BYC Café

[sourland]

Good morning, Cap. Hope that your FIL has a good day.

 

[drumstick diva]

Morning all hope your day is a good one.

 

[N F C]

And good morning everyone. FIL's birthday and he is not well. Lots of health issues.

Happy b-day to your FIL Cap! Does he live close enough for you & DH to check up on him?

 

[007Sean]

Morning Cafe

Thanks for the coffee, Shad

Everyone make it a great day!

 

[room onthebroom]

To remind you all the reason why I am acting as a gold line operator is because our company has been sold and will be shut down.
Employees are leaving at a steady rate and there was no one left to get the product through the line.
The following is from a fellow engineer. He likes to write poems. This choked me up as it is so true...

how can I say goodbye, I’ve been here most of my life
learned how to be an engineer and met my beautiful wife

how can I say goodbye, to the familiar I’ve known every day
to warm faces that greeted me and have helped in so many ways

with the “good old days” of IBM, the layoffs also first came
then the mismanagement of EIT and its legacy of shame

but our spirit could not be crushed and our abilities again shown
from the ashes of one-day work weeks we re-ascended the throne

but now the “Dream Team” is disbanded and black veiled
drowning in an air of insufficiency, as if we had finally failed

we did NOT falter! our IBM yields were incrediblely high
but in the end we were abandoned without a good reason why

how can I say goodbye – well only with eyes filled with tears
I can show you scars, but by far, many more blessings these years

how can I say goodbye? – I can’t, for you are all a part of me
you have always been, and forever are, my dear family​

Oh, that is SO sad!!!

 

[Shadrach]

Did you put a warm wash cloth on the eye lid? Sometimes that will do the trick.

Thx Cap.
I gave the eye a bit of a soak with warm ph neutral water this morning and massaged gently around the socket. It's opened a bit and there is an eyeball in there. I'll give it some eye drops this evening.

 

[Shadrach]

The sun came out this afternoon and the wind died away. The rain brings the bugs to the surface so lots of happy digging chickens out there this afternoon.
Despite my earlier post I have still not moved Mel and chicks out of the house. My excuse is I'm trying to keep an eye on the chick with the problem eye. They are all out of the nest box though. I've put them in the pet carrier with a towel at the base. This gives Mel's feet something to grip on and it means I can put the pet carrier on the floor during the day so Mel and chicks can at least explore the house.
The truth is the second maternity unit is still not finished. It needs a butile sheet over the plywood roof and the builders yard was shut today.

 

[DobieLover]

Mel sat on 6 eggs, two of which were hard boiled.
The nest itself is far from ideal and I have plans to rectify this. The problem is the same as always with hard bases; the hen can't make the hollow so the eggs get spread about instead of being packed in a tight group.
Yes this is important. The embryos and the hen all communicate with each other. Noone seems quite sure at what stage of development this starts but the point of it partly is to ensure the eggs hatch together. The hen knows at what stage the eggs are and alters the heat/humidity/position to try to modify hatch timing.
For the eggs to communicate with each other they need to be in close proximity, preferably touching. This is one vital piece of knowledge that gets ignored by those who incubate. It does according to research have a major impact on hatch rate.
So, the nest becomes the single most important factor when broody hatching.
Anyway, Mel cracked all four eggs. One chick didn't make it. Mel did try to assist by picking off pieces of shell.
The darkest chick has a problem with it's left eye. The eyelid isn't opening. It gets around fine, finds food and navigates so we'll see how things develop.

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Congratulate Mel on a job well done!
Hopefully the dark one's eye will eventually open and it'll be fine.

 

[DobieLover]

Dobie, fill a thermos, hope you have a better day than yesterday.

Today was bit better. No line crashes but it was a bit of a ball juggle and fumble at the end of the day. The nice thing about it now is, it's no longer my problem!

 

[CapricornFarm]

Good morning, Cap. Hope that your FIL has a good day.

Thanks Sour.