More departures on the Unfarm

Ready for your daily dose of depression? I have more departures from the Unfarm to announce, unfortunately.  

First to go was Axel. On February 9, a few weeks ago, we made the ever difficult decision to have Axel put to sleep. Prior to February 9, he had been having some trouble with his eye being a bit teary and goopy so we took him to the vet and got him on eye drops and antibiotics with instructions to return in two weeks for a follow up appointment. At our follow up appointment, however, instead of being improved he was pretty much the same and the vet noticed a small lump on the side of his head. We took x-rays and the results were discouraging to say the least: the upper part of his jaw on the left side of his face was simply not there anymore. It turns out that the bone cancer that we thought we were rid of with the amputation of his front right leg had cropped up in his jaw and eaten away at the bone until there was nothing left. With him at risk of a spontaneous fracture of the remaining portion of jaw and his quality of life taking a turn for the worse we spent one more evening with him at home with all the other animals and took him in to see the vet the next day when Mom could be there as well. Before we left for the vet's office I made him a small batch of carob chip cookies and he had those as his last meal. After that we gathered around him, petting him and telling him that we love him as they put him to sleep. We had him cremated, and placed his ashes into a wooden urn with his picture on the front, reserving a small amount of ashes for a tiny pendant urn that I can wear around my neck to keep him close to me, as we have done with Kita, Maia, and Buddy as well.

Axel was loyal to a fault and would follow me everywhere, barking whenever anyone tried to get near me, even if they were family members. He was always smiling and he just kept on pushing through every obstacle that was thrown at him. He will indeed be a tough act to follow. 

Axel, smiling as ever

Our second departure happened just this afternoon. We lost Penny, our Welsummer hen with the spurs, after a long residence here on the Unfarm (for a chicken, at least.) I was unable to find the photos of her batch of chicks, taken when we first brought her here to the Unfarm, but I was able to find evidence of her being here as far back as 2009, placing her at ten years old at least, which is an admirable feat for a chicken, especially one as low down (at the very bottom, to be exact) on the pecking order as she was. I'm not certain what caused her death - whether it was due to natural causes like age or whether the other chickens beat her up - but I found her today out on the pathway in the back, surrounded by a bunch of her feathers and already passed away. 

Why Penny was so far down on the pecking order is also unknown to me. Of course I can speculate all I like: maybe it was because she had spurs, or because she didn't grow up with the other chickens, or because she broke her toe when she was young and always walked with a limp since then. What I do know is that she was a nice chicken and was spoiled as much as a chicken can be - she got her own coop away from all the others, she got uninterrupted meal times and was free range 100% of the time (whereas the others are closed into the run for half of the day before they are let out), she would hang out in the house with me at times and I even made her a harness to take her for walks out in the front yard. 

Penny in her walking harness

So there you have it; a recounting of the recent departures here on the Unfarm. I can only hope that the next post is more lighthearted. Until then, hug your pets, tell them you love them, and appreciate the time you have with them.