Botulism

It was 50 degrees this morning and it was so cold! I got my first taste of what it’s going to be like to stomp down to the barn and feed the chickens in the morning when it’s cold. It’s going to be particularly terrible when the days get so short it’ll be dark, cold, and wet. The chickens are usually up and running around at 7:45 when I get out there, but this morning half of them were still sleeping. I don’t blame them.

So another horror story. (This has just been a bad few weeks!) So, remember the bird that had botulism? Well, after I dispatched her, I left her way out in the field under a bush. Frankly, it’s way too much work to continue to bury everything that dies. Dia reaaallly wanted to eat it, but we have a rule based on what other people have suggested who have chickens: dogs can eat chicken as long as it doesn’t look like a chicken. No drawing correlations between tasty food and hens in the field. Anyway, so I put her in the backyard and went to work. I got home and THE GATE WAS OPEN. She was in the backyard, but as we have learned by now, when she lets herself out she explores and goes back in before we get home. I hadn’t tied the gate shut because after a few weeks of tying the gate she stopped trying to open it. So I walk down in the field to where I left the chicken and… all that’s there is the head. Sans flesh.

I am horrified.

I continue to walk around in the area and find the rest of the bird. (Thank God.) I roll her over and inspect her and she’s all in one piece. You know, except for the head. No bite marks. This makes me pretty sure it wasn’t Dia. Dia’s a bit of a pig when it comes to eating animals in the field… freshly caught or rotting. I know, it’s gross. I really wish things would stop dying in the field.

So I go back up to the house and start thinking about it. I wonder if something that ate an animal that had botulism could get sick? I internet research. Yes… yes they can.

Fortunately, dogs and cats are apparently very resistant to botulism. Probably an evolutionary thing, because birds seem to get it easily and eating dead birds is tasty for wild predators. All the same, dogs can get it and apparently always get it from eating something dead. Symptoms (weakness and paralysis of legs) are supposed to show up in 12 – 48 hours. We spent a worrisome 48 hours, and now it appears we are out of the woods. Dia is just fine.

I’m not convinced at all Dia was the one that ate the bird’s head. But it is odd that something found it in the 4 hours I was at work. In the middle of the day. It makes me wonder what goes on in that field when we’re not there. I know we have lots and lots of snakes out there. The snakes are pretty bold too… one of them just showed up to a neighbor’s bonfire in the middle of the night… just slithered on into the middle of the party. We also have lots of mice and therefore, lots of owls and hawks. We also have coyotes, but I can’t imagine a coyote would have showed up in the middle of the day. Also a handful of feral cats. Still, I don’t know if a cat could have dragged the bird as far as it went.

It’s a mystery.