In a flap

I don't care what anyone says or thinks, if you live with animals, no matter what they are, you'll feel that emotional tie pulled harder when they might not be well.

People would expect that over our cat. That's obvious, she lives in the house, and getting the tiny little lump on her nose checked out this morning was a necessary evil to make sure it wasn't anything sinister (it doesn't appear to be). Getting in knots over the chickens might surprise people more (which is the kind of thinking that gets people asking if you're going to eat them when they die - that, and not understanding just how young the chickens we eat are, and how unappetising eating a multiple years old chook, who has died of unknown causes, would be). 

Scarlet the last couple of days has taken a quick turn for the worse. We've seen this before. It's a prey animal thing. They don't want to be singled out as weak, so are world class at hiding illness until it's virtually too late. We've lost a chicken before to egg peritonitis, just 24 hours after she first seemed a bit off-colour, the vet unable to do anything. So managing to get a late vet appointment in the evening I really wasn't confident Scarlet would be coming back home.

And yet here she is. Nothing too obvious wrong with her. Not eating enough, lost a bit of condition, but worth giving a short treatment of antibiotics a try. She's only just over a year old, far too soon to be leaving us, so fingers firmly crossed (and back to a position of creeping to the back window first thing in the morning, hardly able to look, to see if she's there, out in the run).

Skipped drumming class tonight - my bad arm is playing up, and I'd rather miss tonight, being the penultimate class of the year, than next week.