Fair is fowl, fowl is fair.

[fowltemptress]

I knew posting my bird count would lead to more ducklings. Shirley finally hatched a few of her own.

I'm curious to see if she can hang on to them. Annie's clutch all went bad; I don't know what is up with that girl, because she can't seem to sit on eggs without them rotting. But as soon as she heard the cheeps of everyone else's ducklings she switched to mama mode, and as of today Annie has successfully stolen the ducklings of all her fellow muscovy hens.

Where she goes, ducklings follow, giving no thought at all to the hens who spent so much time and effort hatching them out. Children, amirite?

though there is something to be said for freedom. Genghis here doesn't seem overly concerned that her hatchlings have chosen a different hen, but she is  very concerned that I approached her without treats. She can forgive an ungrateful offspring, but a human without grubs? Unforgivable!

The ducklings grow fast! They're already at the age that I can tell the males from the females, and it looks like this year heavily favored males! I'm always thrilled when that happens.

Two males hanging out . . .

. . . and a dainty female enjoying a stretched out foot. It's the poultry equivalent of throwing the sheets off your legs.

I was going to try to take a picture a day of one of them starting with hatch day, but I forgot. A project for next year?



A guinea is sitting on eggs in the goose coop, and a different one from last year. My favorite guineas are the white ones, so I'm relieved whenever I see a white hen that's decided to brood in safety.

Klaus and Remus are always going at it through the fence. It cracks me up to watch even as I thank goodness for the fence. Without that barrier, the fighting between them is a scary thing. I've no idea why these two decided to be mortal enemies.

 

[fowltemptress]

My father has started sending out a Christmas card every year with a collage of pictures of my siblings and their spouses. Everyone is spruced up with nice clothes, great hair, and makeup done perfectly. He didn't manage to get a picture of my husband and me last year, so he made it his mission to get one this year - a mission he promptly forgot until the very last minute, when he was about to leave our house for the long drive home. It was morning, I was in the middle of things in the garden, and my husband, who enjoys sleeping in on weekends after a hard work week, had just walked out to groggily bid my father drive "wrecklessly."

So try to picture receiving one of those Christmas card collages. The pictures all have great lighting, with the couples in the photos wearing dresses or suits and basically giving off an overall vibe of not being the sort to forget about having their picture taken. Then something out of place catches your eye . . .

(But first! Ignore our faces. We normally don't go so heavy on the yellow spray tan.)

I'm also wearing a big floppy hat under that ginormous face of mine. Didn't even think to take it off.

I know I should probably dig up and send my father a photo that's less, er, candid, but now that I've seen this picture I know I'll regret it if I deny my family and my father's friends the opportunity to witness me in all my fashionista glory. Those BYC shirts are so hot right now!

That's my garden behind us. I am decidedly not a gardener, but somehow we wind up with vegetables on our dinner table year after year so I must be doing something right. The fence around it is an absolute patchwork abomination; it's a culmination of all my attempts to keep my own dang chickens out. Deer? No problem. Rabbits? Barely make a dent. Chickens? We will raze your greenery and salt the earth!
And for some reason all my chickens are stymied by the little four foot fence that separates their area from the geese and ducks, but as soon as the same fence encloses a vegetable garden they turn into fence scaling geniuses with wings every bit as flight-capable as those of a hawk. I extended the height of the fence by pounding pvc pipe onto the t-posts and connecting more fencing (sloppily) to those, which has managed to keep all but one very enterprising chicken out.

Sometimes I look at all the adorable coops and pretty fencing people post on here and think maybe I should make more of an effort to "pretty things up." But now I look at this future Christmas card highlight that my father took, and I think to myself, "Baby steps might be asking too much here. Let's go with zygote steps."

None of this keeping up with the Joneses matters, though, when you have geese to snuggle.

Oh, and I've been harvesting cucumbers lately and took a picture of one that drew my attention. Just leaving it here next to a picture of a sheep for no reason in particular. No need to look for similarities or anything ridiculous like that.

 

[Gill-b]

My sides hurt from laughing.

I love your Christmas card picture. Embrace it in all its rural outdoor this-is-me glory.

 

[fowltemptress]

This requires no words, I think.

 

[fowltemptress]

This picture was taken just now. Both my embden girls are reliable brooders.

One of the goslings that hatched yesterday in the other nest visits its future playmates.

Here's an observation I've made over the last several years: once eggs start pipping, my mama ducks and geese stand up and won't sit back down again until after everyone has hatched. Often my ducks will stand to the side instead of directly over the nest. Before the pip, when things start cheeping, the moms will be standing up and sitting down again every few seconds. I've seen folks on this forum stress horribly over having to open an incubator for a split second to check on things during hatch - I feel like watching my birds would ease their minds quite a bit.

 

[Gill-b]

Wonderful photograph! I love it.

 

[fowltemptress]

July bird count:
23 Geese
32 Ducks
47 Guineas
31 Chickens
9 Not Chickens

The numbers are jumping around quite a bit, as you can see.
Every year I think to myself, "I'm ready for this," and I always believe myself. Apparently I am an incredibly gifted liar.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get any chores done when  this is there to greet you every morning? I'm not even one of those folks who's enamored with all things baby - I find geese to be infinitely cuter than goslings - but watching the group dynamics play out when suddenly goslings are thrown into the fray is irresistibly interesting. Suddenly Tex goes from, "Must throttle Picard now," to "Must hover over goslings like the most cumbersome hummingbird in existence over the floofiest flowers to ever floof." It's no joke; you don't know the meaning of the word floof until you've held a gosling in your hands. I always wonder what's holding all the floof together, because you sure can't convince me there's a bird in there somewhere.

I love seeing how the phalanx comes together when a bird of prey passes overhead. One of these days I hope to get a picture of it, because suddenly there's nine geese encircling the goggles, staring at the sky and screaming a warning in the most dreadful cacophony you're likely to hear outside of a super bowl half time show. I sometimes wonder why I spent so many years wearing hearing protection at concerts and shooting ranges only to have it all come undone with a few discordant goosey meetings. My great aunt went deaf when her cart overturned because the horse was spooked by a newfangled contraption called a car. I look forward to being the new great aunt who's spoken of at family gatherings:

"See this picture? That's ol' fowltemptress. Deaf as a doorknob after a gander giggled in her ear."

"A gander?"

"Ayup. Back in her day they raised great beasts called geese for meat, and the ganders were the greatest and beastliest of the geese. They had teeth like giant hounds and made a sound that could wake the dead, or else send you to your grave depending on which side of the fence yer sittin' on at the time. Luckily she tucked her fingers in her ears last second, elsen your great aunt wouldn't have lived to see another day. Yep, it's a good thing we've grown civilized and don't need to risk life and limb for a bit of protein these days. Pass the soylent green, kiddo."

Things I've changed this year from previous years of raising goslings:
A: A lot less checking on eggs. I think I checked on them once when I saw flies and realized an egg must have gone rotten. I candled everything, threw out the rotten culprit and a couple of quitters I found in the mix, and allowed myself to trust that eventually goslings would appear. It's very hard for me not to candle developing eggs at least once a week, so this was painful for me.

B: I allowed everyone to mingle with the new arrivals immediately. Normally I set up barriers out of fear of trampling, but after a couple of years of observing all the geese around goslings I just don't think it's that big a risk - at least not with my lot. Everyone quits fighting and gets super gentle when goslings are present, and if anything, the moms have more of a tendency to step on their goggles than any of the rest of the gaggle. I feel like the ganders know this, and that's why they take charge and hover so assiduously.

C: Giving the newcomers access to everything immediately. I had been keeping the moms and goslings confined for a week before allowing them to roam all over Gosland and the pastures, but after a couple of years of watching nine geese transform themselves into an unbreakable Roman legion dead set on protecting their young, I feel pretty comfortable allowing the gaggle to assess their own risks. I have, of course, made sure every water source has an easy exit point for tiny poultry, but other than that they're off without rails. I'm both astounded and amused by the treks the adults have already taken these little guys on. And all of it done at a gosling's pace! I go nuts if I'm stuck behind anyone who walks even a nanosecond slower than me, so I am in awe of the patience displayed here.

Things I'll change for next season:
Only one thing, really, but I've got to rig up a separate area for Winger, Casanova Canard.

Normally this goober ignores my geese, but as soon as they start sitting on eggs it's like he sees easy pickin's, and my sitting geese become sitting ducks. It's way too disruptive, and my ganders can't be guarding the girls every second. I don't want to limit my muscovy hens' access to everything, so I'll have to figure something out.

 

[fowltemptress]

The duality of chicken: sometimes it's a red feather day, and sometimes you're just feeling blue.

 

[fowltemptress]

August bird count:
22 Geese
60 Ducks
47 Guineas
40 Chickens
6 Not Chickens

I haven't been in the mood to post much. Especially not since July 22.

First, this is Tex.

Tex has a history of getting into trouble. He's my favorite gander, and as everyone knows, all bad things always happen to the favorites.

I am not a superstitious person. I am not superstitious in the same way that I do not believe in ghosts or monsters - it's all well and good until the sun goes down and I have to flip the switch and get into bed in the dark. Those last few feet to the bed will, for as long as I am able, be leaped instead of walked, lest some ghoulish arm reaches from beneath the bed to grab me. In the same vein, I am not superstitious, but if I were to talk about what happened on July 22 or express any hope whatsoever about his future my gander would be sure to die.

I believe at this point he's recovered enough that it's safe for me to continue pretending that I'm not superstitious.

On July 22 I was walking back into the house after having checked on something near the chicken coop, when I happened to glance into Gosland. Gosland is where the waterfowl coops stand.

There was one goose in the goose coop, but no other geese nearby, so I swept my eyes toward the pasture and saw the rest of the flock lounging in the grass. I was still walking towards the house when my body synced up with what my brain had realized:
a lone goose in the coop, and no current broodies?

I flew to the coop as fast as flip flops would allow, barely registering the blood stained feathers and swarm of flies as I scooped up Tex and clumsily hurried myself back up to the house and into the bathroom. I stood in the tub, aimed the shower head at the biggest patch of blood, and started spraying - and spraying, and spraying, as a river of flies streamed from where they'd been hidden amongst the feathers and fluff. I didn't stop to even look at Tex to assess his wounds until flies quit pouring out. When what seemed to be the final fly slipped down the drain I pulled Tex into my lap to look him over. His tail had chunks gouged out of it, and everything was ragged and shredded. I'd never dealt with such a mess of a wound on one of my birds before. Turns out a dog had grabbed Tex's rear through the fence as Tex was sitting up against it. I'm lucky it was Tex's butt against the fence and not his neck.

When people post asking for help with injuries on their birds here I always lament that so few of them think to post a picture. I forget that the last thing on my mind in such situations is picking up a camera, and it was about a week before I thought to take any pictures. Believe me when I say the wounds looked much worse when I first found Tex. Everything happening with his tail was just terrible.

With injuries like this flies and the possibility of fly strike terrifies me, and my first priority was finding all signs of flies and destroying them. As I sifted through his feathers I was finding what must have been hundreds of thousands of fly eggs. There were large clumps of them in every ragged crevice of flesh, tucked into the pockets of the wounds, and hidden amongst the floof of his feathers in what seemed like impossible numbers. I sterilized some blunt tweezers with alcohol and grabbed an irrigation syringe to get to the hard to reach spots. Feathers with clumps of eggs were cut off or plucked out, and individual eggs were painstakingly sought out and picked off. It was two hours of being hunched over my poor boy, headlamp blazing a searchlight through the feather shafts, and even when I couldn't find more eggs I felt like there must be some hidden cache of maggot makers in some as yet undiscovered pocket. To this day, I still see fly eggs when I close my eyes.

At some point my husband came into the bathroom to see what was going on. I can't remember if I was calling out for help or if he was just doing one of his "I haven't seen the woman in a while and I must check to see if she's been eaten by a bear" rounds. I can't remember a lot about that day, actually, but what I do remember is seared into my brain. I know I sent him out to check for any other victims. At that point I didn't know what had happened, and I wasn't sure if Tex was the only casualty. My husband came back to report a portion of the fence was caked in blood and feathers, and several of the goslings and Hans were covered in blood. It turned out that they were all covered in Tex's blood, but he brought in each bloody bird one by one to be rinsed off and looked over. On one hand, thank goodness it was only Tex. On the other hand, I'm not blowing smoke when I say Tex is my favorite; I'd almost rather have had all the goslings, guineas, and chickens taken by hawks in one fell swoop than have this happen to my gander.

When I was through looking for flies, I mixed up some saline solution (One teaspoon of table salt to two cups of water) and rinsed the wounds, then covered in plain TAO. Tex was obviously in pain, but he was drinking water and could still wag his tail like normal, which made me feel better. I had some Vitametz from Metzer Farms that I mixed in his water, and I went and found some dandelion leaves for him to eat. He wasn't touching the little bowl of food I brought him, so the dandelion leaves were to test if he would eat if he felt like it. He ate through those leaves like a school of ravenous vegetarian piranha. I felt good about him at that point, but the possibility of missed fly eggs hatching haunted my thoughts. I was checking him every half hour, sometimes finding an egg or two that I'd submerge in a little glass of alcohol that I kept for the purpose. That night I laid some blankets on the floor of the bathroom in order to sleep with Tex, just in case anything bad developed. For some reason, this is something I took a picture of that day.

Tex and I have been through this before, my little injury-prone goober. He's always happy to snuggle when I bring him in for care.

The next morning I searched for any more signs of flies (I never found any beyond that first day), cleaned the wounds with saline and Vetericyn and applied more ointment, and went out to grab a gosling. With the extent of the damage I knew Tex would be indoors for a long time - no way was I leaving him outside with so many flies eager to take advantage - and I wasn't capable of spending as much time with him as he needed. One thing I've noticed about flock species is that quarantining them away from their own kind while injured can be almost as damaging as the injury itself. From then on I'd bring in a different gosling every day, so that no one gosling would be stuck indoors the whole time. It gave Tex a reason to live. They didn't nibble or bother his injuries in any way, and he'd talk to them in that soft whisper ganders like to use around goslings and the geese they like. Tex was still acting like a normal goose, and I'll admit I let myself get my hopes up.

It wasn't long before the smell set in.

Have you ever smelled infection? I thought I had. But whatever it was I had smelled before, it couldn't prepare me for the putrescence that assaulted my nostrils. It permeated the house; I could smell it from all the way downstairs in the basement. My husband, who as far as I can tell hasn't had a proper sense of smell in years, wrinkled up his nose at it. I had to dab Vicks Vaporub on my nostrils before going into Tex's bathroom in order to keep myself from vomiting. I'd dry heave just walking into the bathroom. This smell of infection scared me to my core. I'd been cleaning and debriding the wounds as best I could, but I have to admit in those earlier days I had a very hard time figuring out what was what down there, and maybe - oh, I don't know what maybe. It was a tail with chunks ripped out by a dog, and it's a wonder I've had as many dog attacks as I've had without any of my birds developing an infection before now. It's just so gawddang frustrating that my first bout with it had to be so severe, and with Tex.

There's one thing I could think to do, and because it feels better to do something rather than nothing, I sent my husband out for Chlorhexidine. As my brother-in-law has pointed out, we live in the middle of nowhere, so this wasn't a quick romp to the store and back. Frankly, I don't consider anywhere within an hour of a grocery store "the middle of nowhere," but I will grant there are emergencies that crop up where I envy the five minute drive to a pharmacy, or having usps package delivery more than one designated day a week. It was torture waiting for the husband to return with Nolvasan. Though, in hindsight, what was the point? It wasn't like it was going to be an insta-cure, regardless of what time supplies arrived. And for all I know the chlorhexidine delayed healing and didn't do much more to actually help with the infection - but again, it always feels better to do something, and I'd worked with Nolvasan a lot in the labs so I trusted it at the very least to not be the reason Tex died, if he did wind up dying.

I'm just going to take a moment to stop here and appreciate my man. There have been so many times I've sent him off on some quest for the benefit of my birds, and not only does he take it for granted that I know what I'm doing so there's no need to question the necessity of what I'm asking him to do, but he anticipates and does the things most people, including me, only think to do if requested. For example, I can't say for certain I would ever have a charged phone if it wasn't magically placed on the charger every time the battery got low. And I'm always walking in late from morning chores, upset that my cockatiel hasn't had any attention all morning, only to find that not only has he taken her into his study with him, but for the last half hour he's been explaining the merits of various computer languages with her. I can count on one hand the number of people I'd trust to take care of my animals should I ever experience a complete personality change and decide I need a break, and he's at the tip top of that list. I can count even fewer people who would prioritize a goose's need for the guest bathroom over those of human guests, because yeah, that happened too.

Eventually he got back with the chlorhexidine, and I diluted it according to instructions and added it to my wound care routine, spraying it into the wound and letting it sit for 2 to 4 minutes before rinsing it out and proceeding on with ointment application. The first day that I realized I was able to work on Tex without Vicks Vaporub on my nose was a red letter day. I started taking him and his gosling of the day down into the basement garage to hang out during the day. There's a slightly higher chance of flies getting into that area, but the odds are still low and there's more room for him to stretch down there.

Soon, new feather growth was happening. I was thrilled.

Then something horrible happened.

One day I was doing whatever it is I do when I heard my husband shout. He'd gone to check on the geese in the bathroom, and the gosling of the day was dead, drowned in the water bucket. By this time the goslings were almost six weeks old, not much shorter than the adults. I start switching them back to water buckets when they get to be a certain size because buckets are less messy than the shallower tubs I put out for babies. I know the risks of buckets with poultry and that drownings are far from uncommon, but the tighter space of the bathroom and the size of the gosling made me think it worth the risk. I still thought it worth the risk after the drowning, especially after my husband described the position the body was in (not stuck or upside down in any way?), but the birds were checked on almost incessantly afterwords.

I don't bury dead poultry near the house and coops because it draws in too many predators. Geese, though - there's something about geese.
The gosling is buried in one of my garden beds, with heavy stuff piled high to the heavens on top of the grave in an effort to discourage digging opportunists. I'm sorry for what happened, and feel awful about it.


More feather growth happened on Tex.

And then this week, he no longer has a giant fly invitation in place of a tail.

There's this weird thing going on with this area which I assume has something to do with an injured oil gland. There's some gunk that comes up through the creases in the skin, and I'm wondering if it's his gland still attempting to make oil? Poor Tex is constantly preening, trying to spread oil that isn't there, and when he bathes he is no longer hydrophobic; he comes out dripping wet and it takes ages to dry even after I towel him off. I'm worried this may be a permanent development, but I'm crossing my fingers it's still possible for this to right itself. You haven't seen "wrong" until you've seen a wet goose.

Tex also started seeming a bit morose recently, so I was happy his tail healed up enough that I'm feeling comfortable taking him outside during the days. Our backyard connects to the pasture and I'm able to close the gate and cut off access, so today I herded some of the geese into the yard, scrubbed the pool back there within an inch of its life, and brought down Tex.

He's an outsider amongst his own flock now. It's sad to see him that way, but I'm hoping it lifts his spirits being out with everyone again. I'm bringing him in at night to make sure his tail is still looking alright, but instead of bringing in goslings I'm bringing in Hans. Hans and Tex were good friends before Tex was injured, and they worked together to guard the goslings. Now Hans chases Tex away if he gets too close. When they're in the bathroom together, though, there's no conflict, so I'm hoping some forced exposure at night will get them used to each other again. I kinda think it wouldn't be an issue at all if there weren't goslings Hans felt he needed to protect. Picard, on the other hand, will not be allowed anywhere near Tex until Tex is back at 100 percent. Those two  hate eachother and always have. There's no relationship to save there.

So that's where I've been, keeping mum until I thought Tex would be alright. All in all, not the greatest month of this year.

 

[Gill-b]

This has me sitting on the edge of my seat, reaching for the tissues to wipe away tears.
I am so sorry this has happened to your beloved Tex, and I hope he makes a speedy full recovery.
A hero's cheer to your amazing husband.
Thinking of you and sending positive vibes your way.