Deal Breaker

Lady is healing very well. The paw paw ointment has worked a treat and the wound is sealed and she's all nice and clean. Actually she's clean for Lady (which is sort of still dirty). I really want to go and give her a bath in the pond, but I don't think she'd be very happy about that.

Everyone is still on lock down, I think they will be for the next day or two at least. The pen door will remain closed during the day, especially while Lady is in there.

I sat outside (near the back door) with Tommy, Izzy and Kitci last night and I had a good chat to Tommy. I told him to be brave and to look after everyone, Speedy included and to try to be nicer to Kitcsi. I'm not sure what's going to happen with my blog or the animals. I imagine they will remain at Hydrorancho living the good life.

I've been picking Speedy up and giving her lots of love and it appears that she's won the heart of Golden Child. Personally I don't see what she likes in him, but then again I'm not a chicken. Speedy is three this month, actually she's probably three already. She is the third oldest hen we have. Happy Birthday Princess Speedy the Wonder Chicken.

Plane banter

I can always rely on the ducks and chickens to bring me happiness in times of trouble.

I started talking to a guy on one of the many flights I had to catch when I was returning from Ohio recently. We did the pleasantry chat, "What do you do?"etc. I told him I was going home to see my ducks and no I couldn't have a drink as I had 3 more flights to do that night.


He told me he wished he had something that made him glow as much as I did when I talked about my ducks.


We are going to take Lady's bandage off her wing today and put paw paw ointment on her wound. We will take her up to the pond for a bath once wounds have scabbed up. She doesn't like that we are giving her tablets 2 times a day, or being touched so she'll clean herself up when she's ready.

We have a Lady down

I went to check on the animals today and I noticed a chicken looking at Lady on her nest. So I too went in and looked at Lady on the nest and all I could see was blood.
Lady was attacked by a fox or perhaps goanna and took lots of feathers out and punctured her right wing. Nothing is broken, there is just lots of blood and a big wound. We wrapped her up to stop the bleeding and then rushed her to the vets. The vet bandaged her wing and then started her on a dose of antibiotics.
We are going to keep the animals penned for the next few days and hopefully the fox will go away. Our freezer in the shed died and it wreaked of death so we think that it may have attracted the animals.
I will keep you updated of Lady's progress.

Isabel

Sometimes I call call my duck Izzy, Isabel even Isabella, I'm not sure she responds to any of the names I call her, but she does look like all three. She's very pretty and dainty, she remindes me of Lady before Lady started channelling Miss Muffet (not the sick Miss Muffet, the friendly, dirty one).

Izzy has been hanging out with the two boys, roughing it, keeping them in check by making them follow her everywhere. I'm working on getting her to eat out of my hand, but she still isn't quite sure of me.

Albie

Albie is off her smelly nest and not really loving it. Here she is watching something happening in the chicken house. She's so cute, although she's not happy with me at the moment.

Super Deluxe

Well here it is. The new pen, I think Papa has named it something to do with being snake proof 2.0, but I'm not sure of the exact details.

As you can see the roof is nice and hard. The wire is hard and the gaps are very small, the wire is dug into the ground and cemented into place so that neither rat or snake can enter. I was talking to the neighbour next door and he mentioned that they have had many snakes come through their pen. Midget chicken from next door had 9 babies a few weeks ago, but now only has two.

Yesterday I went into the pen armed with a face mask and wheelbarrow and cleaned out all of the nests (sorry Albie). But damn those eggs stunk, I think some of them were months old. Enough was enough for the chickens and duck included. I could barely walk in there without gaging. So I got rid of all the eggs and replaced it with nice fresh hay. Albie still hasn't forgiven me, she will with time.
Lady is the only one still nesting (on one chicken egg). I told her, if her nest starts to stink I'll get rid of her nest too. I'm happy to have her nesting as she looks a little scraggy, she's lost some weight from nesting so long, but her feathers appear to be damaged. Here she is watching me work yesterday.

Coyote

When I was visiting Remy we managed to spot a coyote twice over two different days.  The second time I was ready and armed with the camera.  The first time I missed it, so we turned around and drove back to where we first saw it.  My eyes were darting the area looking for the coyote.  As I had never seen a coyote before all I could imagine was this image from the Roadrunner cartoon.