I am sad once again to have said goodbye to another beloved pet chicken. This time my sweet little Lilah is gone too soon. She was just a bit over two years old and a Serama. I am not really sure what took her out in the end. As with the loss of all my pet chickens, I am heartbroken.
Her name was from the Hebrew word for “night.” I think it was a pretty name for a pretty chicken. She was definitely the quietest of all our chickens. She didn’t even do the egg song. She was just a super productive girl when she was healthy.
She was not at the bottom of the pecking order, but she was close. In a time of being bullied she totally freaked me out when she flew up and landed on my shoulder and just hung out there for quite a bit. That was certainly a first for me. She ended up also doing the same thing to my husband and that endeared her to him.
For a while she really was the most productive of all the chickens, but then she ended up with worms. We treated all the girls, but the whole thing did take its toll on her. She had gone down hill and besides the dewormer, I started her on some natural treatments to try to get her over the hump. She had lost weight and was not very active. I gave her some treatments of activated charcoal and colloidal silver. We actually did see some improvement. She was eating and her weight stabilized. It seemed there was reason to be hopeful.
To help fatten her back up, I had started feeding her organic baby food mixed with oregano to try to help her immune system. Sometimes she did breathe through her mouth, but it was not all the time. She definitely had a lot of life still in her. There were no concerns about her poo and she had a healthy appetite.
Seemingly suddenly she did take a turn for the worse. Her poo started looking bad and I wondered if she had coccidiosis so I started a Corrid treatment. Unfortunately, everything happened on the weekend and taking her to the vet was not an option. My plan was to get her to the vet on that Monday as soon as possible, but then I ended up really sick throwing up and had to go to the doctor myself. By the time everything settled down with me, she was near death and my husband said we needed to put her out of her misery. I reluctantly said my good-bye to her. It is hard for me to not hope that we could still save her. As my husband was getting ready to humanely euthanize her, she breathed her last.
We did end up taking a fecal sample to the vet to verify what happened so that we would know how to treat the other chickens. I was surprised when the vet said that there were no parasites present. My chickens are my babies and it always hits me hard to lose them. Lilah was such a sweet and wee little thing. I sure do miss her.
Photo property of the Faithful Homesteader.
