A Journey Through a Different Way - Funny Story Pg. 69

[ruth]

Hi Kathy - thanks for checking on Bitsy. I've posted about her progess on my Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat thread.

Basically, she did fine with the surgery to get the plate but is still at LSU. Her stitches were supposed to come out today and we are going to pick her up tomorrow (Friday). We are leaving for a trip to Canada late Friday so we needed to pick her up eventhough LSU I think would have kept her another couple of days.

The problems have been that the joint right below the break (what seems to be her "knee") has calcified over. Seems it had some trauma during the break and there is a small bone fragement our originial vet did not see so it has mineralized and calcified due to 8-9 weeks in the cast without use and the bones in the joint have fused together in an "irreversible" manner so she will never have full joint mobility and will walk with a stiff leg.

The other problems are resolving themselves. She had sores from the long term cast that are healed or healing. She had a lot of calcium loss from the bones in her leg due to the long-term loss of use and that is returning. Her muscles and tendons had atrophied, again from long-term no use, but they have been giving her physical therapy and she is getting better and they believe she will get full flexibility back over time as she starts to use the leg.

They did say she is finally starting to take steps with the leg.

So all in all she will do fine. She still needs 4-6 weeks of cage rest with limited use of leg but the leg has not been nor will be in a cast. They just don't want her running and jumping or getting rammed by the others until the bone heals.

So it's off to Canada for DH and I. I probably won't be on much, if at all for the next few days. My daughter and her husband and some of their friends are going to house sit and take care of the menagerie of animals for us.

PRAY for them (the animals) that they all survive.

 

[Zookeeper9000]

Hey Ruth glad to hear you are getting away for a few days, hope it is for fun. Been watching for news on your hatches but didn't get an email saying you added to those threads yet so hatches must be doing their thing.

Have fun and God Bless you both on your trip. I totally understand about how you feel with leaving the kids in charge of the animals LOL. Good thing they free range LOL.

 

[speckledhen]

Have a very safe and fun trip, Monique.

 

[ruth]

Hi all - well I'm back from our trip to Montreal, Quebec and my much needed getaway from caretaker of over 100 animals.

DH and I had a great time - here we are at a little French restaurant - check out my crepes. Yum Yum

My daughter and her husband house sat for us for the week. It started out with her saying "Oh this will be so fun, we'll have a plantation party, invite our friends to stay the weekend, all go hiking, etc, etc". Ended with her saying "Come home NOW" and hanging up. It really wore her out trying to keep track of all the hatching that was taking place while she was here and trying to keep everything fed and watered and clean while commuting the hour drive to Baton Rouge for her Psychologist job. But it was funny to get emails from her that said:

"What do I do again with the egg cooker and the black thingy?" Meaning the incubator and the hatcher. This coming from a young woman who graduated with a perfect 4.0 from LSU grad school. She said one day she had to change clothes 3 times before leaving for work and finally ended up wearing my clothes because "things kept pooping on me".

Then she and DH packed the brand new, never used pellet stove full of pellets and lit it and nearly burned it up and the house down. We had a hard time getting it to work today after cleaning it out. Seems they thought that since the fire came out of the little fire pot in bottom you must surely need to pack that pot full of pellets before you turn it on. Despite the fact that the hopper was already full and I had already explained that "all you have to do to turn on the heater is hit the remote control."

Did I mention she had a perfect 4.0 in an advanced degree?

Then when some ducks had hatched in the small incubator and some had not, she started putting food and water in the incubator "in case one hatched while I was at work and it would be lonely and need food and water." Then she started putting some of the ducks back in the incubator, from the brooder box, with food and water because "I thought it was warmer in there." So.....last night, or rather this morning, when I got home at 2:00 a.m. I'm cleaning out and disinfecting the most foul smelling incubator you've ever seen. I started to just toss the whole thing on the burn pile. I still haven't gotten all the smell out.

Did I mention she had a perfect 4.0 in an advanced degree?

But...alls well that ends well and we had a great getaway and only one thing died that I can tell. She "forgot" to close the bathroom door where the ducks were in their open brooder box in the tub and one of the cats got one of the baby ducks. She's not sure if the duck was already dead because she said it was one that hatched really small and "covered in stuff that won't wash off...and it's not walking or acting like the rest."

On other matters:

Bitsy came home from LSU vet school the day before we left.

Her friends were checking her out.

I took her for a walk today as part of her physical therapy. She still isn't using the leg like they want her to. She had a lot of muscle atrophy and her leg joint calcified so they had begun doing PT with her and said it will take a while for her to be able to use it again.

Here's her kennel in the stall with her friends. They all have lots of room and access to the their yard.

Confetti is most definitely pregnant and getting bigger every day. She's the white and brown spotted one.

Out of my two broody hens and my broody duck only my little Araucana hatched some babies. The broody hen in the laundry room ate most of her eggs which seemed to be rotted anyway and gave up on the nest before the rest could hatch. My broody duck must have given up on the nest at some point while I was gone because when I checked on her today she wasn't on the nest, after over a month and nothing hatched. I've just brought all 40 eggs inside and candled them. They are various ages of development and I see no movement in any of them. She just kept laying more eggs and stealing the others' eggs and building a bigger and bigger nest and not setting on the same eggs the whole time. But fortunately the 11 eggs I had taken from her nest and put in bator did hatch and now I have 11 little baby ducks.

I can't believe I missed seeing my first mama hen and her babies. She actually hatched one herself and then two in bator hatched so I had daughter put them under her and she took them right away and then she hatched another one and finally a third one hatched in bator so I gave her that one as well. The 3 eggs in bator were some I had taken from her initially because she had pushed them out of the nest. She did a great job with her broodiness. I was so worried about her because she would not get off the nest so I had to put food and water right under her beak to get her to eat and I never saw her take a drink.

Today she has her babies up and eating.

Well I've saved the sad news for last.

Ruth is gone.

She had already been gone one day and two nights when I left and I was hoping she would come home while I was gone but no such luck. I have no idea what happened to her. Last I saw she was in my garden eating my newly planted veggies. A little later I went to close them all in coop and she wasn't there - which isn't unusual - but I couldn't find her and she didn't come when called. Still not too unusual some of them disappear and show back up the next morning - had a young peacock disappear for two days and nights and show back up - so I wasn't overly worried but when she didn't come back the night before we left I feared the worse. I guess it's possible she's off on a nest somewhere but she was laying eggs in the coop and didn't have a hidden nest that I know of. I gathered her last egg and put it in incubator - it is developing nicely. Her three babies I hatched earlier are all getting big and all have their mom's muff - even the barred rock. I also hatched four more of her babies in the last round of hatches. So I'll get one more Baby Ruth out of her last egg and she will live on here through here babies. I don't make pets out of my chickens - they just get to live out their lives here, but Ruth was special because I had to hand feed her and raise her - she was always a loner from the rest and would come running when she saw me and jump on my lap for her preening.

Well that's my long Journey update. It was cold and raining here today - well cold by our standards (60s) so I spent the day cleaning coops and hutches and winterizing them by stapling plastic to inside walls to cover any gaps and built a brooder pen for the baby ducks and put them in the duck house. Never a dull moment here....

Till next time.....take care.

Monique

 

[Zookeeper9000]

Glad your back and that you had fun. Sorry to hear about Ruth. Congrats on the ducks and chicks.

 

[speckledhen]

Glad you had fun on your trip. Terribly sorry to hear about Ruth, though. They sure are special creatures.

 

[basicliving]

I laughed so hard reading about your daughter's experiences and reactions to house/pet sitting for you - and then cried when reading about precious little Ruth. I hope a miracle will happen and you will find her sitting there waiting on you one morning.

Thanks for the update. I always look forward to them.

Take care,
Penny

 

[miss_jayne]

Monique, you look beautiful in your picture...relaxed and having a great time!

sorry to hear of little Ruth.

God bless your heart.

 

[ruth]

Thanks ladies for the condolences on Ruth. I still keep looking for her and calling for her. It just won't be the same without her. She's the only one I could pet - the rest are pretty wild. I still pray she will return but if not, she will be missed. She was the roosters favorite and had to run off into the woods each day just to get away from them. At night she would find me and come running and jump in my arms for me to carry her back into coop and put her up on high roost so they wouldn't get her.

For the past few weeks my procedure had been to chase all roosters out of coop in morning and leave my oldest hens (including Ruth), who wouldn't come down from roost till all roos were out, and the baby chicks and peachicks to all have the run of the coop. Then all day long I played "Chicken Doorman" and would go outside and open and close the coop door letting other hens in who wanted to lay and letting out those that wanted out. Ruth had gotten bored with staying inside and really wanted out the day before she disappeared so I started letting her out and she was back to her old ways of staying near the house's back steps, in my little kitchen garden and fenced back yard area. That's where I last saw her.

 

[ruth]

So that things don't get too weepy, meaning me, I thought I would post an excerpt from one of my daughter's e-mails. Did I mention she is extremely GERMOPHOBIC? She had to bring her large lab Emma to stay as well.....

Outside egg cooker thing…

Fine no problems checked them this morning and they are not cracking or anything. I will switch them to that black hatching thingy tonight.

Dogs…

Prissy and Scarlett slept inside and are fine. Emma was acting strange last night and this morning. Kevin brought her in to stay with me while he fed the chickens this morning and she pooped on the floor next to me. (Which she never has pooped inside). When I went to pick up the huge steaming pile of poop…it had small tape worms all in it. I cleaned up the poo separated her from the other animals by taking her outside to the shed and putting her in her kennel. However, I knew she looked sick. SO now we need to get some worm medicine I guess.

Questions…

Do I put a towel in the bottom of the black thing in the outside egg cooker before putting the eggs in there to hatch?

Do I leave the eggs in the blue crate things when I put them in the black thing for hatching or do I spread them out?

What do you know about worm meds and how to take care of that situation? Do we have to stay home with her and walk her a bunch if we give her medicine? Should she stay in her kennel? (I know they are tape worms because I looked them up on google)

Do you want me to leave the momma chicken and babies in the cage locked up or should I let them out? I just want to check with you. Also what about the one that was born this morning? Should I bring that new chicken out and try to put it with the mom? It is the only chick in the box.

When I called her she said, "did you see the part about the toilet stopping up and overflowing?" I told her no, that wasn't in the e-mail. She said "yeah, when I was cleaning up all that poop and throwing all the paper and wormy poop in the toilet the toilet got stopped up and overflowed and I had to clean that up too."

She is such a wonderful daughter and so sweet to come and take care of everything while we were gone. She's the only one out of our five that will volunteer to come help us whenever we need it. I am truly blessed to have her as a daughter - but she is really blonde and hilarious.