Poor Elton passed away last night shortly after arriving at the Vet ER. He was fine yesterday morning and seemed off a little by afternoon and then just seem to be completely lethargic and losing his ability to stand by night. He was turning 8 years old but there is never enough time with any of our animals and we will miss is big personality, willingness to endure hugs gracefully, and fluffy feet.
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Indy is currently staying inside with us as she deals with the loss of her pal. So we will be giving her extra love and attention.

Here are the current health updates!

Once Sebastian made it through the night, we knew he had a good chance of recovery - though it would be a slow process.  Once he had a little more energy back, we brought his best friend Sebastian in to visit him.  We could tell how much it cheered him to hear his friend (though he still couldn't see him due to his eyes being swollen shut) and to do "normal" chicken things again.  They hung out for a bit and ate dinner near each other.  Hearing Jareth eat made Sebastian hungry and helped him to find his food on his own, though he still required hand feeding and watering for a few more days.  

Finally, one of Sebastian's eyes opened and his head started to heal.  He was becoming restless inside, so we let him have some time in the sun with Jareth.  

Sebastian had a bad day yesterday.  Probably the worst day of his life.  It was a very bad day for us too.  When we found him, he was unconscious.  We genuinely thought he was dead.  Tia the turkey had snuck into his area with her kids Rachel and Betty - something she had never done before.  Tia and Sebastian have had a long-standing feud for reasons we still don’t fully understand. While these tensions have existed for some time, we have taken steps to mitigate their ability to see each other through fences, which has helped tremendously.   However his outcome was far more serious than anything we had ever expected.

Over the past few weeks, many of you have been checking in about Odin, and we wanted to share an update on how he’s doing. Odin has been dealing with a combination of back pain and laryngeal paralysis, which has meant a period of strict activity restriction, pain medications, and steroids to help his body heal and reduce his discomfort.  Because of his kidney disease, he is limited in the medications he can take, which complicates things a bit.

Quincy took a trip up to Bionic Pets (the same place that made Bonnie's leg brace!) to see if they could help him walk more comfortably with his amputated toe.  Derrick was happy to help and straight away began making a mold of his foot.  The mold will be used to create a silicon "shoe" to help distribute the weight across his two other toes and his foot pad to make sure his remaining toes don't have too much pressure on them.  He is still taking a daily pain medication and we hope that with the right footwear he can come off of it.  When the shoe is ready we will be taking a trip back up to see Derrick for his fitting - so stay tuned!

Last month, we loaded up Pumpkin, Charlotte, and Millie and drove an hour north to see Dr. Kristie, THE pig vet here on the East Coast.  She comes up this way once or twice a year, so we take the girls to their annual appointments then. ​

One otherwise ordinary day, Sherman decided that peace was too boring.  For reasons known only to him, he picked a fight - with the pigs. Yes, the pigs. The pigs who love birds, are willing to share their food with them (which is just about the highest honor a pig can give) and who have never had a bad word with any of our bird family.  

Unfortunately for Sherman, the pigs are pretty good at fighting when they want to. Charlotte, who had been cornered by Sherman, was not in the mood to be bullied and did what any self-respecting pig would do: she defended herself. We’re pretty sure she or one of the pigs landed a quick and well-deserved counterattack with a tusk.