Sweet Nellie



Nellie and freedom

 Another sad day....  today we lost Nellie.  She was an Ex battery hen we rescued  in February this year.  She was always the loner,  a little bit picked on by the others, but the sweetest, friendliest and gentliest of all the hens.  She was a dab hand at grab and run!  As soon as you walked up to the run she was there having a look to see what you had,  throw it in and Nellie would grab and run so that she could eat in peace.

I have always thought she would be the first one we would loose,  she never seemed as strong and robust as the others, although she was the first of the ex batts to re-gain all of her feathers, in fact today you wouldn't know that she was ever an ex battery hen.

I did vist the vet with her 2 weeks ago as she did seem to be poorly,  a course of anti-biotics followed and lots of TLC,  she did seems to rally, until today.  She was very slow coming out of the house this morning, but she did tuck into the freshly picked rocket  I gave them this morning.     This afternoon I took them some potatoes and spinach a true favourite,  Nellie was sitting in the corner of the run in the dappled shade and was not interested in the food.   I lifted her out and stood her to shut the door,  she folded her legs and sat,  not enough strength to stand,  Mr Milly and I gave her some water in a syringe and gave her a cuddle.   She dropped her head and was gone.

I will miss you Nellie,  but you were free and happy and have had 3 months of being able to do normal chickeny things,  scratching around,  dirt bathing, digging for worms, lying in the sun, being spoilt and having good food.  For that I am grateful.

Running and stretching her wings

investigating

Some of the other Happy chicks