Of Chickens, Antibiotics and Kitten Love.

It's Monday today, and the chicks are due on Friday. Marc found that the temperature in The HovaBator was a bit low today and had to turn it up. It snowed here yesterday and Marc put the coal stove on, and it heated the house so much that he had to lower the temp. of the incubator. He forgot to turn it up again. We are hoping that the chicks will be okay.

Everyone else is doing well. The chickens are on day 4 of antibiotics. That was an adventure. There are a few of the hens that have been sniffling and sneezing lately, and one that came down with a full blown sinus infection that was so serious we ended up having to put her down. We have been trying to find poultry antibiotics around here for a while, but have had no luck. I ordered some on-line, from a great place called Jeffer's, and it came last week.

Now, I am a fairly intelligent person. I do have a tendency towards apparent flightiness due to the fact that my head is always full of wonderfully distracting things that seemingly have nothing to do with day-to-day life, but I can make my brain work when I need to. Still, I had a devil of a time figuring out how much antibiotics to give to the chickens. It came in a plastic bin, and the instructions seemed designed to dose hundreds of chickens at a time. I have eight.

First it said to make a stock solution, presumably gallons of the stuff. Then, I was to "meter" the stock solution into their drinking water at an ounce per gallon, or something like that. And the stock solution does not last past 12 hours. I was, like, huh? So I did what I usually do when I am stumped. I wrote "how to give poultry antibiotics" into a search engine. I essentially got the very same instructions that are on the plastic container my antibiotics came in. One lady did suggest putting bread in the solution to make sure they eat/drink it all, which I thought was just short of genius.

I appealed to my sister for help, as she has been through this before with her chickens. Her instructions helped. I ended up putting a bit of the antibiotic powder on the tip of a teaspoon and mixing it in 4 cups of water and giving it to them with bread or crackers crushed up in it. They eat the majority of it right away and then drink the remaining water for the rest of the day. It is really difficult to get free range chickens to drink from only one source. They have the dog's water, the rabbit's water, not to mention puddles and ditches and yesterday's snow. No one had died yet, so I hope I am doing it right.

The kittens are growing magnificently. Mini is still not impressed, although she does take the time to sniff their bums on a pretty regular basis. Yesterday they figured out how to get upstairs, and spent some time playing under Grace's bed after she had retired for the night. They play, eat, drink, poop and sleep. And we derive no end of pleasure watching them. It really is quite odd, but we don't question it. Some things in life are not to be analyzed, but simply enjoyed.

To close, a bit of kitten wisdom ~ A brother who has just been biting your toes, cheeks, ears, throat, and tail should still be trusted to clean your bum. This is, though, a one chance deal. Even kittens have limits...