A typical day in the life of...

When you have pets/livestock they can consume a large amount of any free time you may have.  A typical day for me (as of May 2012) may go something like this...

Wake up courtesy of one or more of my 4 cats. Domino will reach up from the floor and either nudge you, paw you (with claws out) or, and this was back a few years now, claw the tender underneath part of any bare feet found to be sticking out of the bedclothes (Ouch!).
Lucy will walk over you meowing delicately until you stir and
Meg, before she was pregnant, would leap from the windowsill or cabinet onto our sleeping forms, waking us up with a start and a few chosen expletives.
Jack, bless him tends to keep out of the wake up call and leaves it to the others to do the job.

Having given in to their demands i go downstairs, open the cat flap and feed them.  As Meg is our youngest cat and also due to have her first litter of kittens in a week or so, I feed her first and in another room to the other three. This is because she has always been a hungry cat but since being pregnant her hunger knows no bounds and if you feed the others first or together she will be in their bowls grabbing chunks and scoffing them.

Then its time to check the 4 newly hatched chicks, give them fresh water, food etc and check their bottoms (just what you need before breakfast, right?)

After breakfasting ourselves and getting dressed i go outside to open the chicken run and then their house. 4 very sleepy chickens, Bella, Buffy, Penny & Rags slowly emerge and begin the day with some tasty pellets. In the winter months i give them porridge with raisins to warm them up.

Then its next door, which is the other half of the old chicken run which has been divided into two, to say good morning to Harvey my 22 week old, white and silver agouti, short haired, guinea pig.  You can hear his 'wheeks' for miles but despite sounding friendly, the moment i open the door to his cage he is off hiding and is as scared of me now as he was when i got him back in March.  I give him a bowl of pellets and a handful of hay and check his water.  He will eat food from my hand but as soon as i go to touch him he is off. So sad as he is a lovely little fella otherwise. Any advice gratefully welcomed.

A visit to the pond to throw the fish a handful of pellets and i'm done for the time being.

If its a work day, (I only do 2 mornings a week now due to cuts at work) I am back home by lunchtime whereupon I give Meg another half a sachet of kitten food to help her growing babies along with some milk which she adores (in fact i think she is an official addict of the stuff)

Check the chicks again and freshen water, food etc.

Let the chooks out into the garden to free range and watch their delight as they rush out and begin exploring.

Late afternoon I will throw a handful of corn mix or sweetcorn out to the chooks for them to peck at. This keeps them going overnight.

The evening sees me shutting the chooks away for the night and collecting any eggs.  Feeding the cats and locking the catflap.  Changing water and food in the chick brooder.  Making a welcome drink and sitting down with a sigh.

Heaven knows where i will find the time to look after 3 or more kittens after next week too.  I think i need a 30 hour day.

Having said that i wouldnt be without any of them though,  I have to be mad dont I?

4 chicks - 1 week on

I can't believe its been a week already since my first chick hatched.  The owlbeard is a manic little soul, not keen on being picked up, it is growing wings and flexing them a lot. I am fairly certain 'it' is a 'he'. Mainly because he has been so loud with cheeping, has a long tail already even if it is fluffy at the moment and is generally full of himself. Remind you of anyone ladies?

The Speckled Sussex was second to hatch and is really tall now and full of beans.  Its quite a friendly little soul with some lovely markings. I cant wait for it to be fully feathered as they are a stunning looking chicken. 

The Brahma was third, and it is a sweetie too. Just as tall as they Sussex and as gentle too with a funny rolling gait as it walks. It is a bit of a gannet though and along with Sussex number 1 is first to the food bowls every day.

My last chick, my second Speckled Sussex ,who i never thought would survive beyond the first few hours is now hard to pick out amongst the other 4. It is not quite as tall as its brother/sister Sussex but is about 95% strong on its legs now and is developing a fairly healthy appetite.  To begin with we could not make it eat or drink but once it was showing signs of walking and balancing better we isolated it along with the brahma chick and amazingly the brahma literally turned 'mum' and showed it how to drink and eat and encouraged it to do so, even to the point of feeding it by mouth just as an adult bird would to its baby. it was fascinating to see and makes me love my little Brahma chick even more.

Anyway here they all are now, and sickly chick is second from right and looking great.

from l to r we have brahma, speckled sussex, speckled sussex, owlbeard

not so poorly now eh

Speckled Sussex are a tough breed

Our poorly little Speckled Sussex chick which we virtually had to hatch ourselves as it was stuck in the membrane is out of Intensive care and is now eating and drinking with assistance.  Its main problems now are that its right leg is not as strong as the left and it has a tendency to lean to the right which makes it look a bit like Tiny Tim from Dickens A Christmas Carol. In fact i can almost see the little crutch under its wing.
It is amazing though how in a day it has gone from this..

 

to this...

 

It has a long way to go and a fair bit of TLC and some gentle physiotheraphy on its leg to try to give it a fair chance in life.

3 healthy chicks and a poorly one

Chick number two, a speckled sussex hatched out around 3pm yesterday. It came out so quickly that i actually almost missed the moment.  I saw it was making good progress with chipping round the shell and then 10 mins later i got up to look and just saw it fully push its way out.  Its now fluffed up nicely and showing signs of eating a few crumbs. The owlbeard chick decided to put it firmly in its place and let it know he/she was top chicken.  I had no idea they began the peking order so early, its astonishing.

speckled sussex chick minutes old

wow, hatching is such hard work!

Chick number 3, a brahma, had a bit of trouble hatching and after a long period of getting nowhere beyond the first tiny hole eventually fought its way out around 10pm last night.  It too is finding its feet okay. I will be checking to see its eating and drinking later today as the egg yolk its absorbs just before hatching can keep them going for 24 hours or more.  I was quite tired by this time and so i managed to get a small video of the hatch but no still shots, but here is one of all three of them instead.

brahma chick is the one at the back

When it comes to chick number 4 though its another story. There is a lot of theories about helping chicks out fo the shells. If nothing happens then some say you should accept natures decision and that it probably wouldnt have thrived.  But i have done this a few times now and although we had heard no sounds coming from the egg i knew there was a fully formed chick inside so our policy was to give it a fair go.  We broke through the shell and amazingly heard it faintly cheeping. Trouble was it was stuck to the membrane and to remove it meant a possible loss of blood and shock to the chick.  We decided to open the membrane just enough to free the beak so it could breathe and then leave it overnight and give it a chance.  This morning it was still going so after much discussion hubby and i helped it fully out as the blood was not so bad now. we found that it had not totally absorbed all the yolk and so it is alive but very, very weak and poorly. It is in the incubator by itself now on a kind of chicken life support. We will just have to see how it goes.

fight little one, fight

chamois owlbeard - my first chick is here

After a long day of waiting and encouraging the first chick hatched last night around 10.30 and it was the chamois owlbeard. I have nicknamed it Goldilocks as when the light came on its fine damp down was like strings of golden thread.

nice big hole now it means business

got the lid to open at last, now for the moment of escape

almost there...

At last, freedom and i'm soooo exhausted

looking good and drying off

stop taking pics now i'm too tired

Oh if you must, heres my best side

After about 20 mins of it struggling around trying to find its feet I noticed that its legs were sliding out to either side, a telltale sign of possible splay foot which can cause problems for the chick and stop them getting around so i acted fast and found an old flannel and put that at the bottom of the incubator so that it could get a grip.  Within minutes literally, it had found its feet and was much stronger.
This morning it has fluffed up really well and is trying hard to encourage the other 3 to join it.
There are chips in 2 of the remaining 3 which is a good sign and means another day of waiting and pacing.  Thank god i love doing this so much or i would be a nervous wreck by now.

Getting the chick brooder ready

I have added the extension brooder box to the incubator now as thats where the baby chicks will live for about 7-10 days or so, depending on how many of them hatch and how big they are.

doubles the floor space for them when chicks are born

adjoining door they walk through until they get too big

 

Once they are hatched and have dried off for a day or so in the incubator itself, i can open a clever door my hubby made which leads through to the perspex box which will have food and water for them. Then they are free to come and go between boxes.

The smaller box which was the incubator will have heat still and the perspex one no heat so they can regulate themsleves. 

Its good to see them in the clearer box tottering around madly for a few minutes then suddenly crumpling to the ground in exhaustion and napping. They do make me smile.

Eggs hatching minus 6 days and counting

Here are the 4 out of 6 remaining eggs that im incubating. I have left 2 Speckled Sussex, 1 chamois Owlbeard and 1 brahma (may be buff or black)

These are in our homemade incubator

 They are due to hatch next Thursday, May 3rd but may be a day earlier or later. I stop turning them after Monday to give the chicks a chance to orientate themselves and get ready to break through those shells and say hi.
Im going to candle them one last time tonight just to check they are all okay and that the air sac is large enough for them.
I love doing this every year its so exciting waiting for them to hatch.  This time next week i could be a chicken grandma too.

I'm going to be a cat grandma

Just found out today that our youngest cat Meg

is having kittens, 3 the vet said, or maybe more.  Her due date is about 3 weeks away so we have been cleaning and tidying certain areas of the house ready for her and now we need some boxes to line with the softest fleece in case she takes a fancy to using any of them to give birth in. This will be the first time for us. I am more used to hatching eggs and rearing chicks than with a live birth but i cant wait.
I have some eggs due to hatch on 3rd May (Speckled Sussex, Owlbeard and Brahma in case you were wondering) and then Meg is due to give birth or kitten on 16th May. We will be overrun with new life. Picture the scene...
Chicks will be cheeping, growing their first feathers, learning to open and flap their wings and the kittens will be running around annoying our other cats, climbing up the furniture and our legs (oh the pain of those tiny claws) and I will be standing in the middle of it all wondering what possessed me. Am i mad to still want to go ahead anyway?  Answers on a postcard to...