A happy accident- part 1- from December

I suppose that people in cities don't notice the shortening of days in quite the same way that I do.  For the last few weeks especially my daily routine changes by mere minutes.  The animals know this. They are governed by the sun and if I'm off by just a little bit they will be roosting where they shouldn't or be more difficult to send to bed. I have to make those little adjustments every day.  I suppose I enjoy these challenges in what would normally be just another action I've performed a thousand times.

Christmas has passed.  Our families back home have celebrated and shared.  We put up one small ornament on our potted Norwegian spruce.  We've simply been too busy to decorate or prepare otherwise.  It's a shame, but the farm comes first.  -30 C makes us sleep poorly and work all day to keep our animals safe. Several days last week I was ready for sleep at 8pm.  I'm grateful that G is now on holidays for a few weeks.

Two weeks ago I went to the farm store to get shavings for bedding.  It was during the cold snap of at least -15.  My friend who works there used to work for one of our horse vets.  She has kept horses for many years.  I can't count the number of times I called her to ask for help and advice during the first two years we had our boy.  She never rushed to hang up.  She never laughed at my silly questions.  I'd worked at horse barns for years, I'd done my veterinary technician externship at a prominent equine hospital, but it's all very different when the horse is your responsibility 24 hours a day...We chatted casually while loading my truck and I commented on the handsome little Americauna rooster who was pecking around on the loading dock.  I remembered him from the summer.  She told me that she'd captured his buddy that morning--three bachelor roosters used to visit the feed store during the summer and hope for some scratch.  I mentioned that it's important to keep hypothermic birds well hydrated, as their crops and entire GI tracts can shut down and it requires a lot of nursing care to reach homeostasis again.  She paused and looked shocked for a second.  I took advantage of that pause to attempt a casual "do you mind if I come and take a look?"

She agreed, and we headed into the warehouse where she had him caged and under a heat lamp.  I took one look and said "Oh SH*T".  His wattles were swollen up the size of apricots.  He was shivering. (a good sign really) but it was still at least -17C in the warehouse.  He had little chance of regaining normal body heat in those conditions, and with the obvious damage to his body that was at least 24 hours old.  I said "I'll take him".  My friend seemed relieved.  Then we noticed that due to the heat lamp, the mites that he was infested with were crawling all over his back...He was suffering and likely anemic from the mites.  I couldn't touch him without fear of spreading the parasites to my own flock.

I packed his cage in the bed of my truck amidst the bales of shavings, tucked him in with a tarp my friend found. Upon arriving home I set him up on a few bales of shavings in bay three of the garage. I hung a heat lamp over him and wrapped the tarp around the cage.  He practically dove into to bowl of warm water I offered him.  Animals of all kinds get terribly dehydrated when all there is to eat is ice and snow.  I couldn't devote any more time to him as I had to tend to our animals and limit my contact with him.

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