So much going on.
Pepper has a mass in her belly that is pushing organs forward where they shouldn't be. What we don't know is if it's cancer, or a reproductive accident (or more cancer)
She's been having pretty good days out there, ranging with Venga. Granny Rose and Miss Buff. One morning she wouldn't come off her perch in the chicken tractor where she's been roosting alone most nights. It wasn't until Venga came in and started talking to her that she jumped down and headed out for breakfast. Those two have been together almost every day for about 1700 days. It's really quite charming, as I've said before, the friendships and alliances they form.
I'm giving her pain killers in case she has peritonitis. The drugs that she needs to shut down her ovaries are on back order in North America.
Kitten needs that drug too...the injection that kitten got while we wait for the right stuff might have helped a bit--she no longer is laying soft shelled eggs, but she's still laying eggs occasionally.
Oakley has pneumonia--I had the vet out yesterday morning since the poor bear was heaving and wild eyed. By the afternoon he was breathing easier. He will need treatment for four to six weeks. I'm so sad for the bear, and also disappointed that we'll have to cut his training back. I was really looking forward to this weekend--had made a plan to ride one day and drive the next.
As a consolation for this weekend, we are going to our coach's farm in Elk River, where we will drive his team through the woods with their off road cart, and do some log skidding! Sort of a belated anniversary outing for us.
Banties:
Phoenix spent a night inside this week when I noticed he was acting strangely around Millie and Petunia. He wasn't really walking, would pick up a seed for them but not really eat anything himself. He stood still on their perch, then when I encouraged him to move he seemed to have trouble balancing. I'd quickly installed a heat lamp for him over the perch, but he was deteriorating fast, so scooped him up and brought him inside. My heating pad for his hospital cage would take a while to heat up, so I just wrapped him in a towel and shoved him inside my vest. His little comb was cold. He took fluids off a syringe for me.
After several hours of rest (and watching TV from inside my sweater) he warmed up enough that I put him in Fern's cage while I ate dinner. He then proceded to eat so much that his crop was packed solid. Not good!! So over the next few hours of the evening I fed him more water, mL by mL, and massaged his crop. My best guess is that he'd gotten dehydrated over the previous 24 hours, a little cold and hypoglycemic during the windy day, so by evening time he just had nothing left in the tank. You never feed a cold animal though. Warmth and fluids first--they work wonders.
I've started bantam exams--Mr. Rusty Cage has a few mites, treated them, clipped nails. Ivy his little cage mate has no mites. He just seems to pick them up every summer. Mr. Soapy (the aggressive roo) is doing well and had his spa day as well. Three down, ten to go.
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| Millie and Phoenix |
Oakley had gas colic on Sunday night. Very bloated and painful. Banamine and some hand walking. G and I brought chairs out to the paddock, ate salsa and chips in lieu of dinner, and stayed with him out in the dark for several hours until I saw he was passing what needed to be passed. Went out a few hours later to do more walking. He was less bloated, no longer depressed, but acting terribly mean to Winston. Eating hay and putting my mind at ease though.
The pigeon I caught in our garage and brought to the wildlife hospital has been treated, and I brought him home the other day and released him. He still flies into the garage and roosts in there every night, and hangs out every day upsetting the banties. I wonder how long he'll stick around? This is a great place to be, after all. What a nice thing to have a human around to chase raptors away.
My neighbour called me on the weekend because she had a strange bird caught in her backyard fence. I grabbed my fish net, welding gloves and a smaller pair of garden gloves and ran over to see what was up. She'd described it as a loon type bird (hence my welding gloves) but luckily it was a juvenile pied-billed grebe (they are also diving fish eaters so have very sharp beaks, and no one wants an infected fish-eater bite wound...)
She had a horrible wound, so I cleaned it up a bit, applied hydrogel and a tegaderm to prevent the tisses from drying out any further, and drove her to the wildlife hospital where they could debride it while the bird was under anesthesia. Taking care of a fish-eating bird is time consuming, and costly.
Such incredible birds--I'd love to work with them for real some day.
For now I'll just keep running my "farm and country hospital, retirement retreat and triage centre" the best I can.
Kudos to G for doing great with his first grebe restraint!
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