Onwards and upwards

I had another sad day again yesterday. My lovely little cuckoo maran pullet Tilly, was put to sleep. Last Thursday when her and her boys out of their coop I noticed she had difficulty using one of her feet, she was stumbling about like she was drunk. I thought I'd give her and hour or so and then go back and check on her. There was no improvement and she hadn't eaten anything. So I bundled her up in my arms and brought her home. I checked her over and could find nothing wrong, she wasn't using her left foot in fact her toes were curled up into a fist (if you know what I mean) I could find no breakage or any wounds. Anyway shes been eating and drinking for the last week, I gave her some antibiotics and have given her the run of the flowerbeds and lawn. But although she wasn't getting any worse, she showed no signs of getting better and yesterday I could see she was in pain. She had given up even trying to stagger around and just lay down and would cry out. So it was a very easy decision to let her go.
Difficult but easy when you know they are suffering.
So although I was sad, her welfare all of the birds welfare is the most important thing to me. If she had showed signs of getting better I would have quite happily have kept her as a little limping pet hen, but I would also have taken into consideration her quality of life, if I thought she wouldn't have been able to do the things like scratching, flapping and dustbbathing that make hens happy, I would have let her go.

So now I only have 1 definite hen left in the field, and a whole gang of young boys and a handful I'm still debating on (although sods law and all that).
Although.... Last night when I put her brothers to bed I noticed one of them has a much smaller paler comb and wattles...........I daren't hope but could he be a she?

Anyway everyone else is thriving despite the rain, including my darling Holly Golighty who along with her little posse have been relocated to the courtyard very close to the kitchen door and are enjoying the benefits of more veg peeling and tinned sweetcorn. She also has the most amazing electric blue ear lobes.

(If anyone says blue earlobes means shes a boy I will cry, lol)

jess x