On 26th October 2013 I went to the BHWT (British Hen Welfare Trust) rehoming day in Haslingden to get 3 hens, I came home with five: Rosie, Heidi, Lily, Lucy and Blossom. These were the girls who didn’t have names for a while. As I couldn’t decide what suited them, initially I called them according to their physical attributes so Rosie started her first few days of freedom being called ‘Floppy comb lumpy eye’. Not pretty I admit, but it was accurate.
Rosie was always quite a shy hen and never really liked being picked up. She was the hen you would have to spend ages trying to get back in the run when all the others had been away for ages. My best friend and her children were hen sitting for me once and had a great time being out run and outwitted by Rosie who did not want to go back in from the garden; from then on, she became fondly known as ‘Rosie the naughty chicken’.
Rosie feathered up beautifully and the lump above her eye more or less disappeared leaving just a tiny bump which was barely noticeable – if you were ever allowed to get that close that is! I’m probably biased but Rosie was always a gorgeous hen with beautiful markings on her feathers. She always looked absolutely stunning when her new feathers grew in after a moult. Her best friend was Lily, one of the hens she was rescued with and they stuck together in the run and in the garden. Rosie always seemed to mind her own business, spending her time with Lily and just getting on with life. Lily died on 28th May 2015 after being with us for just over a year and a half and Rosie had lost her best friend.
Most of the girls I’ve had just potter about on their own but a few like Faith and Hope, and Rosie and Lily have formed close friendships and have always been part of a pair. Ellie had arrived on 9th May 2015 with three other girls and it didn’t take long for her and Rosie to find each other and become best friends. Ellie was bigger than Rosie and quite a confident girl, she reminded me very much of Lily and even looked similar with her feather markings. Rosie and Ellie formed a strong bond and were always together in and out of the run.
I’d been spending time gaining Rosie’s trust and over the years she eventually came to be more confident and would allow me to pick her up for a cuddle, I think she even enjoyed it! She managed to lose the name ‘Rosie the naughty chicken’ as she got older and decided that going back in the run wasn’t so bad after all.
The other girls I rescued at the same time as Rosie gradually died and by September 2014, she was the only one from that group left. I was worried that she would be next and when she became very quiet and forlorn with runny eyes and ‘sneezing’, I thought that this was it. Fortunately by this time I’d found my amazing vets (Avian Veterinary Services) and a trip to see Richard put my mind at rest; Rosie had an allergy! We weren’t sure what she was allergic to, but she had the same symptoms again for a while at the same time each year.
Apart from this, Rosie had no real health problems and we had mini celebration when she reached the grand old age of 4. This obviously isn’t old for a hen, but for an ex-commercial hen it’s quite an achievement.
If you’ve read my other posts then you’ll know that Rosie has had a few trips to the vets lately. Things had seemed to be going well for her and her internal lumps and bumps (more than likely cancerous) appeared to be relatively stable.
Last Sunday (8th Jan) I spent a few hours in the run with the girls. I cleaned it all out and we put up some more perches and platforms for them, hung up treats and threw in a load of straw. They loved it and it was so nice watching them scratching enthusiastically and kicking up big piles of straw behind them. Rosie was having a great time too and she was like a new hen running around everywhere and it was so lovely to see. On Monday I went down as usual to clean them out and as dusk fell, one by one the hens filed into the hen house to go to bed; all of them except Rosie. Rosie had decided that she was having far too much fun scratching for bugs and treats in the run and she was going to stay up late and ignore bedtime. I told her it was time for bed but after giving her ‘just five more minutes’ I had to scoop her up and put her in the house with the others, having a quick cuddle in the process of course!
The next day I went down to the run and could only see 6 hens, there should have been 7. My heart always sinks when this happens and I steel myself for what I might find when I look in the house or the nest box. As I opened the bolts on the door to run one of the girls popped her head out of the house and I breathed a sigh of relief. The relief was short lived as I saw Rosie hunched up by the water drinker looking really sorry for herself. I picked her up and she didn’t argue. She had a small amount of food in her crop but less than I’d expect normally and I knew she wasn’t well. I rang Carli at the vets to check I was OK to take her up to the house – I didn’t know what the situation was with the current bird flu issues. I had a chat with Carli and said I was really worried as it was such a sudden change. I decided I’d see how she was when she was away from the other girls knowing that if I was worried about her or if she got worse I could speak to Carli again.
I brought Rosie up to the big house with me and tried to make her cosy in the dog crate I use for the poorly girls. Rosie had a small amount to drink but wasn’t at all interested in the treats I’d put in to tempt her. I got her out of the crate and we had a cuddle whilst I checked her over properly. There were a few times when I could hear her breathing quite loudly, she looked a bit ‘spaced out’ too and when I felt her abdomen there seemed to be a lot of fluid there. I rang Carli back and after we’d had a quick chat about it, we decided the best thing to do was to take her down there. I’ve had hens for a while now and I’ve learnt to trust my gut instinct and this time it told me Rosie was probably quite a poorly hen.
Rosie and I arrived at the vets and I just about made it through the door before I got upset. As always, Carli was there to give me a hug and I took Rosie straight in to see Richard. He agreed that there was some fluid there and that she wasn’t in great shape. After examining her it didn’t seem that her lumps and bumps had dramatically increased but something definitely wasn’t right. Richard drew some fluid off from Rosie and this is always the time when you want what comes out in the syringe to look like and to be egg yolk; when it isn’t and it’s a murky fluid I know things are more serious and it’s highly likely that the lumps she has are cancerous. I already had a fair idea that this would be the case but it didn’t make it any easier.
Richard and I discussed the options – Rosie was very poorly and the fact that she’d become so poorly so quickly with what appeared to be a large fluid build up wasn’t a good sign. The choices were that I said goodbye to her now or that we drained the fluid off, made her comfortable and gave her 48 hours to see if the fluid built back up or if she improved and brightened up. I’d been in a very similar situation with Sprout a girl I had a while ago and she surprised us all. I would never do anything to cause any animal to suffer, and any decisions I make are always for the hens and never for me but I’m also willing to take that chance if after having had advice it’s fair and reasonable to do so. Hens are resilient little souls and because there was a chance albeit a small one that Rosie could improve, we agreed to drain the fluid off and give her 48 hours. If there was no improvement or the fluid had built back up then it would be time to say goodbye. We made this decision as we knew that by draining the fluid off and giving Rosie medicine that we could make her comfortable.
Rosie and I had big cuddle and a chat before she was tucked up into her hospital bed and left in the caring and highly capable hands of Richard and Carli. I knew that tomorrow was likely to bring bad news but I’ve learnt with these girls that they always have the ability to surprise you.
The journey to or from the vets usually takes about 45mins and it was a nice easy drive home, I’d managed to avoid rush hour. I hadn’t been back long and my phone rang, it was Richard.
He explained that he’d tried to draw fluid off Rosie but had only managed to get about 5ml, far less than he was expecting. In the few hours since I’d brought her up to the house and then to the vets, nothing of substance seemed to be moving through her crop and out. It was as though there was pressure or a blockage inside her and far more going on than just the fluid and her lumps and bumps. The only reason that we had decided to give Rosie 48 hours was because we thought we could make her comfortable but now this wasn’t an option. Richard and I agreed that the right thing to do was to say goodbye to Rosie and put her to sleep that night. I asked Richard to tell her I loved her and give her a hug, he said she would have two hugs and I knew one would be from him and one would be from Carli.
It’s always hard making a decision to end a life and it’s a huge responsibility, but I know without doubt that for Rosie, it was the right thing to do. I know there are people out there who wouldn’t understand how you could cry over hen and that’s fine, if you’ve not had one as a pet then I don’t think it is something that’s easy to understand.
When I lose a hen as well as sadness, I always feel a certain amount of anger at the ‘enriched cage’ commercial system because in most cases, the hen’s illnesses are a direct result of the conditions they were kept in.
I know being angry isn’t really productive and I try to focus on the positives; Rosie was around 4 years 9 months old when she died making her my oldest ex-batt since I started keeping hens. She had a great life and because she deteriorated quite quickly this meant she had enjoyed dust bathing, scratching in straw, pecking for treats and being a free hen right up until her last day. I really miss my little Rosie Posy and the flock isn’t the same without my old girl. There was a bedtime backlog on Wednesday night as Rosie was usually the first to go to bed and the rest followed, without her, they all just stood by the door. I get so attached to these funny little girls and even though it’s difficult losing them, I can take some comfort in knowing they had a good life, however short. It’s seeing how they go from tatty hens to gorgeous hens that make me do it over and over and over again.
I collected Rosie from the vets on Thursday night and brought her home, Richard and Carli had wrapped her in a grey blanket. We put her into a small cardboard box with some purple heather and cremated her the way we have done with our other girls whilst saying our goodbyes.
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