we noticed her tail feathers were down on saturday,,,we watched her on sunday and she was eating and drinking and moving around but her tail feathers were still down and she seemed kind of hunched. i just couldn't find a vet to see her til tomorrow, and this morning she was still up and eating. i checked her when i got home from work tonight and she was in her nest, with her head up and looking at me. when i was just finishing the barn guys up i heard jerome squawking so i went to check again. he and olga were out in the pouring rain and obviously very upset. when i went into the coop she was just finishing dying.
i had called around to the vets first thing this morning to try to get her in somewhere, colleen is away and the vet covering doesn't know about chickens, the farm vets don't do chickens anymore cuz their chicken vet switched specialties to cats and opened a cat clinic and won't do chickens anymore, dave would see her at eastridge but not today as they were over booked cuz i sent in one of the permanent fosters cats, daisy-fae, as an emergency (she is still with my family) with seizures and a temperature of 40.8 degrees....so i booked her in tomorrow morning at 9:20...i thought she could hang out in the van with me while i worked til her appointment time.
i am so sorry olivia, i thought you'd be ok til tomorrow. i really suck at this sometimes.
So sad, she was such a nice chicken and was really beautiful too. I believe larger chickens don't live as long as smaller ones, but we don't know their ages either. I had held her and she was comfortable and her tummy seemed soft at the bottom, I wish we knew what went wrong and that would make us feel better. I hope her sister will be alright. Rest well Olivia. Eva And Carol is right as she was eating and drinking well.