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

Saying Goodbye to Pets - How to deal with grief.

Saying goodbye to beloved family pets is one of the hardest trials life can throw at us.

Minky
Photo by Pumpkin Becki

We have just had Minky our Russian Dwarf Hamster put to sleep by the vet. She was 2 weeks away from her 2nd birthday, which is very good going for a little Russian Dwarf, but overnight she became poorly, bleeding from her back end, and one eye was closed. She was still her feisty little self, but weak, unbalanced and falling asleep mid-activity.

Many people can't understand others feeling grief and loss for an animal. Others can understand it if the animal lost is a dog, cat or horse, but not a 'small animal'. They assume that small animals have no personality to become attached to, that they are emotionally 'disposable'.





I hope that through this blog I can help reverse that view.

Be kind to yourself. Take time to grieve, you have lost a family member.

Allow children to grieve too. I've met many parents who refuse to allow their children to have any sort of pet, because they don't want to have to deal with the upset of that pet becoming ill or dying, and their child's subsequent emotions and questions.

It's a real, genuine shame, because experiencing the loss of a pet will help a child learn about the circle of life, and make dealing with the death of a relation or friend a little easier to cope with. I'm not suggesting that you have a pet solely for that purpose, that's not right at all, but to grow with a pet, form a bond, let that pet go physically and emotionally, and then learn to celebrate the joy it brought you is a very healthy, normal process. Don't deny a child that just because you don't want to deal with it.

When the time comes, options open to a small pet owner depend on the situation:

Natural death:

If your pet passes away in it's sleep it's probably easiest to bury it in your own garden, providing you have the appropriate place to do that. I tend to wrap my little friend up in a compostable bag, with a 'nest' of paper bedding. It makes me feel better about the process. Make sure you bury the parcel deep enough, ideally with a stone laid on top of the soil so a dog, cat or fox doesn't try to dig it up. It's also worth marking the grave somehow so it doesn't get disturbed when you're gardening.

Vet assisted death:

If you and your vet agree that the time has come to put your pet to sleep, the veterinary practice will have several options for you.

• You can take your pet home with you for burial
• You can opt for a communal cremation - no remains are returned to you
• Or a solitary cremation - where you will receive ashes in a canister that you can scatter or keep.

Poppy and Coco
Photo by Pumpkin Becki

Some practices may offer to dispose of the body for you, this was certainly offered to me years ago, but is not something my current vet practice does.

We have taken all three options with various pets.
Twinkle and Minky were both brought home and are buried in the flower garden
Coco and Poppy were cremated with other people's pets, and the remains disposed of by the crematorium.

Pudding
Photo by MrPB

Pudding...Now Pudding (aka PudPud, Pu Bear, Bumble) was a VERY special guinea pig. She touched our hearts in a way that I don't think will ever be equalled.

She passed away in MrPB's arms at home, but we took the decision to take her to the vets the following morning and have her cremated on her own, so that we could have her ashes back.

We keep them in a little blue and white china ginger jar on our sideboard. No, it's not weird or morbid, we just couldn't let her go completely, and when we disagree on something we still refer it to PudPud for ultimate adjudication.








Obviously there is expense involved with any vet assisted death. You will have to pay for the appointment and method of dispatch. Burying at home is free, but the cremation options increase the cost dramatically, with solitary cremation and ashes being the most expensive.

Plan for this expense!

If funds are an issue, then start a 'pet fund' as soon as you get your pet (if not before), to give you a buffer from unexpected expenses like vet care. It's the only responsible course of action, an animal cannot suffer because you don't have the funds to offer it a pain-free death.

Pumpkin Becki xx