Franklin

Hi, friends…

I have some very unexpected sad news to report. On Sunday, May 29th, Mom and Dad had to take Franklin to the doctor for a lift to the Rainbow Bridge.

I guess it started on Friday. She wasn’t eating much but Mom noticed she was having trouble walking again (it would come and go every so often). Saturday morning, Mom started messing with leg brace prototypes made from a pool noodle. She had Franklin out for about 45 minutes and even Dad held Franklin for awhile while Mom was putting the braces on. Neither Mom nor Dad noticed anything wrong other than her legs being weak.

Then came Sunday. Mom went out to feed all of the animals and noticed that Franklin didn’t “say good morning” back to her when she said, “Morning, Frankie Pankie”. So she went over to Franklin’s pen and noticed that Franklin looked brown underneath her wings near her tail. Mom went in to look and saw the worst thing…maggots. Franklin must have gotten some kind of bacterial infection and there were bazillions of maggots of all sizes.

Coincidentally, Mom had just read last week in her Pet Duck/Goose Facebook group about a chicken that was rescued with the same problem. She knew exactly what to do: epsom salt soaks to get them out, vetericyn spray on the wound and injectable Tylan 50 antibiotic. After a couple hours of flushing and finding more and more dead tissue, Mom realized that Franklin had been through so much the last year and a half. She realized that she didn’t have the expertise or money to pay for someone’s expertise to fix Franklin. Wounds like the ones Franklin had were going to require a lot of time spent cleaning and disinfecting for weeks to come. Who knows how much pain she was in.

So, Mom did what she could cleaning her up and decided to make her last moments worth living. She thawed out a bunch of peas (Franklin’s favorite) and let Franklin have her fill.

Then, Dad helped her load Franklin up into the back seat of the trucks and Dad drove to the emergency vet while Mom sat in the back loving on her.

On the ride, Mom could tell Franklin was tired. She wasn’t fighting any of Mom’s pets or scratchies.

After about 10 – 15 minutes, they made it to the emergency vet where Dad took this last picture of Mom and Franklin.

Inside, Mom filled out the necessary paperwork and then held Franklin and told her how much she loved her. 5 minutes later, they came out for Franklin for an unwitnessed euthanasia (not Mom’s choice – office policy). Another 5 minutes later, they brought Franklin back out, all wrapped up so Mom could take her home and bury her.

The sky was black when Mom and Dad got home. Luckily Mom had dug Franklin’s grave before they left because she was burying her with thunder and lightning as it was. Shortly after she was done, the sky let loose. There’s always rain at a funeral…

We will miss Franklin so very much but we know she’s with Abigail (her sister) again, and she can walk with no problems.

April 22, 2011 – Franklin (L), Abigail (R)

May 15, 2011 – Abigail (front), Franklin (back)