Rest in Peace Buffy

Those that follow my Instagram would have known that our beautiful Buffy had a short but fierce battle with cancer. He was sadly helped over the rainbow bridge on the 19th of May.

It all started with his ongoing throat infection. A pussy plaque in this throat that was treated several times with antibiotics. When it came back again, he was switched to a different type and then reassessed. With no significant improvement, the vet decided to do a more thorough investigation as to why the infection would not go away. During the surgery, they found a lump underneath the infection, they took a biopsy and sent it away for pathology tests. It came back as cancer, that had metastasized, meaning that it had spread.

It was diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma, basically skin cancer, and the outcome was not good, especially if it had metastasized. The vet said it would eventually get into his lungs and effect his breathing. He was given a few months to live.

We got 5 months.

We could see it progressing,  he would hide his pain so well, but we knew we were in trouble when he started having trouble swallowing. He was on pain killers, but when he was having trouble swallowing his tablets, it was hard to manage that. We switched him to liquid meds, even another set of antibiotics to reduce the plaque still on the lump and help him swallow, but he continued to decline.

He was still fiesty too, he still wanted to fight with the other roosters, wanted to be with his hens, but we would see him sometimes hunch up and look miserable, but then hide it when we came up. Towards the end, he could no longer even drink properly.

That's when we made the decision.

After a few days where he barely ate any food and his breathing started to get very laboured, we couldn't let him suffer any longer. We spent one last night with him in our beds. I couldn't sleep, listening to him struggle to breathe. The next day we took him out to see his hens one last final time. He walked up to them and just sat with them. He didn't really have much energy to do anything else.

Then it was a long drive to the vet. He was held by hubby the whole time.

At the vet, it was tears all round for us, consoled by the vet and the nurses, we were told that when chickens start gasping and struggling to breathe like that, there was not much else to do.

We were outlined the process. Buffy would be anesthetized by a gas mask, fluothane is the vapour anesthetic used. That would let him sleep and not feel any pain. The vet would then find a vein and inject the drug that would stop his heart beating. We were warned that he may continue to move after that happens. A thing chickens do, think of all the stories of headless chickens running, apparently it's true.

When the time came, hubby begged for a bit more time with Buffy. Our little Buffy had no idea what was going on, as we hugged and kissed him, as he still struggled to breathe.

Then it was time.

The mask (nose cone) was put over his beak and head. The problem was that he was already having trouble breathing in, he wasn't inhaling enough of the anesthetic. He didn't like it and struggled feebly. They switched to a bigger mask and cleared his airway with a swab. This wasn't the peaceful end we were thinking of.

Then the vet flipped him onto his back, and spread out a wing. There is a vein under there and the vet remarked that it was a very shallow vein, it should be protruding, it shows that he was already close to death. He was flipped to his belly and another vein on the back of his neck was searched for, again, a shallow vein. Then flipped again onto his back. Thankfully he was unconscious by this point. The wing vein was used and his heartbeat checked by a stethoscope. He had gone from us. We bawled away.

So you see, it wasn't as calm a procedure we thought it would be. It was hard to watch him struggle to breathe in the mask, with his head in there. But I think we made the right choice. It was this or possibly a few more days of him starving and struggling to breathe. We couldn't let him suffer.

This was our experience of the event. I don't want anyone to be put off by this, when their animal is suffering. If he could breathe, it would have been far more peaceful. Trust Buffy to be difficult right up till the end. That's our boy.

We would like to think that he is pain free now, eating his favourite foods, chasing the hens that we have lost over the years (Flopsy was one of his favourites) and watching over us.

Fly high our love. We'll be reunited one day again.