Last night the Barred Rock hen who was placed in our chick hospital was not doing well. Since Wednesday she has been getting worse and worse. We contemplated culling her each night but for some reason she would do something that would give us a little hope. She received .5 cc’s of Tylan 50 for 2 days and VetRx as well. If she made it through 5 days of the antibiotics, we knew she was a keeper. Well this morning I went to check on her and she had passed away in the night. I was quite sad but relieved. Again like we are doing with this whole adventure, we continue to research everything. We do not believe it was Merrick’s disease or coccidiosis. Our best guess is just failure to thrive. I think her blindness made it more challenging to get around, she was not gaining any weight and nothing was going to make it any better.

The other 14 are growing as fast as ever. Their little feathers are getting bigger and bigger. Granny taught me an easy way to make a chicken go to sleep. Place the head right under your arm. Tonight Brock grabbed one and it was squawking and flipping around. He put it right under his arm and she instantly stopped making a sound and went calm. We both just looked at each other and laughed! Sometimes all you need is some older, wiser advice!