It has been an interesting day so far, animal-wise. For some reason my Wheaten Marans pullet has a green face. Her skin in that area has changed color. My first impression was that she was choking, but that is not the case, and her behavior is normal---spirited, as usual. The soft tissue under her throat is a little swollen as well. I have yet to find anything on this...maybe she's just eaten something.
I let her and her brethren out of their coop today, since it's so nice, and because the rain has ruined all the hay in the coop. They've already fled the lot and are running around somewhere. Hopefully they'll make it back in and don't vanish! That's how I lost the other half of the Marans. They're not real intelligent, like the Hulseys who leave the lot for hours and sightsee before returning.
I let her and her brethren out of their coop today, since it's so nice, and because the rain has ruined all the hay in the coop. They've already fled the lot and are running around somewhere. Hopefully they'll make it back in and don't vanish! That's how I lost the other half of the Marans. They're not real intelligent, like the Hulseys who leave the lot for hours and sightsee before returning.
While in the chicken lot I moved a couple pens around. Tonight I am going to gather up my Lavender Ameraucana pair, and my Mottled Cochin rooster, my Black Silkie hen and my Black Frizzled Cochin hen and lock 'em up. Tomorrow I'll find a bucket or tub to make a nest. All of these birds are old enough, typically, to lay, but only the silkie has laid eggs so far. She is the same age as the cochins.
My Marans, my Blue Orpington hen, my Hulseys, and my White Ameraucana hen will all house in the Bantam Coop still. I need to clean out all the coops (and my rabbit's pen) soon, once we're able to get hay from the barn, which is sort of cut off right now because of construction.
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I also got to do some goat-wrangling today. For a long while now, the chicken lot fence has been broken in one area where a tree fell across it. Until this time I never bothered to worry about it, because most of the chickens get out anyway, and there is a barbwire fence. However, today the goats figured out how to get their fat little bellies through the barbwire, and were chillin' in the quail farm. I had to go catch them out, and lodged some a-frames between the trees and the barbwire so they shouldn't be able to get out again. We'll see though.
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I set up my rabbit, Midnight, in a large chicken pen in our yard near our house today, with a bucket nest of hay and pan of water. He's just thrilled, glad to get out on the grass. Yesterday I brought him in to hang out in my bedroom, and he really enjoyed that as well. I scattered marshmellows around for him, and gave him a whole apple, which he munched on periodically. He really loves to have his cheeks massaged, though, and so I mostly lay on the floor with him and read my Kindle while rubbing his face.
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Zelda's foot is looking better today, and I think her antibiotics have finally started to help. At some point in time she ripped open her claw, and it got infected into the quick. Dad suggested that we might have to take her to the vet and have the claw completely removed, but now that it's doing better, I don't know if that'll be necessary.
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