Lockdown Day…49!

It’s shocking how time just slips by at the moment. My last post was the 29th April and here we are on the 8th May! How did that happen?

A lot has gone on in that time.

Achilles the ferret has spent a good bit of time in the lounge, I brought him in for some intensive care as he was losing weight steadily outside. I managed to get his weight back up with a lot of hand-feeding meat, but then he started showing signs that it was in fact a blockage that was at the root of his problem so just before surgery closing time last night I picked up a tube of liver-flavoured liquid paraffin gel from the vet. He likes it and licks it up happily, and this morning he’s looking better (though thinner again!) and has passed some droppings that appear to contain fibres of some kind – whether it was a hairball or he’d swallowed scraps of torn nesting material, I don’t know. As of today, he’s back out in a cage with Ajax, his litter-brother, and seems more cheerful about life again. I shall continue to visit and hand-feed him mice and raw chicken five or six times a day, though!

Moving Achilles back out entailed rearranging the ferrets fairly drastically. Achilles doesn’t like Angus, who doesn’t like Achilles or Ajax, and Rambo’s fighting everyone at the moment, so I spent most of yesterday washing and scrubbing the big indoor cages they spent the winter in. Today those were moved back into the barn and reassembled, then I played a kind of shell game with ferrets and cages as I moved ferrets into one cage, extracted Angus from a fight and put him in the other cage, moved the run through to the small dairy (the ferrets are in the large dairy at the moment), then moved Angus through to the run and moved the empty cage into the space the run had occupied. I then moved the three hobs from the other cage into the first, moved the second cage (now empty) into position and then split them up again with Angus and Fido in one cage, Ajax and Rambo in the other.

Rambo and Ajax, both bruisers, promptly set about each other.

I put shavings down in the run in the small dairy, set up food and water bowls, then moved the adult quail from the hutch in the yard into the run. I then moved the hutch into the large dairy, cleaned it out, set it up with food, water and bedding and put Rambo in it.

Peace descended.

Achilles rejoined Ajax and was sniffed carefully all over before being washed and cuddled into the nest carefully.

That freed up the big cage in the lounge for the hen eggs in the incubator, which started hatching this morning! At the moment we have 4 chicks, 3 black and 1 stripy, and three eggs. All were pipping earlier, though, so there may be more chicks by tomorrow. I cleaned the cage out and set up food and water on puppy pads for the chicks (easy to clean out and I can dispose of them easily by rolling them up tightly and putting them in the fire) so tomorrow morning I shall steal the electric hen from the quail chicks, who are now fully feathered, and put it in the other cage with the hen chicks, or chicken hatchlings (confusing, isn’t it?) so they stay snug and warm.

Yesterday was Poppy’s flu jab, and since I only get ten minutes’ notice from the vet I decided to keep her in most of the day and pamper her a bit! (I could book an appointment but it’s cheaper using their ‘equine zone’ and none of mine are hard to catch…. sometimes hard to shoo away!) Poppy was groomed thoroughly, hooves picked out, mane and tail combed, then I brought out the roller.

When Poppy first came to me she was wearing a rug in the field in wet weather, but she had a crashing fall one day and went right off being rugged after that, so this was the first time she’s had anything around her since then. I took it slow and with plenty of treats to encourage a good association and happiness, and while there was a bit of a flinch the first time I put it gently over her back, she let me do it up loosely, then I took it off, put it back on, did it up again, took her for a walk around the yard, took it off and repeated several times. By the end of that she was entirely relaxed and nonchalant about the roller, so I brought the saddle out and she gave it a slightly startled look but let me put it on and off her back several times. I didn’t try to girth it up as the vet then arrived! The jab itself was totally painless and Poppy didn’t even twitch, so then I put her out with the others again.

This morning I had them all in and tied up as the hoof trimmer was due at 9am. I tied up Abe first because he decided not to come in for breakfast (he gets away with having dinner in the field sometimes, the little monkey!) so he came in via the orchard rather than the walkway and I attached him and his bucket to the outside of the yard fence. I then put head collars on Poppy and Dancer, tied ropes to the hay net I’d hung in the yard and the fence just by it and then, when George finished eating breakfast and came to investigate me catching up with the mucking out, I put his head collar on and tied him up in the horse barn.

There was cunning in this layout. Poppy was in the doorway to the stable shed, so even if George broke loose and came out to investigate while Odette was trimming toes in the yard, he wouldn’t come out – he’d only get to Abe’s bit and then stall under one of Poppy’s glares! As it happened, he behaved superbly and stayed tied up quietly the whole time, and then let me pick up his hooves in my hands into the bargain!

It was also a ‘first’ for Dancer – she’s never been tied up before at all. She took it with aplomb and behaved beautifully.

When I went back into the house after Odette had left (we carefully stayed about 12 feet apart at all times and conversed by shouting to each other!) there were two chicks in the incubator! Both are black with white markings, one came from a brown egg and the other from a blue egg. Through the day two more have hatched – one from a blue egg and one from the white egg laid by Hamburg, the Pencilled Hamburg hen. That chick is stripy, while the other blue egg chick is black again. I’ve no idea who fathered what and (apart from Hamburg) I can’t tell which hen laid which egg, so it’s going to be fun watching them all grow up!

Catching up on the ferrets briefly – Ivy became svelte and slim again on Tuesday night, and her nest squeaks quietly to itself, so she has a litter of ‘meepers’ in there! I haven’t disturbed her to look – ferret mums can be a bit funny about that and eat their litters, so it’s better to wait until the kits are 7 days old. Hopefully by then Holly will also be slender and lithe again – she’s exceedingly stout just now!

Mother Duck is struggling a bit – her nest keeps disintegrating! I had to actually pull it together again today, then retrieve all the eggs and pop them back in, then pick up the duck and plunk her on top of the lot – she only has 10 days to go now so I hope all her privation and labour hasn’t been wasted by the eggs getting chilled! She’s very light, having restricted herself to just one meal a day and dedicated Sitting all the rest of the time, even though I make sure her food dish is always heaped up high.

George has taken another big step forward – he’s suddenly realised that it’s okay for a human to not have treats every time he sees them. I’m now able to cross the yard without needing to feed him in passing, to muck out without being mugged and to groom the whole herd together without a fight breaking out! He’s developing more security and trust and it’s wonderful!