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It was a hard week here at CockadoodleMoo, we suffered two losses. I get teary eyed still remembering our lost friends, but it is important to grieve, for us and the animals.

Last week my dear sweet Honey started looking off. She would listlessly stand in the doorway of a crate or in the corner of the isolation pen when I would go to bring her and Ginger inside at night. Honey is usually the kind of girl who runs to the fence when you call her. She races Ginger to be the first inside, and this new behavior was alarming. I decided that maybe the cold was too much for her, so I put her and Ginger in my bathroom and moved my toothbrush to Mark's bathroom.

For the first couple of days it was normal Honey, I would spend time with them in the evenings mopping up the bathroom floor (chickens poop a lot), they would peck, scratch and gobble up the scratch and creamed corn I gave them for a treat. The two girls acted as though they were at a spa basking in the heat lamp and lounging on the children's race car rug on the bathroom floor. 

By the following weekend, Honey started getting lethargic, eating less and less, sleeping more and more. Her enormous crop seemed to drag her body down. We gave her more high protein crumbles, we aided her in vomiting up the liquid trapped in her crop, and we made sure she had fluids.

For three days, I would leave for work dreading what might be awaiting my return. Then one day I found her lying there. Ginger has been in mourning ever since, acting very sad and refusing to eat anything put in Honey's bowl.

We also lost one of the seven rabbits we'd rescued. Our initial health check revealed a fellow named Goya had serious problems. We took him to the vet at Nevada Humane Society. He had three abscesses that would've required the removal of half his face to remove, not to mention other problems. The recommendation was to put him down.