Robin in the House!

It has been over two weeks since I last posted, which would have the chicks at almost 7 weeks. They are looking more and more like chickens every day, and less like babies. Beauty is still lovely, and is developing fluffy feathers around her face, making her appear quite cheeky and interesting. The screen doors are up, and I go into the coop on a regular basis just to say hello. They pull on my hair and peck at my clothes, and are in general very curious. I still have no clue which ones are roosters and which are hens, although most of the white ones have prominent (and quite handsomely red) crests and so Marc says that's a sign of maleness.

Having the chicks outside in their own pen has not left our home bereft of fine feathered friends, though. A couple of weeks ago Marc rescued a baby robin from one of the kittens. After a bit of inevitable research, (Thank You, God, for informed family and friends and the internet!) we have learned that robins essentially toss their babies out of the nest and finish teaching the flying/worm-eating/cat-avoiding skills from the ground. Robin is in a cage in our living room, living on all the worms, flies, berries and cat food that he can eat. He flies freely in the house for several hours a day, just to get the hang of it, and is improving. Apparently picking worms up with one's beak and tossing them back is a learned skill. He has been doing the baby robin, gaped mouth thing, and is only now starting to pick up bits of food and berries to eat. Worms will be a challenge, what with the slimy length and all the wiggling.

The cats are interested in him, and of course would turn him into a cat toy in an instant if given the chance. He is adorably brave and charges them, gaping and clicking his beak threateningly. They laugh, poke each other and say, "Hey, bro, watch this!" before they knock him, squeaking in frustration, off his feet. I try to keep Robin and the kittens apart, but I allow the odd supervised confrontation because I don't want Robin to feel safe around the cats. The dog, on the other hand, is pure benignity. Robin has even landed on her back and gone for a ride. He also rides on heads, shoulders and hands. And he poops. A lot. He won't be with us for long, though, and it is amazing what one can tolerate for short periods of time. Today we are starting training on picking up and eating worms. Finding the worms is Grace's job. This week, somehow, I will have to teach him to find worms in the dirt, although I think instincts might kick in. Last week we had a huge worm, much too big for Robin to eat in one bite. I had to cut the thing in 3 parts. Ew. Like, seriously.

So, the chicks are doing well, the rooster is calming down and the hens are as devoted as ever to their Prince Charming. Mini is ever so forbearing and only snarls occasionally at whatever creature happens to be playing with her tail at the time. The kittens are rambunctious and amusing and silly and lovable. Robin is growing brighter and smarter than ever. Pippin has been on antibiotics, and for a week endured eye and nose drops and a painful disinfecting of a large ulcer in his mouth. He also got his hind leg caught in the front porch door and was left stuck in the door for close to five minutes before we noticed. Poor little mister. He limped for a half hour. For a rabbit, he's toughness personified!

People-wise, Gracie spent four days in New York City on a school trip and had a wonderful time. Marc is doing well, busy as ever and I am feeling well and occupied with critter care and Bible study, among other things. Including being pooped on in ever so many ways. Fun, fun, fun. :S

The natives are restless!

Yesterday, our chicks were three weeks old. It is hard to believe that these gawky, 3/4 feather, 1/4 fluff little guys were tiny balls of pure fluff only three weeks ago. They are still in the pen in the dining area of my small downstairs. They still cheep like babies, which is endearing. Many have them have taken to perching on the walls of the cardboard pen. Occasionally one falls off on the wrong side and ends up on the floor outside of the pen, either squawking hysterically and wandering dumbly about as if in a daze. Either way, it freaks them out. The world is still too big for them. Staring out at it from the safety of the pen wall seems to be about all that they can handle. Now. By this time next week, they'll probably be nesting on the dining room chairs and leaving little poopy surprises in our shoes.

And yes, the house does carry a hint of eau de chicken coop about it. Except for yesterday, when it smelled enchantingly of boeuf bourguignon. But still, as rabid as I am about cleaning out the pen, one can't deny that there are 20 chickens living in my house. I am not complaining though. Marc has been helping a dear friend who is alone and really needs the help, fixing her water pump in her little house and making sure she has what she needs. It has been a longer job than he thought it would, but it has given him an opportunity to spend time talking to her, and she has really needed the encouragement that he brings. I so love the fact that he does this kind of thing. He truly is a man after my own heart. The coop will get done when the coop gets done and in the meantime, we get to enjoy the novelty of the chicks and keep the windows open at all times.

I am grateful that the rest of the animals seem to pose no threat to the chicks when one of them unwittingly escapes. The kittens just watch them from afar. I suspect there was a bit of swatting a chick around at some point, but the sheer hysteria that resulted proved to be a deterrent. Mini, the dog, just sighs, rolls her eyes and goes upstairs. The last thing that she is interested in is another small, stupid creature that she has to keep from becoming hawk food. Bunny, should he ever be in contact with a chick, will no doubt try to get lucky.

Sadly, the only creatures about that we really need to be concerned about will be the other chickens. I hear there is a whole procedure to introducing new chickens into the flock. Otherwise, it can get rough. Apparently, one way to introduce new hens is the put the hen into the coop at night, while everyone else is asleep. The next morning, when they wake up, they'll just assume the new girl was always there. That's one way to put the chicken's famed lack of brain power to good use. Wonder if they'd notice 20 new chickens...?

Coop delays, a tumbling kitten and a roughed up bunny...

Well, our twenty little chicks have gleefully entered the bald eagle stage, with their little heads being the only places where they still have fluff and their bodies are covered in lovely, albeit in some places short and funny-looking, feathers. This morning I was upstairs preparing for a bath and I heard a frantic distress cheep from below. One of the chicks had flown the coop, and his bravery left him as soon as he hit linoleum. He fairly ran into my hand when I came to rescue him. Sweet, that between freedom in the vast domain of my tiny downstairs (kitten-ridden as it is) and capture by Queen Gigantor (that'd be me), I am the lesser evil.

Marc is still working on the coop, but his travail has been interrupted several times this week by doctor's appointments and distress calls from friends. I know it is a bit of a pain having the chicks in the house, and the smell demands frequent cleanings (always more stressful on the chicks than on me), and there have been a few show-downs between kittens and chicks, the outcomes of which could be debatable had they been allowed to continue. The kittens are just kittenish enough to be easily spooked by flapping wings and hysterical squawking. I really appreciate Marc's willingness to spend time helping people who need it, though. There are a few older ladies who have been having plumbing and housing problems, and Marc is good at that kind of thing. I love that about him. I'd do it myself if I could. So, the chicks remain in the house, and my Beauty watches t.v with me every night. I cover his eyes during the rough bits, don't worry.

Sawyer, the kitten, fell out of the tree on Tuesday night. He was 20 feet up, and did several flips on the way down. He hit the ground on his feet, but winded himself, panting and limping for a few moments afterward. In the end, he was okay, but man alive, it is not a relaxing thing to watch two kittens play in a tree. They egg each other on to greater heights, so very proud of their bravado without a thought to the anxiety-ridden momma watching from below. Beasts. When my previous cat, Frodo, was a kitten, I remember being surprised at how clumsy he was. He was forever falling down stairs, running into doors and walls, skidding into chairs, feet and water dishes. It must be the smallness of the house. There's room to get going, but no room to stop. The kittens are like that too. They're like newbie skaters, using the boards to come to crashing halts. Only the kittens speed about at full tilt. The crashes are magnificent.

My sister came with her kids a few weeks ago, and she was cautioning the boys to be careful with the kittens. They're just babies, she said. They may be just babies, but with all the body slamming, stair tossing, face slugging, head butting, and just general smashing they're doing, they're either made of rubber or wonderfully padded....somewhere.

I am doing very well, physically. My bladder is being exuberantly kind to me, which is good because if a bladder is going to do anything exuberantly, it's best that it do it kindly. Of course, I am experiencing a bit of menstrual misery, which is another post for another blog (The Menstrual Diaries?), but frankly, who cares?

Everyone else is doing well. The seven chickens that remain in my little flock are all healthy and busy de-worming/bugging/weeding the perimeter. Bunny had to have his two bottom teeth taken out again, as they were loose and causing him misery, but he was immediately rejuvenated afterward. He doesn't even flinch when we have to do anything with his teeth, which is good because it gives me convulsions and there's no need for everyone to suffer. He also has infected eyes...again. And a cut, infected lip. I'm telling you, if he'd stop trying to rough up the rooster, he'd probably be in better shape. But he wouldn't be nearly as happy. I doctor him up several times a day. Drops in the eyes, Vet RX on the sides of his little nose for the snuffles, antibiotic cream for the sore inside his lip and a spray of peroxide for the sore on the outside of his lip. But, like I said, he's happy.

The dog, bless her heart, continues to be patient. Scooby snaxs help a lot.

Come, kittens! Come, kittens!

This morning, I found one of the chicks perched on the top of the pen. Clearly it's time to get their new coop ready and move them. Otherwise, I may wake up one morning to a chick nesting in my hair. It's hard to believe they are only two weeks old. For the past two weeks, we have been putting the kittens in the bathroom for the night because we didn't want them making an impromptu visit to the pen. They've been fairly content with the arrangement, as when I make my multiple nightly visits they are always curled up together and seem happy to see me, but not overly eager to escape. For the past two nights, they have been left out in the house at night. To be honest, the chicks are outgrowing the kittens, and at this point if a kitten did end up in the pen, the chaos created by 20 hysterical, wing-flapping, high pitched cheeping, body slamming chicks would send the poor little fellow crawling up the wall and out in a blink of an eye.

Most evenings I take a walk down our lane. I like to take as many animals with me as a possible. There is no question about the dog. If I so much as walk out the front door after supper she convulsively leaps to her feet and barrels down the lane in anticipation. Of course, there's no helping the droopy disappointment if I'm just heading out to the lawn chair with a book. The bunny goes where the dog does. He's reluctant, but dedicated. He does have a tendency to wuss out on the way home though, flopping over in the middle of the lane and refusing to move. He hates being carried, so the threat of being tucked under my arm usually gets him going again.

The kittens are another matter altogether. My last cat, Frodo, (bless his wandering heart) went with us for every walk, from the time he was 7 weeks old. Even at that young age, when he got tired he hated being carried and kept insisting he could make it on his own. Sheldon and Sawyer have no interest in walks, and prefer wrestling in the dirt under the porch, chasing butterflies and throwing each other down the front steps. I tried carrying them partway down the lane and then putting them down, hoping they'd follow. Instead, they wrestled in the dirt, chased butterflies and threw each other into the ditch, there being no stairs handy. I then tried carrying one of them while the other one stood forlornly in the lane trying to decide exactly how much he really needed his brother, after all. We had a bit of success with this method, as it turns out they are pretty attached to each other, and once trotting along beside us, they seemed to enjoy themselves.

Last night I just took Sheldon with me. Sawyer was sound asleep on the couch, and I couldn't bear to disturb him. Just kidding. My alternate choice of activity last night, had the walk not panned out, would have been flicking his whiskers to see how long it would take him to wake up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what they say about the easily amused...

Anyway, I took Sheldon with me, carried him part of the way down the lane and then put him down and kept walking. He turned to head back, saw how far it was, chased a bug into the edge of the lane, beat up a few blades of grass, saw I had moved on, sat down on the lane and cried. Then he followed. I didn't go the entire way down the lane, as I unexpectedly needed a potty break and the farmers were working the adjoining fields. The trees by the side of the lane don't provide that much privacy. Besides, bunny started flopping over sooner than usual, probably due to a slow recovery from the intense heat that we've been having. Mini the dog had already done 3 trips up and down the lane to my 1/2, so she was okay with heading back. By the time we returned, Sheldon was doing the "running w/the pack thing", trying to keep up with Mini and feeling all big-boyish. It was sweet.

On a sadder note, one of our hens is sick and didn't end up in the hen house last night. She's had diarrhea since I stopped the antibiotics I was giving them for a respiratory problem several of them had. I have been feeding her kefir on chunks of bread, kefir being a highly probiotic fermented milk drink. She has been eating well, but hanging around the house and looking quiet. She's been sweet, because every time I go out of the house she follows me around and sits under my chair if I'm lounging. Chickens are social creatures, and it's been hard for her, that the other chickens have been touring the grounds and she has been left behind. I hope that she is just tucked under somewhere getting better. That's not likely though. Sadness.

Ten chicks overnight, and they're still coming...

I crawled into bed exhausted at around 12:30 a.m this morning, with six chicks under the heat lamp and two newly hatched in the incubator. Gracie had come home from the Glee Cabaret and there was lots of chatting about her evening and crooning over the fluffy black and yellow chicks.

We took the egg turner out of the incubator and lay the eggs on the mesh screen at the bottom, to prevent any of the other chicks getting caught between the wall of the incubator and the turner. It also made it easier for the newly hatched chicks to get around the incubator and to be comfortable as they waited for us to discover them in the morning.

I did a potty run just before 4:00 a.m, and there were 8 hatched chicks. At 6:00 a.m, when Marc got up and I followed to check the chicks again (and yes, for another potty run), there were 10. We were especially delighted to see that one of the blue Americauna eggs had hatched. We had gotten 5 Americauna eggs from a friend of ours, and they were quite a bit smaller than our eggs in the incubator. The little mottled black and yellow chick is also smaller than the others, and she has the most lovely eyes, lined in black, bright and alert. I think only one of the other Americauna eggs have holes pecked in them. I'm hoping we get at least a couple more. Americauna chickens are really pretty, with lovely plumage. We have one Americauna hen, and while she doesn't lay eggs, she is lovely, with gold fringed feathers. They also lay interesting eggs, of various colors. The eggs we have are robin blue, but Americauna eggs can range from lilac and chocolate brown to olive green and turquoise blue. Quite exotic, for chicken eggs.

All 10 chicks have been moved from the incubator to the heat-lit dome, and there is quite a bit of cheeping coming from the other eggs in the incubator. Basically, we had expected to get half the chicks for the eggs that we had put in, so anything over 21 chicks is a bonus. If all the chicks that have poked holes through their egg shells get out, we'll have many more than 21.

The kittens have caught on to the fact that there is something small, noisy and interesting-smelling in the corner of the kitchen. The temporary pen is made of cardboard, and the kittens love to scratch around at the bottom. They can't get in, yet, but we're not taking chances. We put them both in the bathroom last night, and will need to make sure they aren't left alone with the pen when we aren't here. I am also endeavoring to teach them to leave the pen alone, with the judicial application of the flyswatter and ample amounts of kitty treats as rewards for obedience.

Mini likes to look over the top, and is especially interested when the cheeping sounds distressed, as it does whenever we pick one of the chicks up. I think she wants to make sure that they are okay. She's such a great dog.

So, it looks like Hatching Day is going to be Hatching Week-end.

Cool.

Things are moving slowly, but still moving...

We have six chicks hatched, and almost all of the eggs have holes in them. I think many will hatch overnight. One of the hatched chicks got stuck between the wall of the incubator and the automatic turner, and needed help to get out. I'm pretty sure she would have died if left too long. Something tells me I'm not going to get a lot of sleep tonight. I didn't fall asleep when I went to nap, either. I just kept listening to the cheeping, and hoping that everything was okay. Of course, everything was okay.

I probably shouldn't be hovering like this, but it's hard not to. It's funny, I was just about to write that I felt I might be neglecting the rest of the animals, and even Gracie who is in the Cabaret show at CVR tonight. Then Sawyer, one of the kittens, trotted by with a huge turd stuck to his bum, and I pushed the computer aside to chase Mr. Stinky-butt with a kleenex. Guess I'm not missing everything. And I have been praying all night for Gracie. I can't wait to hear about it, or to see the show tomorrow night!

So, many if not all of those little holes in those little eggs will turn into cracks that let loose our chickies. As for Mr. Stinky-butt, he took off when he saw me coming, and when I finally caught him, he was sans turd. Brat. He did make a pass over the shoes in front of the door. I looked and looked, but...let's just say someone may find a surprise in their shoe tomorrow! And it won't be a chick!

Muahahahahahahaha!

As for me, I'm going to be wearing sandals. :)

Two more days to Hatch day!!

Two more days to hatch day! Awk! I am getting excited, and a little nervous. What if none of them hatch? What if they're all male? What if they all hatch?? What if, what if, what if...I wonder if hens go through all of this when they are sitting on eggs. Probably not. I am literally being out-serenity'd by a chicken. Sigh.

Marc is busy building a chick nursery. I think he's pretty much McGyvering it, but he's a genius at stuff like this, so I trust him completely. Sort of. ;)

The kittens are doing well. They are growing at an amazing rate. They have this obsession with drinking out of the dog's water bucket instead of their own smaller dish, and as the weeks past they have gone from having to stand on their tippy toes in order to reach the water when the bucket is full to being able to drink from it when it is only at half mast. They spend most of their days wrestling. As they get older, their wrestling moves have come to include full body slams as well as throwing each other off of various surfaces. They have just started going upstairs, so it won't be long before they start tossing each other down the stairs for fun. At least they are evenly matched, in size and strength as well as propensity for evil.

The chickens are also thriving. The antibiotics seem to work, as there is now no sneezing or sniffling in the coop when I go in at night to close the door. Just soft snoring. I love seeing them on the front lawn, or in the fields scratching for worms. They look very peaceful and pastoral. Especially now that Bruce the rooster has stopped with the attacks. The other night the light was left on in the porch and the next morning there were at least 10 June bugs lying on the porch floor. I picked them up and flicked them out to the chickens. Apparently June bugs are the equivalent of Scooby snax to chickens. And no, I didn't feel guilty. Years ago, I somehow got a June bug stuck up under my hair during the last 30 seconds of a Canadians play-off game, and my husband at the time, Grace's dad, suggested that I wait until the game was over before he responded to my hysterical screams of "Get it out! Get it out! GET IT OUT!!!!" Since the Bible says I have to forgive my husband, I've been taking it out on June bugs ever since. Beasts. But the chickens love them.

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...

An Evening Walk Down The Lane...en masse!

Last night we had our friend, Mark Tasse, over for Lost night. Every Tuesday night we all have supper together and then watch Lost, which is coming close to the end of it's last season. Last night was heart-breaking. It's an surprising event when the sadness of the happenings in the show trump the confusion of it all, but what can I say. We're junkies.

After supper but before Lost came on, there was a gorgeous double rainbow outside. I wanted to go for a walk down the lane, and the Marc(k)s accommodated me and came along. We also took Teddy, my friend's dog that we were keeping for the night, our dog Mini, the rabbit and the two kittens.

The dogs "get" the walk thing like no one's business. They love it. They live for it. It is air and water to them. Pippin the bunny enjoys walks because the dogs are there. He could do without a traipse down the lane, but he can't do without Mini, so along he comes. He has a habit of stopping in the middle of the lane, usually on the way back, for an emergency paw cleaning. There is only so much lane mud a bunny can handle. It takes a bit of coaxing to get him moving again, if not a gentle boot in the behind, but he is learning to co-operate.

The kittens are a different thing all together. I worked out a plan to acclimatize them to walking the lane. I was going to take them out, one at a time, teach them the drill, work them up to eventually walking the whole thing by themselves. Yada yada yada. We couldn't all go and leave one behind. We'd be hearing the wails of despair all the way down. Talk about putting a damper on things.

So we scooped up both kittens, walked partway down the lane, and put them on the ground and hoped they would follow. They stood uncertainly for a few seconds until one brother smacked the other brother upside the head for fun. Then they rolled around together on the lane a bit and headed, bouncing and tripping, back to the house. I picked up Sheldon, and left Sawyer on the lane by himself. He had no choice to follow. It's one thing to be unspeakably brave when your one pound fluff-ball of a brother is at your side. Alone, it's best to stick with the gang. He followed manfully. After a bit, I put Sheldon down, scooped up Sawyer and repeated the process. When I put them both down together then, they just knew to follow. They ended up walking the entire length of the lane. It was an impressive feat for such little guys.

So we had a lovely evening. Marc did mention that it would be interesting if we could get the chickens to follow us on our walks down the lane.


**sigh**

Oh, there are only nine days to go to hatching day! Everything seems to be going well. I keep dreaming about chicks pecking out of eggs. Fun!

Countdown to the Hatching ...10 days to go!

So as far as I can tell, we are on day 11 with the incubated eggs. Ten days to go. Woot! I have to tell you, waiting for the eggs to develop and hatch is a pretty boring endeavor. I had grand plans of posting every day about the adventures of nurturing this little group of eggs into full-blown chick fluffiness. I'm actually grateful we haven't had many adventures with this. Last week, we had a serious snowfall that cut power in some places, but not here. Thankfully. Even last night, friends I know had lost their power, probably due to thunder and wind storms. We have remained plugged in and on-line and I am glad.

This is not to say that there have not been other sorts of adventures. The kittens are a going concern, even now as the kitten-squirts have subsided (otherwise known in classier circles as diarrhea). So many rules, so few brain cells. I shouldn't be so hard on them. They are very young, only 8 weeks now. They are also unspeakably cute. I took Sheldon with me for a walk down the lane last night. Well, partly down the lane. Let's say he lacks focus. I ended up carrying him much of the way, but he's so small and sweet, it was a pleasure.

I figure at first, I'll have to take them one at a time. Otherwise, they'll just wrestle and tumble in the middle of the lane while I go nuts trying to coax them to follow me. Someone is going to get tossed into the water-filled ditch, I just know it. Probably Sheldon. Sawyer is turning out to be a bit of a bully. There's a fine line between the squealing, whining and complaining that they both do when wrestling and gnawing on each other, and the desperate wailing that happens when brother has a tooth 'n' claw grip on some vital body part and is going for broke. Ouch. The humans in the family all have claw marks and scratches up both arms and legs. One wonders what the babies look like under all that fur...

Mini lost her temper with bunny twice yesterday. There's the growling, brief bit of snarling that says, "Get away from my bum, you perv!" And then there's the out-of-control ferocious snarl that is, in no uncertain terms, a definite effort to solve the irritating bunny problem once and for all. She is always very remorseful afterward. I feel for her. I have, on occasion, had my "little bit of patience" meet up with "a whole lotta crazy" and have had close to the same reaction. But no matter how maddeningly irritating someone is, one cannot grab them by the neck and shake them until their teeth fall out and their knees go weak. Or so I've been told...

Anyway, in 10 days, the fun really starts!

My Mysterious Mini

Well, all is hunky dory on the incubator front. We check the temperature several times a day, and last night we checked the humidity to find it just right. We are on day 4, with 17 left to go.

As I type this, I have the kittens in my lap. Sawyer is especially intrigued by the sound and movement of my typing. He is chewing on my fingers at this very moment. This may be a short entry. Of course I could kick them off, but I probably won't.

Do you want to know one thing that I just cannot figure out? I love my animals and try hard to understand how to best care for them, as well as how they see and interact with the world and what is going on in their heads. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why my dog, Mini, has started tipping her food dish over since the kittens arrived. Mini always has food available to her. I keep her dish full at all times. In fact, if it is empty, she will bring it to me and drop it at my feet, even if she just finished it and has no intention of eating any more.

After the kittens came last week, she started tipping her dish over so the food spills out onto the floor. Now, she shows no signs of liking the kittens. In fact, her demeanor of choice lately has bordered on tortured martyrdom. She has sniffed a few bums and licked a few faces, but mostly she tries to avoid them and growls when they get too close. So, why the dish tipping? It's as if she is making it easy for them to get into her food. We had an issue before with a kitten that sniffed at her food while she was eating, that began with her attacking the kitten and ended with a severe reprimand and time in the corner on her own. She learned the lesson, and later became close friends with the cat, even sharing her yummiest snacks with him happily. She doesn't get upset with the babies when they come near her while she is eating. In fact, they will often hang out at the water dish when she is at the food dish, watching her and pushing each others' faces into the water. It really is a mystery.

The HovaBator Has Arrived!!!!

So The HovaBator came in. Marc was a bit disappointed that it was made out of Styrofoam. I guess with a name like The HovaBator, he was expecting tempered steel. I was just glad it was here. I let Marc put the thing together (aren't I nice?). I was a bit concerned when he was looking through the instructions and grumbling that there were no pictures. If I didn't know that he is downright McGyverish when it comes to mechanics, I'd be very concerned. I mean, really, the guy seriously has dreams of converting his Volks Jetta so that it runs on old french fry oil. And he could do it, too. Like he needs pictures.

**rolls eyes**

Now that the incubator is together, we are going to visit a friend tonight to get some special eggs. We're hoping that she has some Americauna eggs. Americauna chickens are very cool, in that they lay eggs that range in color from chocolate brown and lilac to aqua blue and green. We had two Americauna hens and a half Americauna rooster, but one of the hens and the rooster had an unfortunate meeting with a coyote last year. The other hen isn't laying eggs. So we need to import them. We'll pop them in with ours and see what happens.

The chickens are blissfully oblivious to all this parental planning going on. They spend their days wandering the land, snoozing under the lilac bushes, picking worms and bugs out of the front fields, fighting minor skirmishes with Pippin who maintains territorial rights to anywhere he has plopped on. Which is pretty much everywhere. He has taken to sitting on the lane in front of the porch, right in the midst of the cracked corn that I throw there for the chickens. He doesn't even eat the stuff. He just likes to own it.

The kittens are doing well, eating, sleeping and rolling around with each other like the fat little imps that they are. The dog is unimpressed. She does keep sniffing their bums and licking their ears, and has twice cleaned up their food plate for them. Otherwise, she is very definitely adopting an air of tortured martyrdom.

Just wait until she sees the chicks.

Of HovaBators and Kittens

Well, I discovered yesterday that The HovaBator started its journey in Fruitland, Idaho and has made its way through Seattle to Vancouver, crossing the border and clearing customs on April 16th. I'm thinking that means it should be here soon. Which is good, because I've been saving eggs, and if it doesn't come soon we may have to build an addition on the hen house. Marc keeps saying, "You want to hatch all those?" I tell him that I am making allowances for defects, droppage and roosters. Oh, by the way, Marc has also informed me that we will be able to keep one rooster. Apparently Bruce will keep him in his place. This should be interesting.

On the subject of critter drama, we have recently acquired two new kittens. Marc and Grace went to pick out a kitten yesterday. Grace has a friend whose aunt had a cat with kittens, bless her heart. Anyway, they came home with two of the sweetest, most adorable kittens on the face of the planet. I know, I know, I'm the mom, I have to say things like that, but I think it just may be true. The kittens have been formally named Sheldon and Sawyer. Sheldon is my favorite character on "The Big Bang Theory" and Sawyer is Marc's fave from Lost. To be honest, I think I have run out of Lord of the Ring names. I blame the time we bought a pet rat for Gracie and she had 11 babies 3 weeks after we brought her home. We pretty much used up the entire cast of Lord of the Rings on them.

The critter drama will come into play as the kittens get acquainted with the rest of the gang. They have already met Pippin the bunny, who promptly tried to...well...romance them, without the benefit of candy or flowers. Mini, the dog, is not impressed. She's still trying to get over Pippin being here. She was mildly interested, and did a bit of bum sniffing at first, but had now decided that Sheldon and Sawyer can only mean trouble. This, of course, is probably true. There's no word on what the chickens think, as they have not met the kittens yet.

I am, for all intents and purposes, in love.