Back story: Sylvia was one of only three survivors in last summer's raccoon massacre, and the only one still with us. Willa also survived but was lame and never recovered. One pied male survived but after the experience, he went quite mad and had to be dispatched early on. Sylvia and Willa were buddies and lived in the special needs coop/pen until the first really cold snap in winter. At that point Willa was showing signs of suffering from the cold, so they both spent the rest of the winter in a pen on top of the dryer in the laundry room, where over the next months we propped her up many times a day next to the feed and the water so that she could eat and drink. They went back out to the special needs pen in the spring, but Willa's knees were so bad at that point that she couldn't get around at all and was not even able to dustbathe. As a result, there was a constant buildup of
around her vent area that had to be cleaned up daily. The assisted feeding and watering also continued. When she stopped showing any interest in food (this was really out of character), we decided that it was her time. So that left Sylvia, all alone. We had a blind male, Jeff, in the main quail pen that didn't seem to be coping very well with the general population anymore, so we tried integrating him with Sylvia, so that neither of them would be alone, but would have plenty of space for them to et away from each other. Initially, it didn't go well, but Jeff persevered/ managed to protect himself long enough for Sylvia to accept him, and they became roomies.Then for some reason last week Sylvia turned on him again (we now think it was because she was going broody, and we didn't see the signs), and at some point, he flew out of one to the run doors that hadn't been latched properly, in order to escape Sylvia's ire. I am only hypothesizing on what transpired after that. I only became aware that something was amiss when I heard unusual crow noises in the backyard. Yes, you guessed it - the crows were busy with "offing" Jeff. I chased them off. Then I went to collect what I thought was the late Jeff, I found out that he was still alive. Wounded, but alive. His wounds turned out to be terminal, though - the crows had taken out the side of his beak and most of his tongue, as well as some injuries to his sides. He was still very feisty, so we gave him 2 days to show signs of improvement while trying to keep him hydrated via syringe. On the second day, it was very obvious that he wasn't going to get better, so we made the decision to euthanize him.
So now we are back at the point in time when Sylvia went seriously broody. This should be interesting.
