Back from Fairs and Vacation

I've spent the last almost 3 weeks at 2 fairs and then on a family vacation. My sleep schedule is very messed up and I of course couldn't sleep this morning. But I spent the two fairs helping my family do temporary tattoos and face painting, which is interesting but at times you question how the human race has lasted this long. The vacation was fun we did a family trip with my dad's side of the family down by the Chesapeake bay in a rental house. The first day we went to Colonial Williamsburg, then half of us went to Kings Dominion, and on our last day (for us, the rest of the family was staying but we had to leave due to my step-grandmother having eye surgery) we played in the inlet of the bay we where by.

At the first fair(which was close to home) I had friends win me a new goldfish. My mom had to take it home with her and get it settled in without me. She/he is a mix of white and orange and is doing well with my other goldfish. One of my friends who won it asked me if she could name it I said sure and after my mom said it had to be a reindeer name (to go with the reindeer theme started by Rudolph) it's name is Vixen.  

So it was fun, but stressful for me being away from the animals. My mom was caring for them but she isn't very good with the chickens. Something got the smallest brown leghorn pullet the first week I was gone and the second week I was gone something got the smallest brown leghorn rooster. Everyone else is fine and the cross breed bantam hen even started laying (creamy colored eggs, I'll get a picture soon). But when I got home and was checking everyone out I couldn't find the BA/EE hen, but mom told me she had seen her that morning. So I went looking for her with a sneaking suspicion I knew what she was up to and I was right. I went in the old coop to find her on a nest of eggs she had been hiding. She has 13 eggs and isn't brooding yet but probably will at any moment. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to let her sit on them but if I do I'm going to have to rig something to keep her safe in the old coop.

I also went to check on my garden yesterday which has been badly neglected but has had lots of growth. I got part way in looking at the new green tomatoes and trying to get back farther to look at the vines to see if anything was growing. When suddenly I felt something sting my left ankle which I quickly shook off, but at the same time something wrapped its around my right pinky and begin stinging me and would not let go. After some very hard shaking, screaming, and a few words that will not be repeated here I got it off and got out of the garden. My friend who was with me at the time said it appeared to be hornets and that they where coming out of the wooden thing I was by (my halfway done abandoned attempt at a composter). We went inside and put ice on the stings. And when the ice melted, I applied some baking soda paste. My finger swelled up to the point it couldn't move, then got better last night and is worse this morning, swelling again and painful. My leg on the other hand (ha ha) is just a little bit red and sore if touched. I'm going to have to spray the hornets to kill them but I think I'm going to wait until the swelling is gone from my finger first.

But as far as the garden goes it looks good (if a mess). I need to harvest potatoes. The volunteer multihead sunflowers are blooming. The vining plants (pumpkins, squash, gourds) are in blooming and I think I saw a small start of a fruit on one but I really didn't get to check due to the hornets. But I did see a fair number of green tomatoes.

I do try to keep this updated but live gets busy and sometimes I don't feel like putting effort into stuff. But I do want to say feel free to comment and talk to me I don't always answer right away but I will always try to answer any questions and comments.

Enjoying the grass

The little guys now have access to the run and are loving it. The first day (they've had access for about 3 days) they spent 15-20 min. stuffing their faces before they realized it wasn't going to be taken away from them. Now they are calm and enjoying the sun and the grass and I snapped a few pictures today:

And the Red decided to come and watch what I was doing while the big girl layed in shade:

New Chickens

So we picked up the new chickens and the guinea pig. The guinea pig is a girl and her name was Savannah but I think that is going to change. As for the chickens  it turns out 4 our roosters. The owner had no idea about basicly any thing about them and they had been her daughters until she lost interest. Their run had been worn down to mud and the coop was a mess and the appear to have been pecking at each other. Also from what I saw they had been feed strait scratch which is basically candy for birds.  I think the 6 younger birds are bantam brown leghorns but I need to do some checking on the breed and they got them from TSC in February. The older hen was hatched a year ago as part of a school hatch. She is also a bantam but I'm not positive what she is she has some feathers on her feet (not many but some might be gone from living in mud) and extra toes and she layed whitish/cream eggs for them. I think I've seen a picture of a hen that looks like her but I'm not sure where. I think she may have cochin in her but I'm not sure, so I'm going to have to do some research. But before everyone got in the nice clean coup the got the mud washed off their feet so their legs are much cleaner then in the original picture. So here are some pictures of the new birds:

This is the older hen.

Her Feet

Her again

3 of the 4 boys

The two little girls

The two little girls and one of the roosters

Two roosters with someone in between

Everyone

 

The older hen again

My computer is working again!

I've finally got a working computer! My last post was written on a kindle fire, which is part of the reason it was so short. I'm still not sure what my little cochin died of but I found a few pieces of half digested looking food by where I found her. So I'm not sure if she chocked or if her crop was impacted (meaning it wasn't letting food through) and some managed to come back up.

But on happier news from a friend of a friend tomorrow I'm getting 7 hens/pullets! One was hatched last year by a class and the rest where hatched in February (I think I have that right) and she thinks everyone is girls but she doesn't know what breeds they are. Also from the same person we are getting a guinea pig which is going to be my sister's but she has a bad history with pets (they all seem to die in weird ways) so we will see.

So tomorrow my sister is going to rearrange her room for the guinea pigs cage and I'm going to clean out and scrub down the coop for the new arrivals that we are picking up tomorrow night. So hopefully I'll have an update and pictures the day after tomorrow.

Also we took in the stray cat his (yep he is a boy) name is now Rudolph and he is growing his fur back from where the mats where that I ended up spending several hours working out and he is gaining weight. He loves the dog and isn't a fan of the other cats but is doing okay with them. He spent the day running laps in the up stairs hallway and just being a silly kitten so all is well with him.

The white cochin

The white cochin the last of the cochin was found dead in the coop tonight. I'm not sure what she died of the was no wounds or visible reasons for her death.

Cats, Foxes, Feathers, Dog Butts and Traps

I hate posting all this sad stuff but it seems to be most of the stuff happening is sad, so if you want to get to the kind of nice part skip to the last paragraph. Wednesday afternoon we took Nick our beagle to the vet. He was due for shots and we wanted them to check out a bump on his butt that we thought was an anal gland not expressing its self (basically the gland releases fluid while the animal is pooping). Shots went well he only jumped a little at the second shot, but it turns out the gland is fine but he has a hernia. We are to keep an eye on the bump and make sure it doesn't get bigger and to try to get him to lose weight to relive some pressure. The weight he has to loose he gained after neutering, before he looked like we were starving him and couldn't keep weight on him, but now he is a bit over where he should be.

But we headed home and I let Nick inside and told my mom I was going to check on the Baby chicken (the 3/4 EE and 1/4 BA) because before we left she had gotten loose and I didn't feel like chasing her down and thought she would be fine. But I wend out and couldn't find her. And then I found the feathers, her feathers scattered across part of the yard and beside the coop. I tried to get the birds inside but the big flock wasn't having it, so I went inside felling horrible but with no way to fix it and was planning to set the trap for the presumed raccoon that night. But a little while latter I heard Red giving a warning/scared call. So I race out expecting a raccoon to find something I didn't expect, a fox. Let me explain my surprise of seeing a fox, in my life I've seen a few dead foxes on the road (5 or 6) and only a few live ones far far away from my house (2 or 3), and a few years ago soon after I got my first chickens a neighbor down the road had warned me that they had seen a fox but I had never seen it. I've seen more live black bears then I have foxes including one many years ago in our yard. So I was a little bit shock at seeing it but still went into mama chicken mode and ran screaming and yelling at it and scared it off. Then the big flock was then ready to go into the coop once they calmed down a little. But well I was doing that my mom called one of our neighbors who has chickens, geese, and peafowl to warn them and found out they had already lost 3 birds. So they will be on the look out to deal with the fox as well.

So I  retrieved one of my higher power guns from my dad's the next day (here I usually only have a 22) and I have it on hand to deal with the fox if it comes back in the yard ( for those who know guns it is double barrel with one barrel being a shotgun and the other a 222). But so far it hasn't been seen again and until it does I can't let the flock out. So the big flock is stuck on their side of the coop with the other side open for air flow. But the little cochin is now all alone. Originally she was on the big flock side of the coop in a cage but was not dealing well with the heat and is currently living in a cage in my bedroom until the fox is dealt with and I figure out what to do.

So you see this is not going well. But now we get to the expensive part of the story. I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not going to get a shot in at the fox after scaring it so I need to trap it and according to the internet this is a very hard thing to do because the little devils are smart. But I ended up deciding that I need a trap that would fit a fox to at least try. So I went and bought a trap (a havahart  type trap) for about $180 including tax. This thing is huge and on the list of animals that it's to trap (all of these types of traps come with a list of 3 animals that they are suppose to trap), it is to catch coyotes, foxes, and bobcats. To give you another idea on size I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee and the trap is longer then the Jeep is wide. and to add to the fun of loading it, me and my sister couldn't get the back seat to go down. We ended up getting the head rests off the back seat and squeezing it in over the set where it took up from the back of  the front seats to the rear window which just barely closed. So lots of fun but I got it home and it is currently sitting behind the chicken coop to let it loose some of its  people/store smell. This trap also comes with a cage inside of it to hold live bait, so if I get despite I can put a chicken in there and have it fairly safe to lure the fox in. I'll try to get some pictures of it soon but my computer is having problems and I'm not sure if I could get them to upload.

Now to the slightly good part of this post we have had a short haired grey stripe male cat that has been showing up about once a month since January. I'm starting to think its living with our neighbors cats and just coming around for some extra food. Then in the past week or so another stray has shown up a long haired grey striped cat. This sweetheart has taken to sleeping in the yard out past the coop. But Butterscotch , who should be the nicest since he was once a stray/dumpee himself, has decided that he doesn't like him or her (I'm going to call it a her for the rest of post because it looks like a girl to me even if I don't know for sure) and is picking fights. But Friday night I went out and got within 5 feet of her before she got nerves and went to the edge of the woods. I went and grabbed some food and let her get something in her stomach because she, even with her long fur, looks too thin. But last night I decided to try again as she was sitting next to the coop (she seems to like the chicken coop, so maybe at her past home there was a barn or a chicken coop? And no she isn't going after the birds) and took some food with me and after sitting out there and slowly luring her in with food she ate out of my hand. Then in the middle of this bonding and eating I feel something rub across my back, Butterscotch, who I grabbed to prevent him from going after her but I couldn't stop him from hissing and scaring her back to the woods. So I grabbed him and deposited him back inside and grabbed some more food and she was much more willing to come up to me knowing I have food for her, then she let me pet and gently rub her ears and head. But any fast movements made her nerves. Then I found that she is even thinner then I thought, under her pretty fur she has huge mats of fur on both sides that will need to be cut out. But she got her stomach full and was just eating a few random pieces instead of shoveling it in and was letting me pet her when something startled her and sent her back into the woods. But I think she will stick around and hopefully we can get Butterscotch to accept her. At the very lest I hope to get some weight on her and get the mats cut out.

Cochins and Raccoons

2 Weeks ago today I lost the little black and white cochin to a raccoon, due to me forgetting to lock up until about 10:50 at night. I still feel horrible and between that and being busy with finals I haven't posted.

 But last night around 5 or 6 (still full sun here) I went to let the dog out and heard the baby squawking (I really need to stop calling her that, she's laying eggs now). So I headed out to the coop and see something running into the woods and my first thought was that it was a stray cat or one of my neighbors cats. Then I turn and look at the pen and see a raccoon standing up against the fence looking in. So I yell at it and it runs. Then I get ticked off, raccoons do not as a rule come out during the day. Usually it's a sign of illness or desperation. So I lock the chickens up for their safety and get my havaheart trap out and set it up. And here is what I found this morning: