Moved Soapy, Kitten and unnamed crazy banty hen to the new aviary run. Soon we'll build inside runs for them. But for now at least they have a ton of room to run and dig, and they will just sleep on a perch in the dog kennel for now.
The young chooks happily range all day long . Really sad they will have to go. shadow, wedge baby, shadow 2, and Super bub are my favourites. but at the end of the day I love them all, they are so entertaining and beautiful to watch, and the yard will seem so empty when they are gone. Testosterone ruins everything!
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| Shadow 2 |
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| One of the gorgeous Wedge replicas. |
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| Cute little Cornish. He hurt his hip a few weeks ago and has some trouble getting around after a long day of ranging, but I think he still has a pretty good quality of life. He's got such a cute face, not like the cornsh roos we had last year...they were gorgeous but sort of scary and super aggressive. |
They've started trying to roost in the ash tree over their house at night...I have to be there to coax them into the tractor. Otherwise I will have to climb the tree again. Once is amusing. Second time in the dark and the rain when I asked G to monitor them to make sure they didn't and he got a little complacent when he saw a few going into the coop....Well you know what happened as soon as he turned his back...."D!!!!!" Can't believe three of them got about 15 feet up!! I've since been able to disuade them from doing that at dusk by hanging a scary bit of fabric from the tree branch.
Glad my years of tree climbing as a kid could come in handy...
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| Loving golden hour with our chooks : ) |
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| Shadow (named that since he was always his surrogate mom's Shadow) |
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| Super Bub |
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| Have no idea why this hen looks like this....considering the potential pairings. Don't think turkey vultures can breed with chickens : P |
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| The scary broody Tank Duck is on the loose. For some reason her storming around, puffing up and squeaking is terrifying. |
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| The ducks are the bosses around here.... |
My experience with bird banding and passerine rehab came in handy this week. A young house sparrow was hanging by her wing and beak on the fly tape I had beside Winny's stall (good thing he didn't eat the bird--that would have been a little disturbing) She was pretty gummed up, weak and a little dehydrated, but I managed to clean her up. Problem is that the oil you need to use to remove the glue is more likely to kill the bird if you can't remove it afterwards...I washed her three times to remove the sunflower oil, but by then she was getting stressy so I thought she needed a break before washing again. But after she dried I saw she had nice lofty feathers, so she didn't need another bath and I knew she wouldn't freeze...It's a pretty great feeling to release a bird, see them fly to a tree, up to the highest branch, calling and chirping. A nice change from finding our normal 'farming bycatch'. (when it's already too late: bunny vs. scythe, robin vs. lawnmower, frog and salamander vs. electronetting. makes us feel horrible!!!!)
Just funny how you never know what sort of life experience will come in handy on a farm...G's insane math skills are useful for so many things, from pasture management to helping me with pharamaceutical math since he often has the calculation done in his head before I'm done ranting about bizarre mixing of units they do here in the US--like MLs per pound. (so annoying!!! mg/kg please!!) Experience with dogs help when random farm dogs (or a hunting dog that likes to kill birds) show up on your property. And the list goes on. I guess the learning curve is what makes it fun, but at the same time its nice once in a while to realize we are accumulating skills and experience, and we don't always have to call someone to get help. (since people can be so unreliable and so NOT helpful sometimes).
The horses are growing their winter coats...when it rains Winston looks like a Chesapeake Bay retriever. Wish I could download all of my cousins riding and horse training experience...wishing I didn't quit riding so many years ago when rock climbing and mountain biking took over. Love working with Oak and Win in whatever capacity...they are so awesome and of course I'm in love with both of them. Still have "Heartland" fantasies about moving home to hundreds of acres.
Still working on the story of Lorpie. I miss her terribly. She'd love this west coast rainy weather....All the better to dig compost in!
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