Mountain of jobs the sequel

Despite what the long suffering one says about adding more to the list than we are ticking off I feel like we are making a little progress. The list reduced to 30 at one stage from the 50 originally. However it has crept back up. Those little jobs keep raising their ugly heads. Nothing done seems to stay done. I managed to clear out the living room so I could see the fireplace and it looked lovely for a day. Then my sister decided she would unload a lot of stuff she thought I might find useful. And to be truthful I probably will find it useful, but now we look like a tip again as I have to rearrange my storage to fit it in. Oh joy.

The eggs are rumbling away in the incubator ready for our next hatch on the 24th and I did some candling last night. We have 16 out of 194 not fertile which after a few ways of calculating it I have decided is 92% fertility. Gordon is doing his bit too for my Ausbar crosses, although the White Leghorn hen Isla is a bit too fast for him and those eggs weren't fertile. She obviously has a strategy to dodge him as I can see him trying his best to catch her. I think motoring up the netting like she's on a speedway track is a good tactic. It is keeping him fit anyway. Shame as I wanted the chicks from that crossing as they are lovely looking birds. He does manage to catch her sometimes but not enough for my liking. He managed to catch all of the others as they were all fertile. Good boy Gordon. Like some men, he needs a bit of finesse rather than gung-ho to make himself more alluring to Isla.

I bought a "temporary" incubator which I am now using as a permanent incubator. One of those hexagonal ones that you need to manually turn the eggs in. On my last batch of eggs I had a brainwave. Taking the lid off and twisting all those eggs (over 40) every hour or two was doing my head in. Apart from the losing heat and humidity every time I did it. The time element didnt help either. I wedged all the eggs in and decided to tip the whole incubator 45% one way then the opposite way every couple of hours on a book instead. It worked like a charm. I only got 4 eggs out of 40 not hatching. This time I wedged it full to bursting so I dont have to wedge with cardboard and polystyrene and it means I can do more eggs and less turning. RESULT!!!! All bar 2 non-fertile eggs are growing nicely out of 66.

Mountain of Jobs

Why is it that we always put off the niggling little jobs. Because we always have something more interesting to do I expect. Or we dont want to root round in the garage for that particular tool which is the only one that can do that job. It takes longer to find the tool than it actually takes to complete the job.

Well I was in a right paddy. Things never seemed to get done and just another little job was added to that list which now seemed never ending. I know my life would be so much easier (and more organised) if I could get to grips with this LIST. Well I made a list, and put all these fiddling little jobs on it. It mounted to some 50 items, YES FIFTY. No wonder I was feeling fed up I reckoned. This list has been in existence now for just over a week and the long suffering one (husband) has picked a few items off it and I have been making a concerted effort to bag at least one every day. The list is down to 30 items. It would have been less but we forgot to add a few more jobs which we needed to add as a consequence of finishing others. Isnt that just the way.

Its quite satisfying ticking them off and seeing the list shrink. It is making me more organised too I think. Before I would do a butterfly thing and half finish loads of stuff feeling very busy all day, but not actually achieving my objective. Now I am tacking one to the very end before starting another even though my mind wants to multi-task. This is definitely the way to get things done!

Wormfest weather

I dont know about you but I am really fed up with the constant rain. Summer seems such a long way off and the garden girls are in and out of the coop constantly dodging the showers. The water table is so high that even in my run which is raised higher than the surroundings is getting rather squelchy in places as the water rises underneath.  I keep a garden fork in the tarpaulin covered run so I can dig a few forkfulls over (and get a little useful exercise into the bargain) to get some air into the soil to improve the drainage. The girls get really excited when I pick up the fork and there is a feathery mass at my feet as they pounce on any poor unsuspecting worm who has the misfortune to wander anywhere underneath. It would seem the wetter the ground gets the more the worms congregate. Its like a writhing pink wormfest with each forkfull. I thank heavens for the tarpaulin but have had my fingers crossed that the high winds didn't turn it into a chicken kite.

My thoughts have to go out to those people who are suffering due to the flooding in parts of the country and thank my lucky stars that we have been spared so far. For once its not so "grim up north"

Worming Time

As the weather is getting better (what planet am I on?) and the ladies have finished moulting and are at their finest, I have decided it is time for a good old purge. I have spent a while mixing some Flubenvet into a 20 kilo bag of layers pellets. I would much rather buy it ready mixed but getting hold of feed with Flubenvet in is like find a mouth full of hens teeth. I have to travel over 30 miles which is silly. Very few people stock it, and I dont see why. You need to be suitably qualified to "dispense" it. If the wormer is already incorporated into a feed which presumably is done in a properly controlled fashion then this has to be safer than me mixing just 24 grams (just about 5 teaspoons) into a 20 kilo sack. As it is, I have to put it into a drum and with my finest washing machine action to churn it backwards and forwards in my efforts to make sure it is dispersed evenly into the feed. Flubenvet is my wormer of choice as a) it kills all known worms - dead and b) you dont have to do it very often. I do it about twice a year. I herbal worm my older chicks as I think that is kinder to their systems and they all get a top dressing of horsey garlic flakes about once a week. Garlic is a good vermifuge (wormer to you and me) and all round good tonic. You can tell they have been eating it when you go into the run cos they all get garlic breath. Lovely!!!

RIP Lopsided Lulu

A really sad day. Lulu who has already escaped death earlier in the week was found in the pond today....drowned. As she could not fly she could not jump over with enough force to clear the obstacle. I found her floating and this time she was beyond recovery. Poor girl. I imagine she was chased there by a duck and was maybe cornered so she had no option but to risk the pond. Ever since she was hatched I have had a soft spot for her. Although she was not suitable to sell, she would have had a good life with my own laying flock I think. I am devastated. Poor poor Lulu. I can take comfort in the fact that it was good she was one of mine, she would have been culled by any other breeder I would think. Chickens and ponds definitely do not mix.

On a high note, I got 5 eggs today from my laying girls, the most since late October. They obviously know that spring is on the way. I am looking forward to the weather becoming less damp soon, all the rain is getting me down and I have plans for the garden this summer. I am going to hang sails from the pergola as sun shades so I have a nice big area to sit in so I don't get burned. The lobster look is not for me from now on. Once the Jasmine and Kiwi vine is really intertwined in the pergola I can sit out and smell its gorgeous perfume lingering in the air. Bliss.

Yay Lulu

Good News
Fearing that Lulu was overcome by her emergency episode last night I thought that I might come downstairs this morning to find her dead in the cat carrier. However, joy, I went shuffling in the kitchen in my slippers and dressing gown and peered expectantly into the carrier on the floor and she squeeked at me. Yay.

I have had the new shed built today so it has been rather messy in the garden. Lots of tools, chicken paraphernalia and garden fixtures not where they should be so a little chaotic. The 12 weekers spent most of the day hiding in their coop especially as the ducks had free range of the garden whilst we were coming and going. They obviously didn't want to feel the wrath of the ducks again and I don't blame them. They settled in the coop and scattered the nice clean bedding I had just done for them and they surveyed the chaos from a safe distance. We caught them having a crafty dig in the earth where we had been working to see if they could uproot a tasty worm and then when we came out again we found them back in the coop with 7 pairs of eyes peering out as if butter wouldn't melt.

Two of the 12 weekers are boys and they have been practicing their crowing. A very pathetic affair. A bit like an adolescent boy going through pubity where the voice just won't behave. They haven't got any power in the crow yet so no rush to rehome. They are a Black Legbar and a Speckled Ausbar both crested and very handsome they will be.

Ah Poor Lulu

Just had a bit of a shock. It was dark, and a bit drizzly. Keith had just gone outside to make sure the chickens and ducks had all gone to bed. He shouted to me to come down quickly, he added, a duck has attacked a chicken. I ran to get my coat and met him outside to find Lopsided Lulu lying in a puddle on her back with her legs stretched out looking rather dead. I picked her up and she squeeked at me (a good sign) but she was sopping wet and cold and looked very bad. I feared the worst. I took her inside and wrapped her like a burrito in an old towel hoping to dry her out and see if I could revive her. She was breathing heavily but didn't sound like she had taken a dunk in the pond, although she was wet enough to have been in there. She lay in my arms quietly and looked sleepy. I assumed she was in shock so I quietly spoke to her in chick squeeking (I know its mad) hoping she would speak back to me. She didn't. I know when parrots get ill the best thing is to warm them up. Something to do with the heat allows their bodies to overcome what ails them. Once Lulu was warmer I treated her to some corn which she gobbled greedily. Another good sign. I then gave her the ultimate in chicken beauty treatment. A blow dry with the hairdryer. She wasn't too chuffed until she realised it was nice and warm and she allowed me to ruffle her feathers to dry her off completely. She then decided to have a wander round the kitchen squeeking as she went and we had a right old chat. She is now in the cat carrier for the night and hopefully she will join her coop-mates in the morning.

Lulu is so named because she took ages to come out the shell on hatch day and she has a droopy wing. When chicks are slow, they tend to get welded into a curled up position and things like feet or wings or even legs can be so deformed that they die. Lulu could stand and her feet were ok, but she looked like a little hunchback with her droopy side. Lopsided Lulu she became and as such I am very fond of her. She is only 12 weeks old but I wouldn't want to part with her, certainly not yet.

The ducks are not fond of the chickens when they are in duck territory but they don't normally attack. Lulu might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and maybe they did have a go at her. She is timid and at the bottom of the pecking order in her own group of 12 week olds.  I am just wondering if she will survive into adulthood and whether the other adult hens will allow her to live and let live. I do hope so.