It rained for most of the day, and when I came out for the afternoon chores, two of the hens had taken up position on the rocking chair on the porch, looking quite regal and dry. And I used to think chickens were dumb.
We said goodbye to Minnie, she’ll be spending the weekend at the vets, probably in advance of her amputation Monday, if we go that route. She is heavily sedated, and appeared comfortable. Minnie is a sweetheart, the life of a barn cat is never easy.
This is an X-ray of Minnie’s leg, it does not show a fracture but the heavily damaged tissue in the lower leg. What appear to be bite marks are visible halfway up the leg. We reason that a larger animal would have killed her, and the injuries from any kind of vehicle would have been far worse. So it looks like a tomcat.
We had to rush Minnie to Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service this afternoon, we found her hiding behind a hay bale in the barn, he rear right leg dangling loosely. Early this morning, we heard the sounds of a loud cat fight behind the house, we ran outside and saw an animal – it looked like a strange cat – run off into the pasture. In the daylight, we saw Flo briefly, but could not find Minnie all day until Maria started looking for her in the late afternoon. Her leg looked awful, and she seemed barely conscious, she must have been hiding all day, she let Maria handle her and we just ran her down the road to the vet. Flo was gone all day.
Dr. Suzanne Fariello saw her right away and took X-rays. She said the leg wasn’t broken, but the tissue in her leg was just crushed and already dying, it was worse than a break. She gave us four possible options – bring in an orthopedic specialist for surgery, which would be complex and difficult; amputate the leg below the hip, or euthanize her if she was likely to be in perpetual pain. We ruled out the euthanasia option and are considering the other two. If we decide to amputate the leg, she will be able to continue her life as a bar cat, she will not be able to get up trees as quickly but will have no trouble climbing up hay bales and moving around.
We did ask about cost, and that is a factor also. The orthopedic procedure would cost thousands of dollars and had an uncertain outcome, the amputation was very likely to succeed. If it did succeed, Minnie would have her leg but it would not be mobile. I’ve seen a lot of three-legged barn cats up here, they do well. The only downside, aside from the obvious, is that she won’t be able to get away from predators quite as quickly but could definitely live as a barn cat. Dr. Fariello found some bite marks on her lower leg, she believes another animal, almost surely a cat, grabbed her leg and Minnie pulled away, destroying the tissue there. She got herself into the barn and hid. She has some cut and bite marks on her forehead as well.
We will decide over the weekend what to do, and if we decide to amputate – that is where we are leaning – the operation will be performed Monday morning. We are in good hands with this practice and trust them, Minnie is spending the weekend there, she is heavily sedated. This afternoon, we found Flo under the rocking chair on the porch and she is spending her nights in the basement until we figure out what is outside, and what, if anything, we can do about it.
I stopped the other day to look at this one tree, and I was humbled by all of the beautify there was in this tree, it was one of countless thousands all around it, and I decided to focus my mind on the quiet beauty of this tree, and not the troubles of the world around it, the tree just seemed to have an inner glow about it, and the rest of the world seemed to recede around it. It was a beautiful and healing moment for me, a simple thing, a cliche even, but powerful.
