Pipd's Peeps!

[Crazy Maizie]

We did lose both Pete and Mallow over the past week, as I feared in my last post.

I also had another rather tragic loss this past weekend of the pullet hatched by Delphine last year. She and Holly moved into the mixed flock a while back so that I wouldn't end up collecting their eggs to hatch from out of the green banders' coop. With the losses of Pete and Mallow changing the numbers on me, I screwed up my head count over the weekend and ended up locking the pullet out without realizing.

Sorry to hear about the losses. That's another fear of mine - missing one after I've let them out in the yard. I triple count and then walk around the shed and run area. But, still I've missed one temporarily and panic starts.

To say that the amount of guilt I feel over that incident is immense would be an understatement. She was not a bird I planned to keep and didn't have a name, but she still didn't deserve to die that way. Despite that I held my composure for the losses of Pete and Mallow, two birds that I was far more attached to and had had for much longer, I absolutely broke down when I realized my mistake. Yet another moment this year where I'd completely failed one of my birds.

When you have so much going on, you need to rely on lists and such. The stress of school is enough to make you forget. I'm the worst at creating lists. Then I forget my lists if I write them down - technology is just a tool and if it makes life easy, then we need to use it no matter how reluctant we are.
I know it hurts your heart over what happened, but you provided her with a great life as you do for all of your birds.

And, lastly, as an early birthday gift, my mom got me a set of polyhedral dice with little chickens in them Aren't they adorable?

The dice are so cute!

Thanks for the info on fly strike. I will look up swat. Ivy is over her broodiness too. I just put her in Cheddar's area and close up the little coop that's in there. She comes to her senses in about 5 days or less. I also had to deal with two broody Muscovy at the same time. Oh the joys. I'm hoping the egg issue with the others clears up when they molt if not sooner. I've already got a summer molt going on with some of them.

Well, stay cool these next few days are going to be a scorchers.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Sorry to hear about the losses. That's another fear of mine - missing one after I've let them out in the yard. I triple count and then walk around the shed and run area. But, still I've missed one temporarily and panic starts.

I've been so paranoid about that ever since. With some hens still going broody off and on, almost every night I have a little panic because someone isn't up to roost, only to find her grumping in the nests

When you have so much going on, you need to rely on lists and such. The stress of school is enough to make you forget. I'm the worst at creating lists. Then I forget my lists if I write them down - technology is just a tool and if it makes life easy, then we need to use it no matter how reluctant we are.
I know it hurts your heart over what happened, but you provided her with a great life as you do for all of your birds.

Yeah. I guess my reluctance is seeing my niece and nephew, with their young and much more agile brains, who can't remember to do the most basic things without someone (or something) reminding them I don't want to get to that point! But, with so much going on (and so much more after orientation, will discuss that in a moment), it's become necessary for me to rely more on the technology I have available to me.

Appreciate the kindness.

Thanks for the info on fly strike. I will look up swat. Ivy is over her broodiness too. I just put her in Cheddar's area and close up the little coop that's in there. She comes to her senses in about 5 days or less. I also had to deal with two broody Muscovy at the same time. Oh the joys. I'm hoping the egg issue with the others clears up when they molt if not sooner. I've already got a summer molt going on with some of them.

Well, stay cool these next few days are going to be a scorchers.

Glad you found the silver bullet for Ivy's broodiness! I hear muscovies are pretty mean when they're broody, hope you didn't sustain too many injuries dealing with that

I have some molts going on already, too. I'd much rather they do it now than in November and December, though!

Heat I can tolerate to an extent, it's this humidity on top of the heat! Now we're getting storms and it's really getting muggy. I feel like I need a SCUBA mask to get the chickens fed in the morning!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It's been... a week.

Thursday was orientation for the dental hygiene program. Let me just say to start that I never once thought it would be easy to get this degree, not for one moment. But orientation really threw some things at us that have me feeling a bit uneasy. Primarily, the grading scale for hygiene classes is non-standard: anything below an 80% is not considered a passing grade, and getting more than one non-passing grade may lead to complete dismissal from the program. So yeah, I'm sweating it a little bit.

I also have a ton more to get done before the semester starts that I sure wish I had known about sooner... but at least I have a month to get things figured out. All said, it sounds like the next three years are going to be a lot for me, so I'll just apologize in advance for the inevitable continued lack of activity from my end.


On the chickens, nothing new has happened since my last post with the exception that it looks like Opal might be weaning her chicks off of her care. But, she's still letting them follow her around and eat with her, not chasing them away or anything. She does hurry off without them occasionally, but they're certainly big enough to handle things on their own at this point.

So, moving on to pictures.

Chicha says, 'Who are you calling heavy?!'

I think it's Birchy's goal to become as spherical as possible

A simple solution to the problem of the hens eating all of the chick feed for the kiddos. The youngsters can fit through those openings, but most of the adults can't. Obviously, the OEGB girls are still an issue, but at least they don't eat much. (Don't mind the blurry hen, she would not sit still for a picture.)

Lastly, I grabbed some sort-of-update shots of the corn crib kiddos the other day when we actually had sunlight still. The lighting is a bit weird because there's a piece of orange snow fence over this pen that was reflecting color onto some of them, but... good enough.

Chow-Chow Chowder, the nervous one:

Chicha and her lovely iridescence:

Pretty Poly Polenta:

'Miss Cakes' Johnnycakes:

Puddin', the foodie of the group:

Wild child Tash:

And the perpetually nosy Flint:

 

[Mother of Chaos]

It's been... a week.

Thursday was orientation for the dental hygiene program. Let me just say to start that I never once thought it would be easy to get this degree, not for one moment. But orientation really threw some things at us that have me feeling a bit uneasy. Primarily, the grading scale for hygiene classes is non-standard: anything below an 80% is not considered a passing grade, and getting more than one non-passing grade may lead to complete dismissal from the program. So yeah, I'm sweating it a little bit. View attachment 4183360

I’m going to guess that the part of orientation dealing with grade expectations is an effort to scare enrollees into taking this program seriously. The drop-out rate is incredibly high for a lot of programs like this! (I have an AAS in Health Information Technology, and boy, did I see it all.)

Also, I think I remember you saying that you have ADHD? If so, hello from an autism spectrum disorder/ ADHD’er! I would STRONGLY advise that you look into academic accommodations for this. No one understands how you have to put 10 times the effort into doing a task as everyone else, until they go through it.

You can do this! You also might want to visit askamanager dot com, which talks about work-related issues, including school level.

Good luck! I have faith in you! Look at how much you’ve already succeeded at.