She's a beautiful caramel/latte-colored chocolate with light eyes. We laid our most incredible girl, Paisley, to rest a year ago this month and just mentioning her name or looking at a picture still brings tears to our eyes. She was the richest dark brown and was lean and athletic at 85lbs. She gave us the most incredible nearly 14yrs. We thought we wanted the darkest, biggest girl in the litter (who was projected to come home on the day we laid Paisley to rest in our backyard...) but something pulled us toward the lightest, smallest girl who just melts into her humans and is the shadow to her Portuguese Water Dog sister, Molly. We thank Paisley every minute for bringing us our Abby girl and letting us know it was ok to love a dog again. Oh, by the way, Abby is a solid 17.5lbs at 10 weeks now haha. We grow 'em solid and athletic at our house!

Love following along everyone else's chocolate lab life journeys <3 thanks for helping to fill the void this past year.

My husband and I were out to dinner last evening and, all of a sudden, a white breasted nuthatch fell onto a boxwood next to me. He/she seemed to be in distress. He had a hard time standing up and couldn’t seem to easily take flight. We looked all around, high and low, and didn’t see a nest from where he could have fallen. I took a cloth napkin and tried to nudge him along but he was struggling to move and seemed a little disoriented. Within a minute or two he did take flight but was very erratic. He almost flew into me and then had a low trajectory right toward the road. We aren’t positive but we think a car brushed him or spooked him because he landed under the car parallel parked next to our table. I ran out to make sure he was ok. He was clearly very stunned. No obvious injuries. I ended up picking him up (I know I probably shouldn’t have but he was in imminent danger on the fringe of the road. He didn’t even flinch when I picked him up. He did grip right onto my finger and seemed to fall right asleep. I moved him to an area away from the road under an evergreen bush. Obviously he was on our minds so we went to check on him before we left a couple of hrs later. He hadn’t moved. He was breathing normally though. Fearing for his safety, we decided to take him home and bring him to the wildlife rescue when they open today. We kept him in a tub overnight with hemp bedding. We did offer food (mealworms!) and water but he showed no interest. He simply wanted to sleep. He did seem to perk up for a few seconds on the drive home and flapped his wings to rearrange himself in my hands but that’s pretty much the extent of his activity. This morning we noticed he had barely moved overnight and just wants to sleep. We’ll bring him to the wildlife center today. I’m genuinely concerned but also worried I did more harm than good. Should we have left him under the bush? I truly don’t think he’s a fledgling because he is very well feathered either robust plumage but I’m second guessing everything. Can anyone provide insight? Sorry for the poor quality photos.

Does anybody have an alpha Jenny in a flock of all female turkeys and chickens (we have one tom but he lives in a separate run/house)? They mingle when free ranging only. She has always been a strutter but this morning seems to be trying to gobble. Obviously she can’t gobble in the truest sense of the word but it’s not stopping this girl from trying!