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It falls quickly for guinea keets. (meanwhile Blanco/a gets cuter).

The incredible bearded women:

Guess what?

Another canning weekend. My mom and I did 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce. With any luck we’ll get that much more from her garden, then maybe we’ll buy tomatoes locally to do salsa.

This is our new rooster, Negra Modelo (or Sr. Modelo, or Macey). He is an Ameraucana, born earlier this year. We got him from the Klossners. He spends a lot of time stalking hens, grabbing them by the tail and then quickly jumping on them before Red comes over and knocks him off. We have him penned separately until Red stops attacking him on sight. He’s a really pretty boy; sure hope he works out OK.

We’ve been spending a lot of time trying to convince the chickens to go home to the new coop at night. They are conditioned to go to the old coop at nightfall, and it’s hard to break habits. Two nights ago we got all but 3 hens and Negra, then today it was just Negra (who had to be lured into the coop storage area using a hen).

At least two of the baby guineas are ker-plonking (hens). Whew. We’re still not sure if the white Ameraucana baby is a pullet or a cockerel; it acts kinda cock-ish.

Moving has not affected egg production. We have over 7 dozen in the fridge. Phil better get his ass over here or I’m going to have to distribute them at work.

The first tomatoes came in this week which means we started canning (although we did do a couple of batches of pickles already). This time it was Corn and Tomato Soup; soon we will be doing tomato sauce, salsa, peppers, and other tomato and pepper variations. Our crock pickles were a disaster; probably too many cucumbers and too little brine, so they went moldy. Oh well, maybe next year. Our cucumber vines had some kind of blight so we didn’t get many anyway.

The little birds made it into the new coop first. See that triangle at the top? They managed to fly up there and escape to the main coop two nights in a row (8 feet up). Today I put some mesh up there, for their own protection.

We had to transfer them one at a time from the old coop to the new one. We’re keeping them in for a few days, until hopefully they won’t go to the empty coop anymore.

Or not so empty, because later this week we’ll be picking up another rooster (and possibly a couple of hens) from jkk. Which will bring the total to 26-28 birds (depending on hens).

This little dudette didn’t make it. She never really ate properly and petered out on Friday night.

One of the keets isn’t looking so good, either; is eating ok but having a great deal of trouble at the other end. It spends a lot of time under the heat lamp. The other chicks and keets are quickly outgrowing it. Poor thing is all dirty; we keep cleaning it, it keeps pooping itself. It does seem to like blow driers; after one cleanup effort it stood on the palm of my hand while I dried it, and it didn’t even try to run away. Hopefully it will either correct itself or expire on its own; the alternative is no fun.

I say ‘it’ because keets are not vent sexable and thus ‘it’ to us until they start making ‘buck-wheat!’ noises (or not) in about 7 weeks.

The remaining 5 chicks are 90% certain to be pullets (hens), although I’m having my doubts about the little yellow one.

Invisubul corn plant? Or, chick high by the fourth of July.

all arrived OK, although we think one of the Ameraucanas might not make it (she is not digesting food well). Also, it’s really weird going to the post office and picking up live animals. That image link goes to the gallery where there are like a hojilion new pictures, some of which are video.

It’s not enough that the Japanese make great tractors, they have to make them look Japanese, too. :)

The Pixar folks got Frank the Combine SO right.

The Spore folks reconsidered after a lot of bad press and complaints. So, our pre-orders are back on!

The new John Williams score for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out. How can an 80’s kid possibly resist?

Not to mention a Richard Cheese-ified version of the Indiana Jones theme on Itunes (Plus, so no DRM, if I read the fine print properly).

Baby chicks–Ameraucanas– (and keets–pied) should be here by June 27th or 28th. With any luck the coop will be mostly done, if we can find someone who can blow in insulation before then. If we’re super super lucky, we will get Squeak and the silkies to raise them.

Icky’s on chemo. So far so good, but he can’t have any doggie visitors for awhile. We still aren’t exactly sure what’s wrong with Cupcake’s liver and lipomas, but she goes in for more work on Thursday.

-epe

Coop II work continues. I feel queasy thinking about all the inside work that has to be done before we can get chickens in (insulation, wallboard, plastic sheeting, nestboxes, chicken dooors…) We’re hoping for more Ameraucanas and some pied Guineas this year.

Icky starts chemotherapy this week. He’ll be on Chlorambucil and Prednisone.

Today is, besides being Grep’s 12th birthday, also the hatch date for our second set of chickens from last year. Unfortunately, our favorite, Beardo, didn’t quite make it; she got taken, probably by a fox, on Monday the 23rd. :( We were too complacent since all previous attacks had been in the afternoon; this time it was at 7:40 am and all I found was a pile of feathers near the barn. Of course, Pee was out of town so I feel guilty.

We have not had terrific luck with birds. Of 37 we’ve had in the past year or so, we lost 19 to predators (mostly fox/dog/coyote, 1 to hawk), 3 to illness (all guinea fowl), had to kill one rooster for people aggression, and we have 14 left alive. We nearly lost a silkie hen to a hawk the other day, if the silkie roosters hadn’t come along and kicked its ass.

At least we get to watch Ellie the IG this weekend!

I have the start of a decent sunburn, and about 100 welts from black fly bites; normally not the best start of a weekend. However Sobe ran herself out yesterday in short order, and sat out on the lawn with us (first time ever)  for a mighty fine few hours of yard work and fowl watching so I’m oddly content.

It doesn’t hurt that the lawn is mostly mowed ;).

As expected, the guinea eggs did not hatch. On the plus side they didn’t break open and when we cracked them open to check, they didn’t even smell bad. So, it was Country Max chicks for Squeaker…Rhode Island Reds since they were sexed (pullets) and a minimum of 6 due to New York state law (dumbest law ever). At least Jon said he’d take 5, since he somehow ended up with 9 roosters and 1 hen!

We never intended to try hatching eggs, mostly because excess roosters means culling, if you can’t find a home for them. :( But then a number of things happened:

• Squeak gets picked on by all the other birds and looks terrible, and always ends up injured if we keep her in the coop. She is living in a cage in the kitchen until the chickens can be outside more (giving her escape room)
• She has been broody for about a week, not laying eggs and not budging from the nestbox (except to eat once and to lay down a gigantic barn-burner)
• One of the guinea hens started laying last week, unexpectedly (we didn’t expect any til summer)
• You can’t get guineas sexed, so even if we were to buy from a hatchery we’d get a straight run
• We had hoped to get a few more guineas, but the minimum hatchery order is usually 30 keets and we don’t want that many; neither does anyone we know

We waited until there were 5 eggs (after eating the first 2), storing them on a shelf in the TV room, then stuck them under Squeak tonight. She seemed surprised but delighted by this turn of events, clucking and looking underneath herself, then shifting them around as we slipped each egg under her chest.

We have low expectations of getting keets or maybe guins. Red enthusiastically mates with the guineas, but hybrids have a low hatching or survival rate. Meanwhile, Handlebah (the guinea cock) is enthusiastic yet ineffective with the hens, usually running at them full speed and then stopping just short, and nothing else. Not apparently a hen’s idea of romance.

Assuming any do hatch, they’re due right around Easter. Even if nothing hatches, we hope not to get rotten eggs breaking open before them. Guinea eggshells are incredibly thick, making them hard to candle but hopefully less likely to break prematurely. Even if we get no keets, at least Squeaky gets to sit on some eggs for awhile.

Yay, snow! Send more, please!

Ate far too much christmas cookie dough and the ‘defective’ cookies. I feel almost as green as the christmas tree.

Know what? Chickens and guinea fowl don’t seem to like snow.

Adolescent guinea fowl, of course.

But their spots are so pretty…
Now there’s a handsome fella (Gus).

Alpha male Red.

Well, we’re down another keet. Dr. Hall called this morning to say Gilbert didn’t make it overnight. He’s going to do a necropsy to hopefully figure out what did him in. :/

So far this week has sucked. After the first dose of dewormer, Gilbert Gape (or Grape; interchangeable) lost his appetite. First his crop emptied out, then he just stopped eating. Today we took him back to the vet and he’s staying overnight after getting two shots–an antibiotic and something to get his digestive system going again. Hopefully whatever came out of his crop isn’t blocking anything.

This week has been like: get up, take care of chickens, work a couple of hours, feed dogs, drive half an hour away and do stuff, drive half an hour back, work a couple more hours, feed mom’s cat,  eat, feed dogs, work some more, go to bed. I’m exhausted. And I’m not even caught up on the whole tomato canning thing I was supposed to be doing this week. I just ordered a food strainer in the hopes of catching up.
On top of that, I also think we’ll be switching groomers. The old location closed and the other location doesn’t take credit cards, not to mention they seemed not as friendly.

Well, no sooner did we lose one that we noticed another guinea keet had a different kind of problem–looked as if it was gasping for air. This was on Saturday morning, and we pulled it out immediately in case it was contagious. Since we weren’t sure if it was bacterial and it was all we had, we started him (her?) on terramycin.

Of course. Animals always get sick at the start of a long weekend.

Googling gasping problems in poultry, we found a lot about gape worm (snail/slug larvae in the lungs/trachea). After the last keet fiasco, we were loathe to name this one, but Paul couldn’t help it. It just popped out. The bird is Gilbert Gape. Of course, if he gets well and goes back into the coop we will never be able to tell him from the others.

So Tuesday morning, I called one animal hospital with an avian vet and got an appointment immediately…only, it turned out when I got there that the vet didn’t normally deal with poultry (miscommunication with desk staff). She was very nice and said she’d take a look, anyway. She seemed to think the problem might be an impacted crop, but was about to go on vacation and was uncomfortable about doing surgery then leaving with no followup care (as was I).

So, turned around, came home, called another vet (just a few miles down the road from the last one, half an hour from here). This vet seemed more familiar with guinea fowl (even owns one)! He wanted to rule out gape worm, so we’ve got Gilbert(a) on a dewormer and will see how that goes.

In other news, Cupcake is no longer a foster but is now our permanent dog.

He’s still pretty wobbly. I had him propped up between two rolled washcloths and he was so comfortable he didn’t move for hours…then when I moved him he had a messy pile of poo behind him, which of course messed up his tail feathers…which resulted in my having to clean his back end in the sink.

He’s been pretty uncomplaining the whole time. We hold him on his back for hours at a time to give his legs a rest, and he just sleeps. But try the same position with his butt under warm running water and suddenly he’s peeping louder than he’s been the whole time he’s been here (usually his peeping is barely audible). But at least he’s (mostly) clean and less stinky.

Broca had another great name suggestion for broken guinea fowl. Keetstopher Reeve. Oh! Bad!

The keet looks a little bit improved today. He must’ve overheard us discussing the options (we were going to give him a week and then weren’t sure). Today we noticed that although he’s very wobbly, he’s able to sit up on his feet now and even creep along unsteadily (mostly sitting, but he tends to push his butt up in the air). Other times, he rocks forward and backward on his elbows (knees)? At least he doesn’t fall completely on his back so much anymore–but from time to time he’ll get going too fast and push his butt up too high, and does a complete forward somersault, which seems to confuse him–he stands there peeping afterward. He’s certainly eating, drinking, and pooping enough. He’s no longer afraid of us hovering over him, that’s for sure, especially if we have food or a water dropper.

Of course, even with a keet that might not make it, living in the house means he’s got a few nicknames. Buster (Busted) Keeton. Legolas (clip the ‘o’ a little short). This has led to a rash of names we could apply to the others…Michael Keeton, Diane Keeton, Keety Couric, Keet Richards, Keet Moon…

One of our guinea keets seems to have paralyzed legs (or something–can’t seem to use them). Per instructions here and suggestions here, we’ve made it a ‘poultry orthopedic chair’ (yes, I know how ridiculous it sounds) and are feeding it sugar water and trying to get it to eat some of its regular food. Sure hope it makes it. Keep your fingers crossed.
It’s not visible here but the little legs are dangling down through holes in the bottle.