Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Lots of chicks!

I know I haven't updated in a while.  I've been keeping quite busy.  Let's see.... Nemo and Ruby died in a tragic accident, so that leaves Ricky, Diamond, Eagle, and Shatel left in the bantam coop.  We've been working on getting their run up, and that's almost done.  The frame of it is done, we just need to attach all the fencing to it. 

Little Angel wasn't getting any better, so we attempted to put him down by means of a gas chamber that is accepted by the american veterinary something or other.  The first try kinda phased him a little, but he quickly snapped out of it.  Tried again today and it worked.  =(   I'm really going to miss him, but it was the best thing for him.  He wasn't going to get better.  =(  And yes... I cried.  I tried not to, but I loved him and couldn't help but let the tears loose.

My friend sent me 14 bantam cochin eggs.  7 hatched and they are now 3 weeks old.  We also bought a trio of mille fleurs.  1 boy, Mario, and 2 girls, Aurora and Jasmine.  They are now 4 weeks old.  All ten are in the brooder cage together and will be heading out to the silkie coop for a couple of weeks before becoming part of the bantam crew with the other 4.

We now have 21 eggs in our incubator.  20 are chicken eggs...  ameracaunas, EE's, and olive eggers.  The other one is a sparrow egg I found in the yard.  It was in the grass under our old maple, but there were no sparrow nests around.  My guess is that a larger bird invaded a sparrow nest and snatched this egg.  While trying to get away with it, the parent sparrows chased it... causing it to drop the egg.  SO.. I took it in to see if it will hatch.  Guess we'll find out!  And we'll also find out how many of the chicken eggs will hatch as well.  I don't plan to keep all of the chicks.  I may sell some.  We'll see.

On the 18th we're expecting a shipment of MORE chicks to come in the mail!  lol  There will be 10 blue silkies (1 boy, 9 girls) and 2 speckled sussex (both girls).  We can hardly wait to see them!  They'll come the 18th... and the eggs in the incubator are expected to hatch the next day!  LOL  Wow!  There will be about 30 chicks for the brooder! 

Umm... but the brooder isn't big enough for that many....  And the chicks from the eggs are LF, along with the two SS... and then the silkies are bantam...  We may have to use the silkie coop as the brooder.  We shall see what happens. 

Precious Boy still isn't on his feet.  Turns out his tendons are all tight and swollen.  The vet gave him some anti-inflammatory medication, and we have to do physical therapy on his legs... stretching them straight out 20 times twice per day.  The left leg is starting to loosen up, but the right leg is staying pretty tight.  The vet told me this is going to take a long time, but I'm willing to keep up with it.  And he'd BETTER get on those feet!  I want to be able to have purebred SS chicks in the future!  LOL

Gloria is DEFINITELY the top bird in their small group.  She and Mable are still laying their eggs, but are finally BOTH laying in one of the nest boxes.  They share the same box.  Mable wanted all of the fake eggs in that box, but couldn't get them in there herself... so I put them in there for her.  She's happy now.  I don't understand the point to that since she's not a broody breed.  I've also started finding some of Gloria's feathers in the nest box with the eggs.  I wonder if she will go broody soon?  If so, she's young for her breed.  Plymoth rocks don't typically go broody until their second year, and she's not even a year old yet.  None of my birds are.  Precious will be on May 21st.  I'm thinking of making him a corn bread cake for his "hatch day".  lol  We'll see. 

We also took in another dog.  He's a jack russel and fox terrier mix.  He's so cute.  His name is Nacho, and he'll be 2 years old October 1st. 




Well, that's about it.  Just been keeping myself busy with all of our animals!  Hey... I'll have to make a blog post of pictures of our 4 dogs and 1 cat sometime.  We shall see!  LOL