A Little Piece of Our Hearts

Having livestock, especially short-lived livestock, is not easy. You have to face death and your own mortality on a regular basis.

Today we said goodbye to Janis, who has been very sick since this winter when she had a prolapsed vent. This weekend when the chickens came out to play she had a hard time moving around, and eventually just settled in a spot and hunkered all afternoon.

We put her in a warm incubation tank to see if she would recover, but she just did not improve, and today she collapsed and could not stand up, so we euthanized her. This was not exactly unexpected, since she had not been 100 percent all winter and never seemed to get over the vent episode. But it's sad to lose her, too.

posted by ayse on 05/16/12