Wisher, sorry to hear about your dad. Keep us updated as you can.
Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta
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Heel low:
Just blasting thru myself. It must be a medical spring time for some of us, eh @Wisher1000 ? Life here is not allowing me to take time off work, just schedule it all in around my work and suck it up I guess. Blah, eh.
It has been surreal. Since the 20th, life or death, wedding vows of in sickness and health, eh. It is what it is and you take the good times with the bad...the bad ensure you know the good times and ever so grateful we have the stuffings to get ourselves thru these most trying times.
Late nights, ER visits, now many tests--and yet, they can't seem to kill either of us. Doctors don't know why Rick survived the fall. His family practitioner is mystified. Said I should have found a corpse or one passing. Dead serious. When a doctor says he referred to many others in the field and all drew the same conclusion...you just have to acknowledge the saying that it was NOT Rick's time to go.
Rick experienced dizzy spells and nausea last week which meant we got shuffled off the next morning for an MRI after going to emergency and having lots of twittering medical staff. It was not one rib was broken as we were first told, but several. Yeh, no wonder he had issues breathing and dipped into risking a bout of pneumonia. Well the MRI revealed that the blood clots headed for his lungs were a non-issue (you get a clot in your lungs, basically you are dead, sometimes instantly...happens with leg and foot injuries when he broke the bone in his foot) so thankfully no rat poison treatments of six months or so. Oh what goody fun this has been.
So it has been a roller coaster blur of do chores, go to work twice a day (stop all extra must do activities, work to do), play with dogs (ah my...salvation is saintly in running happy dogs...THAT is so stress relieving and joyous and energizing too--those girls were heaven sent!), multiple trips to get electric blanket so Rick could mend up warm and comfy, great big socks for swollen foot, clear out the other company's grader contents so we can start up our new company when recovery allows it and always, always the endless doctor appointments and medical tests. And the kids on the bus still got their Easter goodies...nothing changes when you get side swiped and expectations ARE expectations. Happens when the worst occurs too...if it was death arrangements I was to do, the world never pauses to allow you to fall down, you better keep going or get mowed under. Wickness punishment from a previous life??
Only thing that stops me dead is that we keep getting told Rick should have died as they keep nit picking the initial fall and tallying documenting and dissecting it to pieces. The medical persons have no explanations...and for that, we plan on reaping the benefits that Rick is just too nasty to die right now.
Basically Rick is alive, recovering and the medical community is puzzled why he lived from the initial fall to begin with. We are blessed to live another day, enjoy another moment, here in Pear-A-Dice.
I don't want to see any more wheelchairs, medical test line ups, interiors of hospitals or medical offices...or wait on prescriptions being filled and educating ourselves on prescription side affects...good GACK! What you don't figure you don't need to know...icrumba
In the midst of the mayhem, we got Rick hearing aids. He told me a few days ago, was the first time he heard chickadees in like forever. NICE...nice to give him back the sounds he lost running machinery for decades to make a living. Nice indeed. Now "I" have to retrain myself not to loudly speak. Hee hee...learning curve, far far too many years adapting to accommodate your soul mate's aging process. Hee hee, ha ha.
"Waz dat you say??"
On the news front, gonna start going swimming (as a youth, I trained up with enough courses and such I could have been a fully certified life guard) twice a week. The water exercise will be nice on my worn out joints...kinder than taking up jogging but still want that aerobic work out part...see if I can work up to where I can do butterfly again...tis been a long time since I could FLY to any degree...hee hee. Have a choice of three towns with pools to choose from. So next week, hoping to start experimenting as to which one I will buy a yearly pass to go to. Girls will go along for the ride and a good opportunity for us to work on Emmy's anti social tendancies for this coming Fall's dog show entry. What's that about two birds and one stone?
Robberies in the local area are on the rise...not so much people that need the items, more like people doing it because they figure they are less likely to get caught -- so ever nice, neighbours taking from neighbours for personal financial gain. Sense of self-entitlement and lack of empathy to the victims they abuse. Truly low conduct of mankind to fellow man.
Took time out last night for just Rick and I--some US time where you ask, "Are you OK...am I OK...OK...we are OK...!!" The Swiss Chalet we went to last week for my son's birthday celebrations is no more. Bizzare does not even cover the fact we drove up, ready to have a nice relaxing US type special dinner to meld minds and revel in our company...only to see them doors locked and the chairs piled high on the tables...no lights on. CLOSED...the economic drain is still flooding with business closures, divorces, foreclosures (not that prices have dropped...oh no, the banks want to get what they are owed and so many have nothing invested in their homes...owe more than it would sell for) and whatnots despite the government and banks touting that "new jobs" are on the rise and employment and economic recovery is doing better than predicted. I say "HA" when you have a nice birthday celebration just days before in a seeming to be an ongoing concern and pull up for dinner to a business boarded up and closed for good. Dismal and shall try not to let this reality ruin an otherwise GREAT day.
Already had our turkey dinner and trimmings on Monday evening...so may go to a bird auction tomorrow...that too is feeling the pinch. Use to be at this venue and then went big for long time, only now to go back to the original venue, smaller and a less known venue. Oh well, shall need to gargle bleach and zit my eyes with lysol to disinfect all the cooties we shall likely be exposed to but shall enjoy touching base with all my birdy bird aquaintences from decades of birding. Should be fun, just hoping I don't bring any hanger oners back home with us...biosecure and hoping to keep it that way. Risks are well understood but I so miss communing in person with our fellow crazy poultry persons...so here goes.
Gotta fly, spring like and spring like means more pen cleaning. So thankful Rick is on the mend and getting better and better daily. Don't need any more scares like we have had to appreciate how very, very blessed we are to have each other to fall down by.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Just blasting thru myself. It must be a medical spring time for some of us, eh @Wisher1000 ? Life here is not allowing me to take time off work, just schedule it all in around my work and suck it up I guess. Blah, eh.
It has been surreal. Since the 20th, life or death, wedding vows of in sickness and health, eh. It is what it is and you take the good times with the bad...the bad ensure you know the good times and ever so grateful we have the stuffings to get ourselves thru these most trying times.
Late nights, ER visits, now many tests--and yet, they can't seem to kill either of us. Doctors don't know why Rick survived the fall. His family practitioner is mystified. Said I should have found a corpse or one passing. Dead serious. When a doctor says he referred to many others in the field and all drew the same conclusion...you just have to acknowledge the saying that it was NOT Rick's time to go.
Rick experienced dizzy spells and nausea last week which meant we got shuffled off the next morning for an MRI after going to emergency and having lots of twittering medical staff. It was not one rib was broken as we were first told, but several. Yeh, no wonder he had issues breathing and dipped into risking a bout of pneumonia. Well the MRI revealed that the blood clots headed for his lungs were a non-issue (you get a clot in your lungs, basically you are dead, sometimes instantly...happens with leg and foot injuries when he broke the bone in his foot) so thankfully no rat poison treatments of six months or so. Oh what goody fun this has been.
So it has been a roller coaster blur of do chores, go to work twice a day (stop all extra must do activities, work to do), play with dogs (ah my...salvation is saintly in running happy dogs...THAT is so stress relieving and joyous and energizing too--those girls were heaven sent!), multiple trips to get electric blanket so Rick could mend up warm and comfy, great big socks for swollen foot, clear out the other company's grader contents so we can start up our new company when recovery allows it and always, always the endless doctor appointments and medical tests. And the kids on the bus still got their Easter goodies...nothing changes when you get side swiped and expectations ARE expectations. Happens when the worst occurs too...if it was death arrangements I was to do, the world never pauses to allow you to fall down, you better keep going or get mowed under. Wickness punishment from a previous life??
Only thing that stops me dead is that we keep getting told Rick should have died as they keep nit picking the initial fall and tallying documenting and dissecting it to pieces. The medical persons have no explanations...and for that, we plan on reaping the benefits that Rick is just too nasty to die right now.
Basically Rick is alive, recovering and the medical community is puzzled why he lived from the initial fall to begin with. We are blessed to live another day, enjoy another moment, here in Pear-A-Dice.
I don't want to see any more wheelchairs, medical test line ups, interiors of hospitals or medical offices...or wait on prescriptions being filled and educating ourselves on prescription side affects...good GACK! What you don't figure you don't need to know...icrumba
In the midst of the mayhem, we got Rick hearing aids. He told me a few days ago, was the first time he heard chickadees in like forever. NICE...nice to give him back the sounds he lost running machinery for decades to make a living. Nice indeed. Now "I" have to retrain myself not to loudly speak. Hee hee...learning curve, far far too many years adapting to accommodate your soul mate's aging process. Hee hee, ha ha.
"Waz dat you say??"
On the news front, gonna start going swimming (as a youth, I trained up with enough courses and such I could have been a fully certified life guard) twice a week. The water exercise will be nice on my worn out joints...kinder than taking up jogging but still want that aerobic work out part...see if I can work up to where I can do butterfly again...tis been a long time since I could FLY to any degree...hee hee. Have a choice of three towns with pools to choose from. So next week, hoping to start experimenting as to which one I will buy a yearly pass to go to. Girls will go along for the ride and a good opportunity for us to work on Emmy's anti social tendancies for this coming Fall's dog show entry. What's that about two birds and one stone?
Robberies in the local area are on the rise...not so much people that need the items, more like people doing it because they figure they are less likely to get caught -- so ever nice, neighbours taking from neighbours for personal financial gain. Sense of self-entitlement and lack of empathy to the victims they abuse. Truly low conduct of mankind to fellow man.
Took time out last night for just Rick and I--some US time where you ask, "Are you OK...am I OK...OK...we are OK...!!" The Swiss Chalet we went to last week for my son's birthday celebrations is no more. Bizzare does not even cover the fact we drove up, ready to have a nice relaxing US type special dinner to meld minds and revel in our company...only to see them doors locked and the chairs piled high on the tables...no lights on. CLOSED...the economic drain is still flooding with business closures, divorces, foreclosures (not that prices have dropped...oh no, the banks want to get what they are owed and so many have nothing invested in their homes...owe more than it would sell for) and whatnots despite the government and banks touting that "new jobs" are on the rise and employment and economic recovery is doing better than predicted. I say "HA" when you have a nice birthday celebration just days before in a seeming to be an ongoing concern and pull up for dinner to a business boarded up and closed for good. Dismal and shall try not to let this reality ruin an otherwise GREAT day.
Already had our turkey dinner and trimmings on Monday evening...so may go to a bird auction tomorrow...that too is feeling the pinch. Use to be at this venue and then went big for long time, only now to go back to the original venue, smaller and a less known venue. Oh well, shall need to gargle bleach and zit my eyes with lysol to disinfect all the cooties we shall likely be exposed to but shall enjoy touching base with all my birdy bird aquaintences from decades of birding. Should be fun, just hoping I don't bring any hanger oners back home with us...biosecure and hoping to keep it that way. Risks are well understood but I so miss communing in person with our fellow crazy poultry persons...so here goes.
Gotta fly, spring like and spring like means more pen cleaning. So thankful Rick is on the mend and getting better and better daily. Don't need any more scares like we have had to appreciate how very, very blessed we are to have each other to fall down by.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Oh my, that is terrifying. Thank the Lord he survived.
Glad he survived the fall, the ER, and that he can hear now.
Swimming is a wonderful form of low impact exercise, and you will find that after you swim, you will sleep better that night too.
Robbers today are not usually doing it from need, but more from greed, or for drug money.
I've been complaining for years that when the economy tanked, there were lots of empty houses, but the banks would let them sit, and rot before selling them at a price to commensurate with the economy, or current lower value of the home. The banks created the problem to begin with.
Swimming is a wonderful form of low impact exercise, and you will find that after you swim, you will sleep better that night too.
Robbers today are not usually doing it from need, but more from greed, or for drug money.
I've been complaining for years that when the economy tanked, there were lots of empty houses, but the banks would let them sit, and rot before selling them at a price to commensurate with the economy, or current lower value of the home. The banks created the problem to begin with.
Across the utility easement (and huge electric towers) one of my neighbors (and driver of senior bus) said last year a few neighbors by him were robbed. Turned out to be some teenager living there. He knew when neighbors went to work and came home. Knew which ones left their garage doors open. He collected quite a bundle. One neighbor had the brains to check out "Craig's list" and sure enough the kid was selling the items he stole. He told the police, and the police set up a sting, where they pretended to want to buy the items. What a surprise for the enterprising young man.
Tara take care of yourself, so you can take care of Rick PLEASE. If you suspect robbers send Emmy to greet them, Lacy would lick them too death. Just kidding of course, wouldn't want the doggies to get injured. If they could just see how the girls flash fangs & "play" with each other, I think that would scare them away.
Tara take care of yourself, so you can take care of Rick PLEASE. If you suspect robbers send Emmy to greet them, Lacy would lick them too death. Just kidding of course, wouldn't want the doggies to get injured. If they could just see how the girls flash fangs & "play" with each other, I think that would scare them away.
There are so many homeless people here, and the "system" can't keep up with the housing demand. The empty houses have turned out to be "vagrant magnets" on more than one occasion.
Diva, how brazen of him to be selling his stolen wares on Craig's list. Glad they caught him. Yes, people like that don't/won't work, and have plenty of time to scope out the activity in a neighborhood to select their targets.
Tara, I agree about taking care of yourself first, so you can take care of Rick. Most people, especially men, tend to be difficult when recuperating. I hope he recovers quickly.
Diva, how brazen of him to be selling his stolen wares on Craig's list. Glad they caught him. Yes, people like that don't/won't work, and have plenty of time to scope out the activity in a neighborhood to select their targets.
Tara, I agree about taking care of yourself first, so you can take care of Rick. Most people, especially men, tend to be difficult when recuperating. I hope he recovers quickly.
- Thread starter
- #2,257
Hi..I'm new to backyard chickens, and when I joined someone mentioned you to me. Looking through some of your photos, I see you have a dog named Lucy I believe. I wanted to share a picture of my Oliver Twist with you. He was born in Dec. of 2015.. I bought him from a breeder just out side of Olds, Alberta. I have a home in Didsbury, and a ranch west of Edmonton, Barrhead area. I would love to see more pics of your chicken coop, as my husband Rick is building me a new one this spring.
Happy pooches, eh!!
Click on the link to MY COOP in the margin where my namesake is thar and you'll find lots of photos of some of our buildings. I gave up posting all of them, there are like 30+.
Rick builds to code for what one would do with houses. Hardware cloth is your friend, chicken wire sucks and can't keep even chickens contained, never mind all the predators we have here in Alberta that would love to add our precious poultry to their menus!
Use 2 by 12's for planking under the coop runs to deter diggers and river sand for a base is good for all runs. We metal roofed all the runs as I hated as a child having to use netting that birds of prey sliced thru or heavy Coast type snows stuck to (and we are seeming to get more and more of the WEsT Coast's type weather it seems!).
We only free range birds we can afford to lose and only when I am home to watch out for them. Lost one bird in our 20+ years when I got complaicent and did not do head count on the yard chickens...old hen stayed out and one of our many, many lovely mice eating owls ATE her. Back to head counting and never had an incident since. Thank heavens!
Welcome to the most endearing feathery hobby there is...the keeping of poultry is such an all encompassing PASSION...livestock and dogs are fun, but adding birds to the mixture...yeh
Just streaking through here.....
Life happens. My Dad went into the hospital with pneumonia and went downhill fast from there. He is back in his memory care ( really nice ) facility, but is pretty much bedridden and needs 24 hour care. I have requested and received FMLA for 6 weeks and will use up another 6 weeks of vacation time when that runs out. After that, I will retire. I will see you guys as much as I can, but there hasn't been time lately.
I am glad that Tara is keeping you entertained while I am away! Love you all!
Yuck and yuck. Spring time same here for us too...medical and heart wrenching. I would not find any joy in Pear-A-Dice in life without my partner in crime here to share it with.
We build all this place together and enjoy living thru each other's eyes.
I hope your father enjoys his time as it would be a farce to say, "hope he gets better" because quite frankly, that may or may not be the case. Enjoy life every single day and I am glad you can spend 12 weeks with him and more when you retire. Retire and smell the roses, deeper and longer and with ZEST!
Take care of yourself and suck in the magic moments to flood your mind with good memories. People receive eternal life from the persons that remember them fondly.
Thankful he did not end up paralized as he makes the most terrible patient imaginable...simply put, he hates not doing for himself and to think he could have been in a wheelchair permanently...I'd have to be on suicide watch 24/7.
He put his mudflap brackets on the new truck, changed the pond fish water in the garage (need to do some revamping on the fish pond with the frost heaving and crumbling some of the footings this winter), amongst a few other tasks. He likes doing things and both of us don't like to see a single day go by without physically accomplishments under our belts.
Yes, Rick is too nasty to die...thus far.
I have loved swimming all my life. It has just been something I have not done in the past 25 years simply because a pool is not that close by and other things in life have distracted me. The physical workout will be different than my chore load. I have no issues sleeping well, I am both physically and mentally tired right now, but the increase in exertion & heart rate (I don't find myself running along doing chores, more the lifting, walking from building to building, the bending, stretching; has kept me in good form) is what I want to better. I want to add a different kind of exercise...I guess I could ask the girl dogs to "chase me" round about but then my already worn out joints would degrade even faster...
Going back swimming will be like revisiting my childhood PLUS I have relatively good arms and legs, but the middle part has somewhat drifted...ha ha ha. Cardio wise, would be nice to increase my heart rate in a sensible fashion and I adore swimming in that you might heat up, but you never feel overheated like one does say when I use to play basketball or do track & field running. I gotta get in better health so I can be an asset to myself and Rick (as he ages...and age we both are). I found it tough doing more tasks and "I" want to be there to take up the slack and take it up with ease, not feel so exhausted as I go about doing daily plus the extras.
Can't help others if you can't keep up the extra work load and to think things will be easier here as we both continue to age...that's a joke. Thing about getting healthier is that I will be able to do more and completing more work always makes me happier. So happy I may explode...tee hee.
Gear up...
Micro towels, goggles, cap, suit, hair brush, lip and hand cream, shampoo & conditioner, shoes, lock & mesh bag
Besides, it is something for ME and me alone too. Got the prescription goggles (yeh, need not to be completely blind swimming, crash into something!), two pairs of the water foot wear (don't want to come home with athlete's foot), the bathing cap and chlorine shampoo & a good conditioner (don't want my hair overly damaged with the salt or chlorine exposure), a decent hairbrush, the hippo suit (bwa ha ha...I laughed at my image in the mirror trying on a suit...laughed because it was not "what can I get away revealing" <<wink wink, nudge nudge>> as it was more "what can I get away hiding!" Oh my eyes!), then remembered, needed a number combination lock for the locker in the change room, and they even had these magical small micro fiber towels...don't want to be packing round this huge bath sheet to dry off with...so got two lovely navy coloured micro towels. A mesh bag for the wet stuff and Rick had a lovely medium sized water resist case that his safety netting for the new truck came in...will work perfectly! I was told the poly swim suits were best as they don't degrade as quickly as other kinds do. Prices on these items were rather reasonable and I was quite thrilled I could outfit myself and gear up ready for swimming so easily.
All fits great in this bag!
I think because it will take planned efforts, twice a week to do the swimathons...I shall rather like the routine and enjoy getting myself in better condition. I can't say, shape because
I am happy to hear some of these parasites are getting caught acting badly!
I am taking care of myself...taking up swimming is about me and my health and being a better support helper, eh. This bad thing has helped give us a window into getting back into good things. I can get some much needed upgrade in my health and thereby be a better feeling person. This spring has not been a happy joyous time with all this medical stuff and if "I" don't like the medical aspects, best I attack it full on and improve my health so I don't have to do these medical marathons myself. Yick!
We are home too often to really be much of a target I am thinking. Helps we have the perimeter fencing, locked gates, security cameras AND the threat of those monster dawgs helps too. Nobody is quite sure what is going on here and that's often a good thing, eh. I appreciate your concerns but don't be losing any sleep Dear DD!
Schools are empty in the evenings and I always looked at them being something that would easily house the homeless as sleeping quarters...the gyms and such but oh my...can you imagine the crying and work that would incite. We humans seem to always believe we will ourselves never be homeless with no place to go...that is until it happens to us.
Empty houses are not so much an occurrence in my area, but I do understand in higher populated areas it would be. Sigh...
Rick is no longer wearing the air boot, he is pretty much off the meds and his mind is turning towards leaf blowing, pond set up, etc. With him, my concerns are never he won't get going, it is keeping him stationary that is my concern because he will overdo it in a moment and then we have to deal with the carnage and his recovery. Sigh.
I too want Rick to recover and this knock is something that will incite some good things I am hoping. Acting more our age (ha!) and for me personally, the swimming regiment will be delightful. We are both kinda miffed that we waited 16 months for his nasal surgery and that is over and done and here we are wondering...did the surgery work or? Simply because we have had no time between that medical ordeal and this accident to know what his new normal might be.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Good to hear that Rick is doing better, and you are getting there.
Take care and be safe.
Thanks for the update!
Scott
Take care and be safe.
Thanks for the update!
Scott
- Thread starter
- #2,259
Heel low:
Now on to the past weekend events...oh my!
Fellow I contact in March gave me a call last week to see if I still wanted the reverse trio (two males and a female) of Mandarins...yes, and was he going to the auction this weekend...yes...oh goody! The two birds (well OK< more than jest two) one stone routine was in the works.
On the Good Friday, Rick and I took a pleasurable loser lap to Calgary...went to a Chinese smorg with tons of seafood...crab, squid, shrimp, basa...oh the choices and deliciousness...so we went to get my swim gear finished up on. Then the smorg, after of course, stopping to get some ice cream for the girls. Just a lovely, lovely Rick and I time and some visiting in too.
The Saturday, we headed to the bird auction. Got there and had a round about at what was in the boxes in the back. Of course, Rick can only tolerate just so much exposer to the auctions. He very much empathizes with the creatures, so seeing the stressors and such, he only can be there so long and plus...people kept attempting to mash his broken up foot...we all know that happening! You don't realize in crowds how often people stomp your feet until you have an injured limb...
I picked out one box with a pair of white crested ducks from a place I had bought from auction before. The pair was dirty but I knew they would clean up well once here.
Rick mentioned there were some good boxes of ducks at the very end of the numbers...they run about 100 boxes per hour, and these were in the 1200...so pretty much predict the boxes he suggested were eleven to twelve hours away from being sold.
I looked at the white crested and they were in the 400's, so only four hours away from being sold. We stuck around for them and I paid $80 for the pair. Prices on pheasants I heard were good and $40 for adult white crested at an auction were fine by me. Past needing a bath, they were beauts.
Before securing the whites and bringing them back to the truck...the fellow we had made arrangements with to meet, came and I put the reverse trio of Mandarins in the truck. Chuckled to myself as to the ones at the auction that did not pre arrange buying Mandarins...the one pair and only pair there (and they were not the best shape...there were two boxes with just drakes and the drakes were both bloody on the bills for trying to get out of the box and rubbing on the plastic netting)...sold for $300 and the person that bought THAT box had contacted the fellow I was getting our birds from inquiring if he had any for sale. Recall I called in March, early and NOW, he had already let his bevies out into his big fly pens...so his flock basically was FREE till fall again when he traps them and puts them in their winter quarters. Three hundred dollars for one pair...kewl. I oft wonder if people think ahead any...or just impulse buy at these auctions or hope the prices are cheap cheep cheap?
Then we went for a drive to fill another prescription for Rick and I bought a hair brush and conditioner for swimming. Back to the auction, saw a box with three black Calls, bid on it to a hundred and ten and then quit and they sold for $120. Checked on the three boxes of ducks I wanted, estimated the time and returned to the truck to ask Rick what he wanted to do now.
We were not hungry, so Rick suggested we drive back home, run the dogs, he'd get a fire going (it was your classic Easter weekend with snow, sleet, bitterly cold winds and such) and then come back to the auction to wait on the selling of the ducks.
Back home, did what we wanted and returned in three hours (one hour there, one hour back driving and about an hour at home). Was great...the Mandarins which are a wild breed got to get out of the box they were in, the white pair of crested got stowed away in the hay and straw barn, food and water for all and much more relaxing than being left in the truck box under protective tarps...still noisy, moving and such. Ran dogs, and changed out my socks (the parking lot was swilly...and I mean it was a clay soup...not too nice on the footwear!), and back we went.
Not missing feathers, crooked spine as in wry tailed
There for eight p.m. and then the waiting game was on. At ten thirty, the three boxes came up. A pair of frosted ducks, a pair of Runners (one white bibbed black hen and a blue drake), two male Runners (a lovely chocolate drake and a black male who had what I thought were missing tail feathers but turned out has a wry tail but no issue, he will be a pet to keep the extra Runner drakes not in with females company...so a PET duck), and the last box was a single Fawn & White Runner drake (show quality so totally the wine bottle shape and very nice markings).
There was lots of persons gone by the time the last boxes I wanted came up, but that last box with the show bird in it...yeh, there was enough interest in him that we paid a decent dollar for him but like Rick and I were not going to spend 12 hours of our day not getting what I had picked out as worth waiting for. LOL
Taj Mahal is still winterish - Apr 16 2017
Two trios of Mandarins - nope, not disturbing them too much so you'll all hafta bear with the bad photo of hardware cloth!
I have had both Runner ducks and Dutch Hookbills in the past and I do like their shape and personalities. They are the kind of duck you either love or hate. Penguins, walking wine bottles, their stance is something you have to get use to and there is some issues in hatching ducklings. The longer bills and necks tend to make it more difficult for the ducklings to bust out of their eggs, but so long as you know this, you are not overly surprised or disappointed with breeding them.
Setting up the pens
NO more pausing for photos...we got chores to get done up!!
That said, nothing said about Emmy sitting down on a chair and taking a time out!!
Girls inspecting progress - "Are you taking care of our ducks?"
I am VERY excited at all the colour pattern prospects I have now. The frosted pair, I split up and put the female frosted with the white crested drake along with the one Silver Appleyard hen we have. I predict frosted medium sized Crested ducks from this trio. The frosted drake I put in with the white crested hen...there again, frosted crested ducks from that pairing. I have the two crested grey hens in with the Fawn & White drake and will likely switch the chocolate Runner drake in with the two grey hens, perhaps. The black white bibbed Runner hen is in with the chocolate Runner drake and will switch the drakes out with her to the blue Runner drake.
Our handi helpers playing
Not a great blue Runner, but the blue dilution colour genetics are there for the taking, eh
Based on black, the Runner colours I may get will be self blue, bibbed white blues, self black, bibbed white black, self chocolate, and bibbed chocos with the beginnings on fawn & whites. Over the next few years, I will expect to get Crested in: whites, frosted greys, blues, blacks, chocolates, and greys in both Runner ducks and medium sized ducks. I am not sure about Fawn and White as I have never had the variation, but we shall see. What fun!
Runner pen with spare males in wire pen
Quarantined, one big happy place isolated from our other flocks' housing
Crested to crested will end up with dead in the shell when the ducklings double up on crested, as you only need one allele for crested and you get a crested duck or with no alleles for crested, regular headed ducks. Should be lots of fun with the new dozen birds.
Still winter and iced up
I spent yesterday setting up four pens and one wire cage (two male Runners, the pet self black with the self blue drake that is in reserve for when I get some eggs from the bibbed black hen and the self chocolate drake).
White crested drake and frosted hen
Frosted drake and white crested hen
The White crested hen had two eggs in her selling box and yesterday laid another egg, so got those three off to the side for hatching...likely end up with different genetics than I will likely make as I don't usually mate crested to crested. Won't say I won't but with 25% chance of lethals in the shell, kinda wasteful to me at this point in time.
Wire pen folded up for extra Runner drakes
I set up the areas of quaratine for the new ducks (up in the Veg Garden building...I have added the three hens I had to the new birds we purchased, simply because without males, there would be no fertile eggs from these hens...if I boogered up and the quaratine time causes the original three females to go tits up...oh well, I bought these new birds so I would have something from these original three...
I very much like this male Runner...
Classic wine bottle shape!
Choco wine bottle with legs
I felt the risks to the three were justified and there is instructions that state, "to test if other birds you bring in are ill and dangerous to the main flocks...put a few sacrificial birds in with them to see if the group gets ill or the birds you added catch something." Otherwise, the three original girls would have spent this spring without males and without replicating.
This female is not great quality, but upgrading with better males, we shall see
Love challenges!!
She'll add in white bibs too!
Now the box with the gal in it was sold as "two males" and I knew otherwise...LOL!!
Girls barking
While I worked on the quaratine pens, the girls played nicely chewing on birch bark. Was an absolutely delightful way to spend a day. Very much feels spring like and the day ended with the ducks all happy (the white crested are getting a chance to bath and clean up and looking nice) and me happy.
Scratch and sniff pants -
Very DUCKY!
Inspection and detection of cuts and whatnot's...
Rick has come up with a plan that we can use some of the older tote bags. We plan on putting a material tote in side the metal containers I currently fill when cleaning pens. The tote will help keep the cleanings inside the tote and will have the metal containers hold the tote open for filling. I brought two tote bags down with the big wire crate for the extra Runner drakes and the girls took great pleasure in romping and wrestling on the tote bags. All the crinkly noise and softness, was like the girls had discovered a bouncy house like you see at kiddy parties. Silly girls!
Yup, girls on totes in the back creating disturbances!
Was fun yesterday, eh.
Oh yeh and before Scott gets faint from no food...food from yesterday.
Breaky
Shrimp before supper
Supper
OK...off I toddle...
Got way way too many things to do...hee hee...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Now on to the past weekend events...oh my!
Fellow I contact in March gave me a call last week to see if I still wanted the reverse trio (two males and a female) of Mandarins...yes, and was he going to the auction this weekend...yes...oh goody! The two birds (well OK< more than jest two) one stone routine was in the works.
On the Good Friday, Rick and I took a pleasurable loser lap to Calgary...went to a Chinese smorg with tons of seafood...crab, squid, shrimp, basa...oh the choices and deliciousness...so we went to get my swim gear finished up on. Then the smorg, after of course, stopping to get some ice cream for the girls. Just a lovely, lovely Rick and I time and some visiting in too.
The Saturday, we headed to the bird auction. Got there and had a round about at what was in the boxes in the back. Of course, Rick can only tolerate just so much exposer to the auctions. He very much empathizes with the creatures, so seeing the stressors and such, he only can be there so long and plus...people kept attempting to mash his broken up foot...we all know that happening! You don't realize in crowds how often people stomp your feet until you have an injured limb...
I picked out one box with a pair of white crested ducks from a place I had bought from auction before. The pair was dirty but I knew they would clean up well once here.
Rick mentioned there were some good boxes of ducks at the very end of the numbers...they run about 100 boxes per hour, and these were in the 1200...so pretty much predict the boxes he suggested were eleven to twelve hours away from being sold.
I looked at the white crested and they were in the 400's, so only four hours away from being sold. We stuck around for them and I paid $80 for the pair. Prices on pheasants I heard were good and $40 for adult white crested at an auction were fine by me. Past needing a bath, they were beauts.
Before securing the whites and bringing them back to the truck...the fellow we had made arrangements with to meet, came and I put the reverse trio of Mandarins in the truck. Chuckled to myself as to the ones at the auction that did not pre arrange buying Mandarins...the one pair and only pair there (and they were not the best shape...there were two boxes with just drakes and the drakes were both bloody on the bills for trying to get out of the box and rubbing on the plastic netting)...sold for $300 and the person that bought THAT box had contacted the fellow I was getting our birds from inquiring if he had any for sale. Recall I called in March, early and NOW, he had already let his bevies out into his big fly pens...so his flock basically was FREE till fall again when he traps them and puts them in their winter quarters. Three hundred dollars for one pair...kewl. I oft wonder if people think ahead any...or just impulse buy at these auctions or hope the prices are cheap cheep cheap?
Then we went for a drive to fill another prescription for Rick and I bought a hair brush and conditioner for swimming. Back to the auction, saw a box with three black Calls, bid on it to a hundred and ten and then quit and they sold for $120. Checked on the three boxes of ducks I wanted, estimated the time and returned to the truck to ask Rick what he wanted to do now.
We were not hungry, so Rick suggested we drive back home, run the dogs, he'd get a fire going (it was your classic Easter weekend with snow, sleet, bitterly cold winds and such) and then come back to the auction to wait on the selling of the ducks.
Back home, did what we wanted and returned in three hours (one hour there, one hour back driving and about an hour at home). Was great...the Mandarins which are a wild breed got to get out of the box they were in, the white pair of crested got stowed away in the hay and straw barn, food and water for all and much more relaxing than being left in the truck box under protective tarps...still noisy, moving and such. Ran dogs, and changed out my socks (the parking lot was swilly...and I mean it was a clay soup...not too nice on the footwear!), and back we went.
Not missing feathers, crooked spine as in wry tailed
There for eight p.m. and then the waiting game was on. At ten thirty, the three boxes came up. A pair of frosted ducks, a pair of Runners (one white bibbed black hen and a blue drake), two male Runners (a lovely chocolate drake and a black male who had what I thought were missing tail feathers but turned out has a wry tail but no issue, he will be a pet to keep the extra Runner drakes not in with females company...so a PET duck), and the last box was a single Fawn & White Runner drake (show quality so totally the wine bottle shape and very nice markings).
There was lots of persons gone by the time the last boxes I wanted came up, but that last box with the show bird in it...yeh, there was enough interest in him that we paid a decent dollar for him but like Rick and I were not going to spend 12 hours of our day not getting what I had picked out as worth waiting for. LOL
Taj Mahal is still winterish - Apr 16 2017
Two trios of Mandarins - nope, not disturbing them too much so you'll all hafta bear with the bad photo of hardware cloth!
I have had both Runner ducks and Dutch Hookbills in the past and I do like their shape and personalities. They are the kind of duck you either love or hate. Penguins, walking wine bottles, their stance is something you have to get use to and there is some issues in hatching ducklings. The longer bills and necks tend to make it more difficult for the ducklings to bust out of their eggs, but so long as you know this, you are not overly surprised or disappointed with breeding them.
Setting up the pens
NO more pausing for photos...we got chores to get done up!!
That said, nothing said about Emmy sitting down on a chair and taking a time out!!
Girls inspecting progress - "Are you taking care of our ducks?"
I am VERY excited at all the colour pattern prospects I have now. The frosted pair, I split up and put the female frosted with the white crested drake along with the one Silver Appleyard hen we have. I predict frosted medium sized Crested ducks from this trio. The frosted drake I put in with the white crested hen...there again, frosted crested ducks from that pairing. I have the two crested grey hens in with the Fawn & White drake and will likely switch the chocolate Runner drake in with the two grey hens, perhaps. The black white bibbed Runner hen is in with the chocolate Runner drake and will switch the drakes out with her to the blue Runner drake.
Our handi helpers playing
Not a great blue Runner, but the blue dilution colour genetics are there for the taking, eh
Based on black, the Runner colours I may get will be self blue, bibbed white blues, self black, bibbed white black, self chocolate, and bibbed chocos with the beginnings on fawn & whites. Over the next few years, I will expect to get Crested in: whites, frosted greys, blues, blacks, chocolates, and greys in both Runner ducks and medium sized ducks. I am not sure about Fawn and White as I have never had the variation, but we shall see. What fun!
Runner pen with spare males in wire pen
Quarantined, one big happy place isolated from our other flocks' housing
Crested to crested will end up with dead in the shell when the ducklings double up on crested, as you only need one allele for crested and you get a crested duck or with no alleles for crested, regular headed ducks. Should be lots of fun with the new dozen birds.
Still winter and iced up
I spent yesterday setting up four pens and one wire cage (two male Runners, the pet self black with the self blue drake that is in reserve for when I get some eggs from the bibbed black hen and the self chocolate drake).
White crested drake and frosted hen
Frosted drake and white crested hen
The White crested hen had two eggs in her selling box and yesterday laid another egg, so got those three off to the side for hatching...likely end up with different genetics than I will likely make as I don't usually mate crested to crested. Won't say I won't but with 25% chance of lethals in the shell, kinda wasteful to me at this point in time.
Wire pen folded up for extra Runner drakes
I set up the areas of quaratine for the new ducks (up in the Veg Garden building...I have added the three hens I had to the new birds we purchased, simply because without males, there would be no fertile eggs from these hens...if I boogered up and the quaratine time causes the original three females to go tits up...oh well, I bought these new birds so I would have something from these original three...
I very much like this male Runner...
Classic wine bottle shape!
Choco wine bottle with legs
I felt the risks to the three were justified and there is instructions that state, "to test if other birds you bring in are ill and dangerous to the main flocks...put a few sacrificial birds in with them to see if the group gets ill or the birds you added catch something." Otherwise, the three original girls would have spent this spring without males and without replicating.
This female is not great quality, but upgrading with better males, we shall see
Love challenges!!
She'll add in white bibs too!
Now the box with the gal in it was sold as "two males" and I knew otherwise...LOL!!
Girls barking
While I worked on the quaratine pens, the girls played nicely chewing on birch bark. Was an absolutely delightful way to spend a day. Very much feels spring like and the day ended with the ducks all happy (the white crested are getting a chance to bath and clean up and looking nice) and me happy.
Scratch and sniff pants -
Very DUCKY!
Inspection and detection of cuts and whatnot's...
Rick has come up with a plan that we can use some of the older tote bags. We plan on putting a material tote in side the metal containers I currently fill when cleaning pens. The tote will help keep the cleanings inside the tote and will have the metal containers hold the tote open for filling. I brought two tote bags down with the big wire crate for the extra Runner drakes and the girls took great pleasure in romping and wrestling on the tote bags. All the crinkly noise and softness, was like the girls had discovered a bouncy house like you see at kiddy parties. Silly girls!
Yup, girls on totes in the back creating disturbances!
Was fun yesterday, eh.
Oh yeh and before Scott gets faint from no food...food from yesterday.
Breaky
Shrimp before supper
Supper
OK...off I toddle...
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Tara, You did good again!
I was getting weak in the knees there for awhile, without food pic's.
Scott
I was getting weak in the knees there for awhile, without food pic's.
Scott
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