Hetty Wainthrop - Rest in Peace

The Rainbow Bridge is calling you

Hetty Boom Boom RIP

Poor Hetty Wainthrop, our Lavender Splash Orpington hen has been very poorly.

She's always been the first to succumb to lice, red mite etc, I think it's because she is the bottom of the pecking order.

Add to that the fact that the breeder was trying to develop a new Orpington x Frizzle (which are not attractive BTW), and new colourways, I believe Hetty's genetics suffered as a result. Signs of this included some twisty twiddly feathers on her neck - a hint of the Frizzle genes, and her toes were twisted, meaning that we had to clip her claws regularly to keep them comfortable for her, as she couldn't wear them down naturally.

Last summer she was a big buxom beauty, inquisitive, happy, talkative.

Hetty last summer

This summer she was a shadow of her former self. She lost a lot of weight, hasn't passed a normal poop for a couple of months, had no energy and eventually was unable to stand up, let alone move around on her own.

She was eating and drinking (if you sat her right in front of her bowls), and everything was passing out of her crop into her digestive system, but after that, something was going wrong. Our vet Alex suspected Sour Crop (but admitted that didn't really fit her symptoms very well), or that her digestive tract had become damaged somehow, meaning she was unable to absorb anything from her food.

The first signs that something was seriously wrong came when we returned from holiday. It had been very hot and sticky, and she looked pale and tired. I looked for, and found, a big 'bloom' of red mite in the coop, so we emptied everything scrubbed it, cleaned it and doused it and the flock with Nettex Total Red Mite Powder.

Felicity and Jane looked fine, so we hoped that Hetty had just been the worst affected, and that with treatment she would recover. But she didn't. She got more tired, less enthusiastic about coming out of the run for a scatter feed of mealworms, and very unbalanced. She started using her wing to stop herself toppling sideways, and if you stroked her back she fell over instantly.

Treatments we tried:

NB: We did not use all of these simultaneously, they were administered carefully over Hetty's last two months with us, and according to the manufacturers' instructions. They were given alongside a well balanced layers pellet by Smallholders Range, dried mealworms, mixed corn and Hentastic Foraging Feast.

Ivermectin Spot-on Drops
Flubenvet Poultry Wormer
Farm and Yard Remedies Wormwood
Beryl's Friendly bacteria
Chicken Lickin Poultry Drink Concentrate
Verm-X Poultry Zest
Global Herbs Loose Dropping Formula

Plus we bought The Chicken Vet Poop Sample Kit, and sent a sample off to them. It was tested for a range of worms and coccidia infection. All the tests were negative - possibly because the other treatments had killed off whatever was there, or it wasn't a parasitic problem or infection at all.

When she reached the point where she couldn't stand or move around, Mr PB finally agreed with me that it was time to take her to Alex the vet one last time. Alex agreed to put her to sleep yesterday evening, and let us stay with her until she passed away. She has been cremated.

We believe we did everything possible to save Hetty, except catch her symptoms sooner.

Hetty Wainthrop xx

Sleep tight Hetty Hetty Boom Boom, we love you xx