Poor Vera…

Sadly, Vera died yesterday. She was looking a bit low and wasn’t eating very much so we brought her in to keep an eye on her. She was still eating on the morning of the second day, but by the afternoon I was syringe feeding her every few hours. We tried everything we knew but when I got up at 6.30 yesterday morning to feed her, she had already passed away.
It’s too, too sad. I don’t think it had anything to do with her operation – her stitches had totally healed and up until a few days ago she was fine, but she didn’t put the weight back on as quickly as I had hoped.
Mum was brilliant - although she was terribly upset herself, she went into full ‘mum’ mode (you know the one, where she manages to organise the funeral, and keep you supplied with cups of tea and hugs and funny things to watch on telly) She made sure the rest of us were ok.
She also reminded me of a conversation we had with a lady, ages before we got our hens, who was rushing home to care for one of her own who was sick. When we said we were getting some of our own she said that they bring you lots of heartache, and she sure was right. There are lots of good things, but too much sadness.
When you have a sick hen, the first thing you do is check the interweb for advice and the one thing you very quickly realise is that a lot of hens die for (apparently) no reason. One day they are fine and the next they are gone. The best you can do is narrow it down to a ‘probable’ and keep an eye on the rest of them.
I’m really sad, and a bit sniffy as I’m writing. We’d had her for a year on the 26th so at least she had some time out of the battery cage to see the sun and feel the rain but I feel awful that we couldn’t give her more.
Beccy