There鈥檚 still a solid layer of snow on the ground when I meet Seleta and Mike Nothnagel at their Wellington home. Wiping my boots on a mat that says 鈥淲elcome to the Farm鈥� doesn鈥檛 seem to help much and I ask if they鈥檇 like me to take them off before coming in.
鈥淥h lord, no,鈥� Seleta Nothnagel said. 鈥淲e require shoes in this house.鈥�
That鈥檚 because in addition to three dogs and two cats, the Nothnagel residence is also home to a half dozen chickens. Right off the kitchen, in what usually would be the dining room, sit two indoor coops for the birds, who are roaming around the living room wearing cloth diapers.
鈥淵eah the cleaning is pretty intense,鈥� Nothnagel said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a never-ending job. There鈥檚 no question about that. It鈥檚 bird laundry and dusting and it鈥檚 vacuuming.鈥�
Blue, a Blue Splash Marans, was the first of the family鈥檚 flock to make her way into the house.
鈥淪he was kind of the underdog of the flock and so that kind of endeared me to her,鈥� Nothnagel said. 鈥淏ut then her personality was just really cool. She enjoyed cuddling and she would sit on my lap while I watched TV and she would just purr and coo at me. And she would kind of tell us when she was ready to go to bed.鈥�
Blue even has a special spot to sleep on her bedside table.
鈥淢ost people would do the same thing for their dogs or cats or whatever, and so I guess I just don鈥檛 see it as a whole heck of a lot different,鈥� Nothnagel said.
We love who we love. That extends to our pets as well, said Erin Allen, a social worker at Colorado State University鈥檚 Veterinary Teaching Hospital鈥檚 Argus Institute.
鈥淚t鈥檚 probably the one relationship in our lives that is unconditional,鈥� Allen said. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 judge us. If we don鈥檛 brush our teeth they鈥檙e still gonna give us kisses. It鈥檚 a safe relationship, and it gives so much.鈥�
Allen says she鈥檚 seen people bond to every type of animal.
鈥淚鈥檝e worked with families who have had the same type of relationship that I have with my dog with their rabbits, their guinea pigs, their ferrets, a duck,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen you say 鈥榩et,鈥� we automatically think dog or cat but really there鈥檚 this whole broad spectrum.鈥�
For Nothnagel, that bond is with Blue, who goes everywhere with her 鈥� including the feed store and Home Depot. It was on one of those trips a year ago that she noticed something was wrong.
鈥淚 kinda started noticing when we would go out that she would start open-mouth breathing a little bit and her comb would start to turn a kind of mauve color instead of a red,鈥� she said.
Nothnagel took Blue to four different veterinarians to see if they could figure out the problem.
鈥淭here were so many theories that were thrown out,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey thought that maybe she was just fat. They were like, 鈥榊ou know she鈥檚 a little fluffy. Maybe she鈥檚 just fat enough that it鈥檚 pressing on her air sacs and she鈥檚 not able to get a good breath.鈥� They thought maybe it was cancer.鈥�
At the CSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital 鈥� where Nothnagel now works as a medical laboratory scientist 鈥� a CT scan finally gave an answer.
It was a patent ductus arteriosus, or PDA. The hole in her heart is actually somewhat common in humans and animals like dogs. In birds 鈥� not so much.
CSU veterinarian Dr. Matthew Johnston, who specializes in avian, exotic and zoological medicine, had never seen one in a bird in his more than 20-year career. After a lot of research, he only found one other recorded case in a bird 鈥� a parrot. And that was discovered during an autopsy. Undeterred, he took the case.
鈥淲e do things at CSU all the time that have never been done before, so why not give this a shot,鈥� Dr. Johnston said.
And the fact that it was a chicken and not a more 鈥渢raditional鈥� pet never made a difference, he said.
鈥淢y thing is the human-animal bond exists regardless of the species,鈥� Dr. Johnston said. 鈥淚 can tell you stories of 鈥� a woman who had a therapeutic hermit crab. And her hermit crab meant the world to her and she was in tears when I saved her hermit crab. She had dropped it and its shell had broken.鈥�
For Blue, Dr. Johnston worked with the hospital鈥檚 cardiac team to create a new technique going through the jugular vein to close the hole in Blue鈥檚 heart. They even practiced it on chicken carcasses to make sure it was possible to make the hairpin turn necessary for the procedure.
And the cost?
鈥淭he surgery itself was I think right around $4,200 or something like that,鈥� Nothnagel said. 鈥淚 went through all of the invoices that I have from the veterinary clinics that we had taken her to, trying to get her diagnosed and the heart medications we had tried and all that kind of a thing, and added everything up and we were at $10,245.46.鈥�
Nothnagel knows exactly what many people think after hearing that. Twenty years ago, while working as a vet tech, she thought the same thing after a woman paid $500 for stitches for her chickens after a fox attack.
鈥淲hy in the world would you pay that kind of money 鈥� for chickens!鈥� she said. 鈥淚 never put the thought together that they would have personalities or likes and dislikes. They were just food. So it just seemed silly to me. It was like, why wouldn鈥檛 you just stick 鈥榚m in a crock pot and call it good?鈥�
In general, grief over a pet is pretty disenfranchised by society, Allen said. Often people don鈥檛 acknowledge it to the degree that they feel it.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know if it鈥檚 a judgement or just a hesitation 鈥� 'cause it鈥檚 not the norm they think, but it really is. Because it is very natural for someone to be as upset over the loss or an illness of a pet family member as they would be over a human family member.鈥�
But slowly over generations, Allen says the role pets play in our lives has changed, going from the barn to the house to even sleeping in our beds.
鈥淓ach time they start to get a little closer and so our relationships have the opportunities to be even bigger and deeper than what they were generations ago,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 where all those kinds of doubts come from and it鈥檚 from the historical perspective of the place of pets in our lives. But I also tell people that it鈥檚 OK to change that perspective.鈥�
During the pandemic, Allen says that perspective is likely to shift again. Animal shelters are being cleared out of adoptable pets and people are leaning on pets more for emotional support, further deepening that bond.
And with that bond, Allen believes there will be improvements in how people take care of their pets 鈥� from keeping up on veterinary wellness checks, to getting pet insurance, to hiring trainers to handle behavioral issues.
Blue鈥檚 team is even writing up her case for publication in a scientific journal. The hope is that the advancement in techniques will help other veterinarians with their patients.
Nothnagel also hopes that her story helps make it a little less taboo for owners to decide to go the extra mile for their 鈥渘on-traditional鈥� pets. She鈥檚 already making in-roads. Blue and the rest of her flock were the first chickens covered by Nothnagels鈥� pet insurance company. But in the time since she signed them up for a policy, more families with chickens have followed suit.
As for Blue? Since her surgery, Nothnagel says she鈥檚 back to her old self.
鈥淪he likes to be held and cuddled and she鈥檚 back to crowing, which is just nuts because, being a hen, she really wasn鈥檛 supposed to crow in the first place,鈥� she said.
Apparently, Blue is doing a lot of things chickens aren鈥檛 supposed to do.
