Limbo between seasons. Watchlist.

The garden is still under at least two feet of snow. It was +7C the other day--gorgeous and hot.  What a treat to work without gloves and a hat! All of the heat lamps, rads and heated waterers were unplugged.  I freed the barn door of ice and enjoyed some fresh air blowing through the barn that didn't freeze my face.  That's a bit of a novelty this winter!
 



 

Then that north wind started up again last night...Oakley got his blanket back on. I plugged in waterers and a few lamps.  Closed the barn door.  Just as well since the coyotes were out there yipping last night.  Oakley the sentinel was on guard for quite a while before we actually heard them.

Back down to -12C last night.  Sort of a relief since I tweaked my knee yesterday slogging through snow that kept giving way beneath me. At least this morning it was solid again.

 

The garage is flooding.  The banty runs will likely be next.  Possum has been hanging around a lot, but walked right past the ducks and the wide open duck door yesterday so I'm not too worried about her.  I will have to redo the duck run with proper wire as she ripped the chicken wire easily to get in. I'll post my photo of it when I find it...

 

 

Chicken wire is not predator proof in the slightest, and I don't need a possum or rabbit squeezing in and making a hole that a mink or fox could gladly walk right through. We generally don't use it for coops, but it was more to keep the ducks in, vs predators out.  Their coop that's locked up every night is made with half inch hardware cloth, which is the standard if you actually want to sleep at night!

 

That reminds me, G and I were chatting about how to use our various pasture sections and hay field this year.  That night I dreamed that the sheep kept escaping and the whole night I was chasing them, trying to round them up while trying to figure out how they escaped so I could fix it.

 

Shadow



 

Aside from the spring tuneups and cleanups to add to the to-do list, I have a 'watchlist' of animals that is contantly updated, and I discuss with Glenn so we're both monitoring things. Our gold laced Wyandottes who live in the chook palace are not being treated very nicely by Shadow and Shade, the two roosters out there.

Bottom to top: Tundra, Wookie, and gold laced 'dotte 'Chili' on the top roost. Hiding from the mean kids.

They are smart enough to retreat to their roosts early in the evening when the roos are prone to aggressively mating with as many hens as possible.  The problem is that when I check all of their crops they are pretty much empty.  One of them is on the thin side, so we need to get a baseline weight and keep an eye on her.  They were formerly Flan's ladies, and they had done very well with him.  I hate seeing these 'senior' hens mistreated.

No gold laced 'dottes out playing...just the cool kids apparently. : (



 

 

Pepper's foot swelling is bigger, at the spot where her xray showed that odd boney growth.  She spends a fair bit of time in the nest box but I'm not sure if she's laying. 

 

Little black banty with Rusty Cage the rooster sounded a bit crackly the other day, so making sure I don't leave her out in the run on any cold days. 

 

Oakley is being treated for pneumonia again, possibly the worst he's ever had it.  Dr. Ed suspects that he has permanent lung damage on the right side, so that and his bronchioles are what's normally affected first. But this time he has it on the left too.  That diagnosis got me really sad this time.  Don't want anything to happen to the bear, and don't want him to suffer.  It's been a hard winter on us all, I guess. Even with the way I pamper them I couldn't keep him safe. I'll have to be so careful getting him back into exercise.  Vet has told me that it takes at least a month after this sort of episode for the lungs to pink up again.

 

 



 

 

Winston still has a sheath infection, so I hope that will be resolved soon. Poor guy! His gums looked a little bit salmon coloured yesterday, so I'll be watching that.  His liver enzymes were elevated a while back, and now I'm really thinking that he can't handle any phenylbutazone at all, and that's what his liver has trouble with.  He's been on a few days of bute this week to help with the penis swelling. I'm pretty sure he was on it that last time we took blood as well. 

 

Guineas with toe loss are doing well in the coop finally.  One little daughter of Chaos has one foot with only a tiny bit of first digit left.  We need to make sure she's not getting any pressure sores on that little stump. It's a relief to see that she and the other two are not getting beaten up by their dads as much.  The first two weeks were pretty rough on them. I've partially covered their run with poly and with the warm days lately they've been able to get out and blow off some steam, which I think has helped a lot! Three of them are still awaiting surgery to have their toes properly closed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chaos and Mayhem, baby daddies.

 

Sassy Duck gettin' down. Still boggles us that we read somewhere that muscovies neither need nor like water. WRONG.

 

I started writing this post last week.  Now we're expecting snow, sleet and freezing rain, and I had to turn most of the heat lamps back on last night.  We really are stuck between seasons. Starburst the ewe is even starting to roo (Shetlands retain some primitive qualities of 'unimproved' or wild sheep where they naturally shed their fleece or it can be removed byt he shepherd without clippers, at a natural break in the fleece  http://www.shetlandsheepinfo.com/HUSBANDRY/rooing.htm  ). 

They all look a little itchy in their heavy sweaters, but it's not time for shearing yet! March will likely go out like a lion, so they'll need that protection just yet.