I am proud to be a carnivore. But like most in today’s society, were I not able to purchase my meat from a grocery store I’d probably be a vegetarian. Killing an animal, even for a meal, is not something I’m comfortable with. That brings me to today’s subject. Mr. Rooster.
We got chickens about two months ago. Andi saw how cute they were at her parents’ house and she thought it would be fun to raise a few. Plus we’d have a consistent supply of tasty eggs. We got four.
Turns out one of them was a rooster; the white Polish one. Poor guy has had it rough from the start. The ladies kept picking on him. They gave him a hefty bald spot, pecking the feathers out of his head.
Then, the other day I returned home and noticed him limping. Upon further inspection, the head pecking had returned in full force due to this new injury and the poor guy’s scalp was bleeding and swollen. We isolated him and brought him inside. Iodine went on his head and we made him a nice warm bed in a giant blue plastic container.
Two days passed and Mr. Rooster is still struggling. His leg is no better and Andi thinks he has Marek’s Disease, which is apparently fairly common in birds, and is somewhere (oddly enough) between herpes and cancer. It causes varying degrees of paralysis (leg, wing, neck), blindness, lack of appetite, and facilitates the growth of tumors.
I checked on him this morning and while I was holding out hope for it to just be a sprain, I’m starting to think she is right. After all, she is amazingly good at diagnosing these sort of things.
Today she’ll be taking him to the vet, and he/she may ultimately put him down. I guess that means I’ll leave you, and him, with this:
RIP Mr. Rooster: Sometime in March or April, 2010 to July 3, 2010.
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