And then there were 26

We lost Chirpy last night. Everything was status quo last night before bed; still sleepy, but I reminded him where his food was and he ate with enthusiasm. Went I went out earlier today, he had died. We buried him under the pine tree that gave our farm its name; this was both practical (we don't want to attract predators) and sappy (I wanted something I could remember him by).

I'm a little rattled, but we knew there was a strong possibility that Chirpy wouldn't make it. We did what we could, between the semi-isolation unit and the medicated water. But, as you know, Chirpy was a weak chick from the start (with his umbilical problems). Due to his required extra care, I kinda got a bit attached to the little guy; I knew it would be hard to slaughter him (plus with the need for medicated water, he was no longer anywhere near organic, and I had concerns about eating him), but I knew that I didn't want him to be part of a small reproducing flock (if we decide to take that route) because he'd pass on his problem-prone genes. In a way, I'm glad we didn't have to make that decision. But I also already miss the little fluffball.  He was the tamest of the chicks, by far.

Luckily, the other chicks continue to thrive.  I am considering trimming their flight feathers, as they are learning to run and launch themselves across the brooder.  One of these days, we'll go in to the barn and we'll have one (or four) outside of the brooder completely.  Yikes!  They're hilarious to watch; as they get bigger, they have started to challenge us as well, puffing up their chests and pecking at our fingers.  Little rascals.

In other news, I got a preemptive tetanus shot yesterday afternoon, and today I feel like I've been hit by a truck.  I'm achy, I'm lethargic, and I just want to sleep (but I can't because my back and shoulders and neck start to ache if I lay down for too long).  I'm really hoping I feel better tomorrow; I still need to get the chicken run/tractor built.  Today, I managed to: fix the hose, cutting out the part that Jordan ran over with the lawn tractor ("I thought I could make it... I guess not") and putting in hose ends; weed a bit of the garden (still only one carrot, and four cabbages.  Sigh.); add another two-way split to the hose connection at the house, so we can now run three hoses; make bread (in the breadmaker; cheating, maybe, but it's better and cheaper than store-bought bread); and cook supper (I know!  I'm shocked too!  But it was a one-pot meal that took less than 45 minutes from start to finish).

And now, I think I'm going to put the chicks to bed, and head to bed myself.  I'm wiped out, even after a great sleep on Thursday night.

Our 'special needs' chick is still very special... and other random bits.

So, for a fun change of pace, let's move through this post chronologically instead of by storyline like usual.

We had another great weekend.  Friday was town day, Saturday..... I don't even remember Saturday, but I'm sure we got something done.  Sunday was beautiful.  I attempted to hook up the water in the longhouse, and ended up lighting the inside of the wall on fire, so..... it can wait for another weekend, I'll try again on Saturday.  (Luckily, it was more "hot embers" than "raging inferno" so I was able to drill a hole in the wall and spray down the inside with a squirt bottle, until I couldn't feel any more heat.  Sheesh, that was exciting.)

Every morning and night, I check on the chicks - the morning is a quick "hello!" and a heat lamp adjustment, and I feed them and water them at night.  Sunday night, I was impressed by how feathered our chicks are getting:

12 days old.  Reminder: you can click any of the pictures to make them bigger.

And they're starting to sprout combs!!!!

Still 12 days old

Monday morning, I noticed how long the grass in the barnyard is when I lost Zim....

Zim.....?  He's that black spot in the center - this was taken from about his eye level.

We also found out that Diamond got adopted!  She's ridiculously camera shy...

No, Diamond, don't run away, having your picture taken doesn't hurt...

The tree swallow chicks hatched last week, and on Monday they were extra enthusiastic about getting some food...

"Mom?  Mom!  what's for lunch?"

It's been very warm in the house in the evenings lately, as it's been above 24 during the day, so by about 6 pm it's at least 25 in the house.  So, I decided to hang some blackout curtains in the office, as that's our only south facing window.  I had the curtains down because I had brought home my aloes from work to repot.  So, 'hanging curtains' started at about 9:30 am and went like this:  "Hey, it's been warm in here, I wonder if it will be any cooler if I hang curtains.  Well, in order to hang the curtains, I should get those aloes out of there.  If I'm fiddling with them, I may as well repot them - that's why they're here in the first place."  *Wanders into the greenhouse to look for leftover potting soil I had mixed up the last time I repotted the aloes.*  "Sheesh, I can't find a thing in here - I know I had some mixed soil left over.  It's so hard to move around in here with this huge box in the way... and these pots of used soil are irritating, I'm always stepping around them... and I'm lucky Zim hasn't stepped on the seed-starter trays and broken them in his crazed frenzy to chase a sparrow that got in here this morning..." *Starts moving things around... eventually empties all the junk out of the greenhouse; empties the old soil into buckets to be broken up, supplemented with compost, and reused; organizes and neatly stacks the empty pots, buckets, and seed starter units; locates the various batches of mixed soil and soil supplements like peat moss, perlite and vermiculite, and stows them together in a corner; and gets all the plants lined up along the west wall.* "Now that everything is organized, it sure would be nice if I could get the auto-waterer and soaker hose set up.  I bet that piece of soaker hose would be the perfect length, but the other hose hooked up to the water system has a leak.  I know we just picked up new hose ends..." *Finds the hose ends and fixes both soaker hose lengths, since I bought a brand new one last year and promptly cut it in half, and then fixes the supply hose as well, which required using the hair dryer to heat up the hose.  Digs out the auto-waterer, spends 10 minutes trying to set it up, 20 minutes looking for the manual in vain, and another 15 minutes to finally sort it out.  Digs a large empty tin can out of the recycling, and uses a can opener, tin snips, duct tape and scissors to get the can around the wire strung in the greenhouse so the hose can be hooked over it without kinking.  Hooks up the hose, makes sure nothing leaks - success!  Wanders into the house for a drink.* "Hi Hon, what about lunch?  It's 2... I'm hungry, are you hungry?  There's not really anything to cook, and it's too hot to cook... I feel like pizza... want to order pizza?" *Spends 20 minutes deciding what to order from a local restaurant, only to discover they're closed...  Spends 15 minutes deciding what to order from another pizza joint, calls to ensure they're open, helps Hubby put everything outside away, calls to order the pizza, drives in to town, picks up pizza, drives home, and eats.*  "Okay, what was I doing?  Oh yeah, the curtains..." *Gets curtains out of longhouse, hangs them on the line to dry out a bit, grabs piece of plastic vapour barrier from the barn, mixes more soil for the aloes, and repots 2 aloes, puts two new aloe babies into fresh pots, and repots a columbine and the mock orange.*  "Yay!  It's now 6:30 and the plants are finally repotted!!!"  *Notices she is absolutely filthy from playing with/in/around dirt in the greenhouse all day and has a shower, which really hurts the sunburn she got while in the greenhouse.*  "Oh yeah, the curtains...."  *Picks curtains up off lawn and hangs them in the office window.*

So there you have it.  It took me more than 10 hours to hang some curtains.  But, the greenhouse looks great:

Plants, with soaker hose

Tidy!!!!

So, when I finally made it out to the chickens, it was 8:30.  The chicks are fast now, so when I step in to their brooder, they all run for the far corner.  Monday night, when I stepped in, one chick didn't run.  I picked him up, and noticed it was Chirpy.  "Look, Chirpy's tired" I said as he fell asleep in my hand.  Jordan said "No, he's not feeling well."  His crop was full of water - it was like a water balloon in his throat.  Just as Jordan said "Chickens can't puke," Chirpy vomited water all over his hand because we were poking at his crop.  I apologized to the poor chick:"Oops, sorry bud, I didn't expect that to happen, how's about I stop poking at you and give you a cuddle instead?"  Turns out Jordan is right, we suspect that the Chirpster has coccidiosis, an overgrowth of a fecal protozoa in his digestive system that can be toxic.  When I put the chicks on shavings on Thursday, they immediately went nuts, digging and kicking the shavings around... right in to the waterers.  I continually picked the shavings out, and washed or rinsed the waterers each night, but our special chick got sick anyway.

So I was back out there at 10 pm, giving the waterers a full wash and refilling them with fresh water.  It was near midnight by the time I got to bed, and I had to work the next day.

Jordan was able to track down some medicine for him on Tuesday, but as I don't want the rest of the chicks to be medicated, and Chirpy can only have the medicated water, that means Chirpy is in lockdown.  I found a small rabbit pen in the longhouse, and was able to make it work.  Chirpy has his own food and medicated water, and this way he is still sort of with his siblings, and I don't have to heat and maintain another full brooder.  He's still not happy about it though - he spends a good bit of his time slowly walking the edge of his prison cell, chirping to the other chicks.  Poor guy.

You can see him in the top corner, under the heat lamp and near the other chicks.

He's still slow, and sleepy.  Tonight when I checked on them after work, he fell asleep in my hand again...  But his crop has been consistently empty since Monday night, and he's eaten a bit of food.  He's also been protesting a bit when I pick him up, which is a nice change from Monday.

Sick, sick, sick Chirpy... I can relate, when I feel terrible all I want to do is sleep too.

And just as I got out there tonight (okay, I admit, the pictures above and below are out of chronological order...) there was a little chick who had burrowed a nice little bed into the shavings.  He was still rolling around and fluffing the shavings around him when I quietly crept up to the brooder and snapped this picture from over the edge, without looking so I wouldn't scare him off.

Chicken camouflage

Of course, the three chicks that had been keeping this guy company when I first came in had all run off, so I was worried that this little one was sick too.... but luckily, he's fine, just reluctant to give up his spot.

They continue to gain wait and feather out nicely.  Check out this handsome fellow:

15 days

And they get bigger by the day.  I decided on Saturday that I should probably track their weight.  So I grabbed my digital scale and a basket, zeroed the scale to account for the weigh of the basket, and tucked in 5 chicks, weighing them all at once.  I made sure not to grab the biggest chick, or the smallest one (who is Chirpy).  I then averaged the weights... 3.66 oz each at 11 days old.  Today, at 15 days, they're 4.76 oz each.  That's 1.1 oz in 4 days... pretty good, guys!!

So there you have it, now you are completely up to date.  And it's now 9 pm, and after a straight week of late nights, I'm going to bed.  G'night, folks.

What I have learned about chickens thus far

Today our chicks are 12 days old.  They hatched on June 18th, and arrived here on the 19th.

Here's what I have learned so far:

• Chicken TV is the best TV channel you can have.  They're both amusing and adorable, even as they start to feather out.

Sleeping, at 5 days old.

• They grow fast!!
• In growing, they start to sprout feathers too.  First is the wings, and then the tail - they've been running around looking like there are little paintbrushes sprouting out of their butts.

8 days old, and they're sprouting paintbrushes and wing feathers.  They're even more feathered now.

• They move fast too.  And as soon as the feathers started coming, they started to jump. They jump to chase mosquitos, get on to and off of the rocks in the brooder, get into the middle of their huddle in the corner, and get on top of the feeder.  And sometimes, they jump just for fun.
• Yesterday, they started challenging each other.  They stand up as tall as they can, stretch their wings a little bit, and chest-bump each other.  It's like we suddenly have a brood of little gangsters in the barn!  Maybe the challengers are the males...?
• When they catch a bug, if it's too big to gulp down they run around and tell everyone about it.  Which results in a chase, and the bug (now long dead) being picked apart in the melee, so it is in bite-sized pieces.  Clever, chicks!

• Finally, they taught me that I can't just go by what a chicken book says; I have to adapt the environment for this batch of chicks.  For example, the Storey's guide to raising chickens states that brooder temperature for 1-7 day old chicks should be 35ºC.  These chicks have never liked it at 35º, they much prefer it at 28º.  And now that our days are getting warmer, they prefer 23º.  According to the book, they shouldn't be at 23ºC until they're over a month old.  But if I had followed the book, and ignored the chick's wall-crowding, they would have all been roasted waaaay too young.

This is how they spread out when the temperature is ideal.  Here they were 2 days old,  and it was between 38º and 28º, depending on which thermometer you looked at.  They're mostly out in the 25º area.

It's been an exciting week with the chicks.  And we haven't gotten much else done.  With the recent rush of projects we completed, we've both been exhausted.  Regarding projects last weekend, we did: nothing.  And this weekend, I've so far accomplished: nothing.    Of course, we've been getting the usual stuff done: getting groceries, picking up materials for the next project (chicken run and coop-ification of another outbuilding), looking after the chicks, and we've made a concerted effort to keep the house clean.  (With two of us, two cats, and two dogs in such a small house, things tend to get out of hand very quickly.  Especially because I have a subconscious drive to cover every horizontal surface with, well, stuff.  Mostly paperwork and mail, which I then spend 20 minutes searching the house for.)

The highlight of last weekend was the Dog Expo at the local historical attraction.  Zim and I went with Kim and Doodle, and we all had a great time.  Doodle and Kim even participated in the dog parade!  We had fun wandering the site, watching the sheepdog demonstration, and giving the pups a chance to socialize with each other and with other dogs.

Everyone lined up for the dog parade.

The weather has been very nice for the past few days, hitting 25º and 26º and staying that warm until 8 or 9 pm.  This means that the house slowly warms up too.  As soon as I repot my aloe plants and take them back to work, I can hang curtains in the office window again, which will greatly help keep out the sun, as that's our only south-facing window.

And how's about a quick garden update too:
The peas are great, except the ones Diamond dug up.  The corn is looking good too - not any taller, but the leaves are getting broader each day.  We have a few cabbage coming up (of of the 30 we planted), and lots of turnips, but no cucumbers or pumpkins.  I think we have 3 carrots sprouting, out of 900 seeds - I'm very disappointed, but I suppose there's time for that to turn around.  The onions all died, and the lettuce hasn't sprouted.  But the majority of the potatoes are doing great!  I have some kale seeds I've been meaning to plant - maybe I'll get those done today (if the weather ever makes up its mind about whether it's going to rain).  It's a little late to be starting them, but they're hardy enough to withstand a light frost in the fall.  And as for the berry garden: we have strawberries coming, and a few are ready to eat.  The raspberries from Hal have mostly all died, except for three or four canes - this is saddening.  I don't know where I went wrong there.  Our raspberries, however, are getting ready to put out berries - I estimate we'll have some within 2 weeks.  The lemon balm I planted, as well as the chives and rhubarb that were there previously, are all doing great.  And in the greenhouse, the tomatoes are doing fabulous!!!  No flowers or fruit yet, but I have hopes that they'll get there soon.  Everything else is doing good too - the basil wilts often but always comes back, the oregano just loves the greenhouse, and the flowers from Hal and Cathy are doing good too.  I've even managed to save the mock orange - I was overwatering it.  That seems to be a common problem with me....  My aloes are home right now because they need to be repotted after a near-death brush with root rot caused by, you guessed it, too much love and attention.  Their 'leaves' are all pink, deflated and curly.  Oops.  It takes talent to kill an aloe, you know.

That's about all that's new here.  We were hoping for some company next week, but no luck there, as plans have changed.  But we have some more lined up in mid-to-late July, and we're looking forward to it!  Now if only I could hook up the water in the longhouse without burning the darn thing down.....

Plants, dogs, bats and chicks!

As always, we've been busy!

After the last post, we finished working on the garden and got everything planted.  We tilled the whole thing twice, went and got a truck box full of compost from the city dump (it's beautiful stuff, and only $24!), and then tilled that in as well.  The next day I went out and marked the bed areas, and spent the next two weeks planting everything.  And now things are starting to grow: the peas were up first, followed by the turnips and the potatoes.  There are a few carrots peeking though, but still nothing from the pumpkins, lettuce or cucumbers.  And the corn is doing great.

Driving the little skid steer to fill the truck box with compost

Our third pass with the tiller

Planted!

 We have also been fostering a dog from the rescue.  She is a very sweet, older lab named Diamond.  Her house manners are impeccable, and she is very well behaved.  We would keep her if our darn house wasn't so small!!!

Zim and Diamond the day we started fostering her

We've also bought a new lawn tractor - the quad towing the brusher just wasn't cutting it (pardon the pun).  Jordan indicated that he greatly desired a proper lawn tractor, so off we went to pick up a new John Deere.  He now greatly enjoys cutting the grass, which is fabulous because I would rather just get sheep or goats to mow it, but that's not possible right now with our continued lack of fencing.  Next year I'm sure we'll be able to focus on it!

This past weekend, we re-skinned the greenhouse.  The tree nursery up the road sells their greenhouse plastic from last year for cheap: 30 by 140 feet for $60.  We took the old plastic off, cut new strapping pieces to hold the new stuff on, cut the new stuff to size, and accordion-folded it so we could get it on fairly easy.  We cut some lengths of nylon rope and prepared the plastic for installation by rolling pop cans in the corners and center of the short end and tying the plastic around the cans with the rope (see photo).  We then threw the loose ends of the ropes over the greenhouse and used the ropes to pull the plastic over.

I don't even remember where I heard of this method, but it works!!!

There were a few small snags, but all in all we're pleased with how it turned out.

Finished product - a newly skinned greenhouse.  This should last us for at least two years.  It's still on the North side of the house, but sometimes you have to pick your battles.  There's too much else going on to worry about moving it right now, unfortunately.

After that marathon 10-hour day, we used to following day to complete some smaller projects.  For example, I finally finished the bat house!

It's stained properly, I promise, it's just covered in spruce pollen.

 Jordan helped me hang it on the back of the shop.  Now we can get around to getting rid of the bats for good!

I also got the stall set up for the chicks.

Ready and waiting

 We ordered 25 buff orpingtons, which is a dual-purpose heritage breed.  They arrived this morning, and I raced down to the Canada Post warehouse to pick them up.

A whole box of adorable!!!

 They chirped quite noisily the whole way home - they can make quite a racket!!!  I got them home, and started the process of transferring them from box to brooder stall: pick them up, check their vent to make sure it was clean (an important indicator of chick health!), dip their beaks in the water and then the food, and let them go, triumphantly counting each one.  The ones in the stall were quiet once a few of their siblings joined them, and the first thing I noticed is that they sleep in very odd positions.

Here are two (one behind the one standing) who just lay down on their sides and stretched their legs for a quick little nap.

I introduced them to all the other critters around here: I took one in the house to meet the cats (they were curious, but didn't show any sign of being predatory).  Then, as I unloaded the box, I would periodically hold one out to Zim and Diamond.  Diamond was uninterested for the most part.  Zim, on the other hand, was both intrigued and scared.  He was looking over the stall divider quite intently, but when I held one up he'd back away really quickly.  Then he'd take a few very curious steps forward, and if the chick moved, he'd immediately back away again.  This was the first time he got close enough to actually sniff one:

"What the heck is that?!!!  Does it bite?"

He's now quite enamoured with them, and wants to be in the brooder stall with me when I'm in there.  That's not going to happen, of course, and I keep poking his paws off the divider as he tries to get a closer look.

Of course, I am also enamoured with the chicks.  They're cute!  And they're also curious.  Some of them don't trust the thermometer:

Peck! Peck!

And they continue to sleep in odd places and positions - this one fell asleep with his head jammed up against the end of the feeder, while everyone else scrambled over him this way and that.

Zzzzzzzz

They only seem to sleep for a minute or two, then they're up and wandering around, chatting quietly to each other, eating, drinking, and chasing bugs and other things found on the floor of the brooder.

Yes, they are so far into the feeder that their butts stick up in the air as they gorge themselves.  Silly chicks.

 And, just to prove that I can still pay attention to other things, look at these tomatoes:

 Aren't they awesome?!  They were small, spindly things when I put them in the greenhouse three weeks ago, as they weren't able to get enough light while they were inside the house.  Now that they're out in the greenhouse, they are doing amazing - their stalks have bulked up and they're putting out new leaves like it's going out of style.  Good job, tomatoes!  I hope they continue to thrive, and I get a few this year :)  Next year, we'll rig up a better lighting system (instead of relying on our big, east-facing window) and hopefully they do much better.

So there you have it - another busy few weeks.  Our time-sensitive large projects are now mostly complete, and things will hopefully start slowing down.  We will have friends and family coming to visit us in July, and we're looking forward to that!!!!