As you know if you've been reading this blog long, we recently lost a hen who was very dear to us, sweet Miss Annabel.
She took ill rather suddenly, and over the course of the next four days, continued to steadily decline and was in such obvious discomfort that we felt it necessary to take her to the vet. Setting aside financial and logical issues (we had pretty much accepted that she could not, at this point, be saved), we took her to the one critter clinic in town that even sees chickens, South Bay Veterinary Hospital.
I can't say enough about how sweet they were to us and our chickie.
After making the difficult decision to let Anna pass away in comfort, we discussed what her illness might mean for the rest of our flock. The doctor recommended having Anna undergo a necropsy.
Within a few days, we heard the initial findings - it appeared that whatever illness or disease had killed her had done so via her kidneys and liver, both of which looked abnormal. Today we received the final word on the pathology studies, Annie appears to have had either chronic kidney disease or kidney cancer, which in turn spread to/effected her liver. It sounds like toward the end that she was experiencing multiple organ failure.
It's terrible to think about how much pain Anna may have been in, for God knows how long, before we finally noticed that she was not herself. But at the same time, knowing what we do now, it is also comforting and somewhat reassuring to know that we could not have done anything more to save her, and that what took her from us was not something that the rest of our flock was in danger of also catching.
So, there you have it. Answers that both trouble and comfort us at the same time. We were so lucky to have such a beautiful and sweet girl as long as we did.
Fly home, sweet Annie. xo
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