Elsie Bunny was a pleasant surprise, as I wanted an Ameracauna but the breeder we'd selected has run fresh out when we were ready to supplement our flock. However, when we asked to see her selection of olive eggers, there was one pullet with fluffy cheeks that was not actually an olive egger!

From the very beginning, she was spunky and bossy, the smallest bird in the whole flock. She was named for two things: Elsie Bunny as a play on Easter Bunny, for the colored eggs she'd lay, and also for her play-fighting kangaroo kicks at her sisters. Her muff was so fluffy and soft, but since she only had a peacomb, there was nothing but her cheek fluff to use for disaplinary pecks. So, after a few months, her cheeks were bare and didn't grow back until the next molt.

Elsie never went for treats. She'd barely peck at the mealworms and turn her nose at pumpkin. We eventually found that she only liked RED foods, like strawberries, raspberries, and watermelon.

She liked to think that she was alpha, but with five older sisters, she only managed her three siblings. She was incredibly bossy, hip-checking and growling to get at a choice scratching hole or the food bowl. Yet, she was not a bully, and the sweetest girl when we picked her up. She was very chatty but never made typical "bawk bawk" sounds, only growls and grumbles.

In September of '23, we went on vacation for a week, so we hired a sitter to pop in twice a day. While we were gone, the sitter texted us to let us know that Elsie was hiding out in the nest boxes all day, which was abnormal. When we returned home, we observed her, found that she was acting off, and took her to the vet. The vet did some tests and found that there was inflammation in her abdomen, so Elsie was put on a med taken by mouth every twelve hours. Elsie started acting herself again within a week, and started gaining back the weight she'd lost. She was doing well. It was just a waiting game until she laid again, since the vet theorized her inflammation was stopping her reproductive tract. The vet asked us to let her know when Elsie laid again, because that meant the inflammation was gone.

It was five months before Elsie laid a blue fairy egg. We were so happy to see it, and called the vet immediately. She asked we bring her in for a checkup. It took us a month and spare, but we did, and Elsie was deemed in decent health, if underweight, and needed probiotics.

Four days later, we noticed that Elsie wasn't eating, dropping weight fast, and had no solid poops. We got an emergency appointment. The vet did xrays and an ultrasound and found that a mass was taking over her entire abdomen. It had pushed Elsie's gizzard from the front left of her torso to behind her left leg, stretching out and compressing her entire digestive tract so much that only fluids were getting through. The vets couldn't tell what it was, since her blood draw and fecal float less than a week ago came back clean. The prognosis was poor. We decided to leave her in the ICU overnight for the vets to perform fluid force-feeding. If the food gets through, she has a chance.

We came back the next morning. The vets are amazing, but Elsie was visibly worse. The vets confirmed that she had not passed any solids, only urinates. If no food can get through, she'd spend the remainder of her life on fluid force feeding. It was basically palliative care.

We'd prayed for a clear decision. It was hard, but clear. To keep her from suffering, we made the decision to put her to sleep and donate her body to the local vet school for a necrops to help our vets know what went wrong.

Edit 2/26/24 - The report from the necropsy center found that she had aggressive ovarian cancer that escaped to her intestines, and a half-necrotic liver. She was a very strong girl since we had no idea anything was wrong for months.

Elsie was a great chicken. She's missed dearly and sorely.