Farm Flock: follow along with *all* the birds in our flock

[bug_n_flock]

(2nd post of a 2 post update)



Bella sleeps in a large dog crate in the far bedroom where Chance used to sleep, Chance sleeps in a bathroom with no crate, Rico is outside all of the time, Seymour and Lucky sleep in their crates in the kitchen, and the puppy sleeps in a crate either in the room with Bella(they love each other), or in that same small crate but in our bedroom. Puppy is starting to make progress with no potty in the crate training, and is starting to put on weight. She came to us SKINNY. Hips and ribs protruding and everything, with a little pot belly full of parasites. A couple doses of panacur, a vaccine against parvo, a flea and tick treatment, lots of high quality puppy food, and a bath or 3 later, and she is starting to look, smell, and feel a lot better. She did almost get killed the other day. She was following Mr. Bug as he was walking out a path to bury the invisible fence line thru some tall grass. I wasn't thinking or I would have realized she would leave the tall grass for easier-to-walk-through short grass, not realizing the donkey who made the grass short would try to kill her. We hear the puppy screaming and look over to see Butters stomping furiously around the puppy. I think he did get her once, but glancingly and she is OK. We managed to get in the pasture fast enough to save her thankfully. Mr. Bug passed her off to me while restraining the donkey and I rushed her out to safety and to check to make sure nothing was broken.



She was walking a little funny on her back legs for a few minutes, which had me terrified despite not feeling any broken bones, and her not crying like in pain or anything. Must have been bruised or something, she was walking again normally after only a short time.



We finally met our "bad" neighbors..... turns out that they are not. All the shenanigans over there have been trespassers. Very bold trespassers. They even shot at me once when we first closed on the property! They are up to no good at all over there, and we want them gone. We changed the setting on the trail cam to video(which ate thru the battery), and have been documenting the comings and goings. It is at least a spot people are going to have annonymous group gay relations. We have found piles and piles of condom wrappers, and never seen a single woman go back. Just groups of men. They fire off guns in such rapid bursts that they could not be hunting or target practicing. They steal and are generally a LOT of trouble. Thankfully, our neighbor actually wants to sell. So we will buy the 15 acres next door, and shut down access HARD. Which was a second reason for wanting outside dogs. After a bit for Rico, Buddy, and the puppy to settle in and grow up, we will probably get another outdoor dog: some kind of large guard dog breed. Although, we might not wait for the pup to grow up to do that, since we wouldn't be doubling the puppy workload by getting a 2nd. Especially since that one would likely be another fully outdoor dog, and this puppy is not. She is Collie/Pit! *way* too people oriented to happily be an outdoor dog.


I think that is most of what all has changed, but gee, I could easily be forgetting quite a few things. It has been a while since I last posted an update on this thread!

 

[Squeekmouse]

Holy smokes! Sounds like your life is way too "interesting" these days. I sure hope the dogs help, so good of you to rescue them and help out those people in dark times.

Welcome back, it's great to hear how you all are doing!

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

HOLY S***! Theres a ton of stuff going on there...day'em!




Jim

 

[Inger]

Wow! Your life certainly isn’t boring, is it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bug_n_flock]

(Hopefully) just a quick update(but we all know how that goes)...




Bella has a new home. The people we got her from found a place for her to go, so we will be bringing her there on Saturday. We decided not to keep the puppy, either. A combination of her breed and behavior was the shift in thinking. This is controversial, I know, but we have had too many bad experiences with pit bulls and pit mixes.. we are afraid of how she might grow up to be around the livestock. We are also not going to pick up Buddy(Rico's son). We are too nervous about him being a pit mix too, and the fact that he was off wandering the first time we went to get him makes us nervous that he will be a wanderer despite what his current owners say(that he doesn't wander, that he stays with Rico(then why was Rico there the first time but Buddy not?), he is good like Rico, etc). At the end of the day, we helped them by reducing the number of mouths they had to feed, but we can't save them all.



The baby puppy I think we have found a home for in a "nearby" city(around 2 hours away), and the family sounds just absolutely perfect. She is a good pup and, away from livestock, will make a really good dog. The family has another young high energy pup, kids, and the grandmother has a fenced farm where puppo can play sometimes.



We got our raccoon raider a few nights ago, so for now our birds are safe. But we are taking this very very seriously, and on Sunday will be buying a female Blue Heeler pup. Hold tight, because we have another controversial "bomb" to drop...... if this pup doesn't fit the bill as an outdoor varmint dog(she probably wont), we actually chose her to potentially breed with one of our housedogs, a feisty but small terrier dog. There simply are not any good varmint dogs around in rescue or from local breeders, and we *need* one to protect our farm. We do plan to keep all the pups from the 1 litter(most likely. If there are something crazy like 15 pups we will find good working homes for them).


A lot of thought went into this, and into what breed of dog to select to cross with Seymour to make good varmint dogs. Plus, the heeler is just a pup and we wont breed her until she is 18 months old at least, so if a good dog shows up in rescue before then, we will just rescue and probably not breed a litter. And the heeler isn't "just a breeding dog", she will have a job to do too(herding the free range animals, being a personal companion and protector for me when Mr. Bug is out of town or at work or wherever, etc etc etc). We are quite very excited about this pup!


We are also looking for an outdoor guard dog to keep trespassers and ne'er do wellers at bay. Ideally not a pup/not a young pup. But if an older pup or an adult dog, needs to have been raised around cats, free ranging poultry, kids, etc. A lot of locals breed German Shepherd Dogs and Rottweilers. The Shepherds are miserable looking animals(like basically all GSDs are these days), but the rotties don't seem too bad. AKC, etc, but so far have not found anyone breeding working farm rotties, which sucks. Rotties are one of the original do-it-all farm dogs, tho now a days folks tend to think of them more as attack/guard dogs.



After I posted last we realized we had 2+ turkeys sitting on nests, tho we only now know where 1 nest is... the coon got every single egg in one of the nests in 1 night....... there were over 14 eggs, and the hen had been sitting a while. The half eaten eggs were the worst. Dead half formed baby turkeys. Very very sad night indeed. Mr. Bug was sitting out at the nest all night and every time he stepped away even for a moment a few more eggs had been taken. gosh that was a hard night. The hen under the trail wagon is still sitting and doing well. The Warden is the 2nd we think might be on eggs. She has been mia a lot lately, and hanging out over by the trees when we do see her. Prolly her nest is back in the pine thicket somewhere.



The recently nestless turkey hen has taken to picking on Waddles since her nest was destroyed... maybe she thinks he is responsible for the loss. We are considering selling her if she doesn't leave him alone. Yesterday, after not seeing Waddles all day, we found him between two walls in the barn. We had to help him out, no doubt he ran there to escape her.


I think that is enough of an update for now, but there will definitely at least be an update on Sunday after we pick up the heeler pup(who needs a name!)

 

[bug_n_flock]

Sorry for the lack of posts on this thread.... it has been crazy here. Some good, some bad.



Bella and the pit bull mix puppy have found new homes. The puppy went all the way to Michigan! And Bella just got harder and harder for us to handle to the point where we just couldn't. The people we got her from we did not give her back to. We got a *very* bad feeling about the whole situation(they butt dialed me and left a long voicemail where they were chatting casually about prison among other things that made us ver very uncomfortable). We found a local shelter that doesn't euthanize for space reasons or anything like that, and we took her there. They had another chicken killing pit bull there who had been in the shelter for 8 or 9 years, so it is very unlikely Bella would be just put down. It was when she broke out of a heavy duty wire dog crate and jumped out a window to go chase our livestock, flee from us, and scare the beighbor's cattle herd that we realized even short term we couldn't house her.



We got that heeler pup a few weeks ago, and she is amazing. Named her Mischief and she certainly lives up to that! VERY smart dog, wants to be right with me at all times. Good girl.



Mr. Bug and I went down to the courthouse for the licence, then to the house of a retired magistrate on the 17th and got married. Our two friends who run the cat sanctuary stood as our witnesses. And then true to their character, they talked us into helping the officiator move some furniture in return for some apples from the tree growing in her front yard(lmao old hippies, what do ya expect?). They also were sure to leave the rescue's contact info in case the woman wanted a dog or cat or any of her friends or relatives did.



Yesterday we got a duck egg from the batch of march ducklings. First of the march birds to lay as far as we know. I took the puppy and the egg basket for a stroll around our clearing and the woods where the chickens like to relax during the heat of the day looking for eggs, but didn't find anything. Hmm.



Two of George's girls disappeared. One showed back up recently with a tiny chick who is doing well, but we don't think the other gal is going to show back up. We are still dealing with serious predator issues. Bad Touch Tom and one of his sons are missing, we assume they are dead. One of the two remaining toms has an injury to one foot and a serious limp, though he seems to be healing. We think we have a nesting pair of hawks who are taking birds, and also something on the ground. No idea what it is or when it is coming. We have been staying up till sunrise most nights lately and have not caught anything. The ground predator seems to only come once every few days. Some of our favorite chickens are gone from predators. Thankfully our favorite ducks are ok, tho we seem to have lost a male pekin. We need to figure out what is taking our birds and do something about it. Rico doesn't seem to care in the slightest about predators.



A few weeks ago we heard the coyotes actually on our property, and only a week or so ago something howling quite uncoyote-like in the woods where there are no other residents. Just a couple hunting properties, and the forest. The howling may have been 2 voices, maybe was only one. I have not heard the coyotes as close recently, but they are still in the area. Hoping the howling was just a wandering husky or 2 and they went on home already. Folks let their dogs roam out here, and huskies are a very very popular breed for some reason.


On a good note, the turkey hen under the trail wagon hatched out 3 little chicks, and so far seems to be doing quite well in raising them.



The garden is doing pretty alright. Have gotten a few tomatoes and some jalapenos, but the plants really need to be staked up, and they need a shot of nitrogen. I scattered some white clover seed in, and it has begun to sprout, but I may also mix some dirty duck water in with the next time I water some of the plants. The bell peppers are tiny and yellowish, poor things.



We are planning a trip for me to go north and help sort and pack out my grandmother's house, which has been sold to a friend of the family's. Will be a great oppertunity to socialize Mischief. The trip from here to the lake house is something like 14 hours just driving, so I will be breaking it up into two trips: visit my mom in the DC area, and we will then go together to New England to help with the house.



Needless to say, we have been quite very busy here.

 

[bug_n_flock]

I will do more of an update later, but I have some quite sad news.



About a week ago Waddles disappeared. Two nights ago we couldn't find Nibbler at bed time. Searched all over. She has not showed back up. We think they are both gone to predators. We have about 5 recent eggs that were in her nest and she hadn't started sitting yet. We are trying to figure out the safest way to incubate: under a broody chicken hen or in an incubator in the house.



Still calling her every time I am outside, but I do not think we will ever see Nibbs again. Quite sad indeed.

 

[Jen5200]

Aw, I’m sorry for the losses. I have so many predators here that I can’t free range my birds, they just get picked off very quickly. I ended up with big runs attached to the barn and avian netting over the top of the runs (we have a lot of eagles and hawks in addition to the coyotes and cougars).

 

[bug_n_flock]

Jeeze, I don't even know where to start... I guess I will describe how things are now, and from there probably get distracted into stories of things that have happened over the past little while.

First, the parrots. They are all and each of them, doing great. Hima is sassy and flat, Alex grumpy and piggy, Freedom hungry and talkative. Breeder budgies are happy and chittery, breeding season will be upon us soon enough.

We have had more predator issues, but this has started to abate. The young cockrels are finally growing into their duties and have begun to alert to predators and look out for the pullets. The gals are beginning to lay like crazy, and we are always overrun with eggs. We and the dogs have been eating them in everything, and we have had enough left over to supply the rescue. They feed eggs to puppies for a nutritional boost. For the past week we have been collecting pekin duck eggs, and will place them in the incubator in another 3. We will be starting collecting chicken eggs to hatch tomorrow, and set them a week after setting the duck eggs. Even in 2 incubators, it will be helpful to have them hatch all the same day.

We still have many birds free range, but we have evicted them from the Chicken Trees due to them being picked from there at night. Most now sleep in the barn, with a few in a coop, one in a dog crate, and a group of youngsters in a pen. The turkeys mostly free range, one youngster is penned with the younger chickens, and the rest sleep in various places on the house. Turkey Bird sleeps on the roof, and the 5 bronzes sleep on the porch. Bad touch and one of the young toms were taken one night a while back, the same night Thanksgiving Dinner broke his toe and gained the name. We think coyotes or a roaming dog. We will be penning TD soon to fatten him up before his big day.

The 5 geese are in the pasture along with the pair of Swedish ducks. Just the other day I realized our gander, Ferdinand, actually looks more like a Christmas Goose due to a slightly crossed beak. Won't do to start a breeding flock with a deformed gander, sorry dude. Having geese is amazing. Different than ducks, but so similar. I can't wait to have more of them, and larger breeds. They are so talkative and funny. It is really cool to interact with them, they are so tall. You look down at them, but much less so than with other birds. I cannot wait to eventually have such large birds as emu one day. I have been daydreaming plans lately of a duckuaponic system, using garden plants to clean the duck and goose pond, and duck and goose water to feed my tomato plants. It is an upcoming project.

We have 4 guineas left, and they are penned with the other young birds. 2 died in the brooder, and one died when we moved them outside(we think a racoon got him through the chain link). From the calls, at least one is female. We want to get more of them, and set them to free range. We have not had the best luck so far with these birds, but are determined to get it right.

Ms. Mallard is still the bottom of the pecking order, but for the past couple weeks she has made herself scarce sitting on a nest just behind the pasture tucked in some thick thorns. Good luck, momma duck!!


We had some drama with a meth head claiming to be a truck mechanic and then straight up robbing us... talking to a laywer at some point soon. Trespassers have been an issue... armed ones too. Right now we are working on beefing up security, and on getting ready for fall/winter. We need to have the wood stove inspected and cleaned for winter, rearrange things in the room so nothing is too close to the stove. Need to stack some more wood, and finish the plumbing repairs still. Have to bury some more water line(got it buried under the creek recently when the water finally went low enough), and install heat tape and skirting to prevent pipes freezing. Have to clear the main line and winterize it. We need to destroy the rotting porch and replace it with something, gate or wall off the kitchen, replace the steps to the kitchen door with something less of a slipping hazard, put in a chicken free yard for the dogs, the list goes on...


We have started a list of things to include in the first house we build, and have started looking into building methods. We have been looking through many, many books about woodworking, building, and other relevant skills. We have a spot in mind for where to put the house, and very soon plan to start on sketches. We hope to start getting materials for it, and perhaps start construction in a year. We are currently leaning towards a hybrid building method, with a heavy inclusion of cordwood construction. We have it, may as well use it right? :33: A couple of the things I am most excited about are an attached greenhouse with an in ground pool, a library with built-in shelves and terrariums, and a root cellar for storing produce and retreating to during storms. We don't often get tornados, but every few years one comes thru.

We are talking about getting a 2nd donkey, something bigger than Butters that we can put under saddle.. either a standard or a mammoth. My aunt has been reducing her farm, and there is a chance she might sell her green broke to ride and drive gelding mammoth. If not, they are quite common out here as it turns out. Eventually we want more equines, but in its current state, our property's soil cannot support more than 2 equines. Maybe in another couple of years or when we buy additional land, though. :smile046::smile046: We are sort of eyeing a couple of nearby properties that we think are likely to come up for sale in the coming years.


Posted from my phone, we still do not have internet here.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Thanksgiving Dinner is ACTUALLY gonna BE Thanksgiving Dinner???? oh man!!!! Gotta do what'cha gotta do I guess...:02:




Jim

 

[SailBoat]

Sorry to hear that you have trespassers and armed ones no less. If the property had been setting for years, it is possible that its use has become commonly accepted as 'open land' and getting the word out is a slow, but doable process. Speak to Law enforcement in your area and determine if there is a developing problem or if this is part of historical usage. They will likely know which it is. Here's prays for it being historical usage.

Nothing like Living the Dream!!!
Cherish the good days...

 

[bug_n_flock]

LOL yes, Thanksgiving Dinner will be Thanksgiving dinner. And Christmas Goose will probably be our Christmas dinner. I absolutely HATE "harvest day" with the birds, but we do it fast, and we appreciate it more. The way we see it, our birds live longer, fuller lives than the ones you can buy at the store, and we try to do it as quick and clean as we can, and use all of the parts in some way or another. Feathers we use for crafting, meat we eat, organs go to us or the dogs, feet to us or the dogs, heads either go to the dogs, are cleaned with taxidermy beetles and sold or kept as skulls, or preserved as wet mounted specimens.. We are backcountry homesteading here, but we have a strong background in science. I joked recently that we are about to set up what may be the only lab in private ownership in these woods that *isn't* a meth lab.
Not every livestock animal will end up going to "freezer camp", but not every animal will retire to live out their golden days here. Thanksgiving Dinner's toe healed in a way that his balance is terrible, and he may never be able to service a hen. He isn't particularly friendly, and he eats a lot. He won't suffer, but his "higest purpose", if you will, in this life is to sustain another life. Christmas Dinner has a crossed beak. We hadn't noticed until recently because it is minor, and because we have them penned still(not fully grown), we have been feeding a lot of commercial feed. He wouldn't be able to graze naturally on grass, though, so wouldn't be able to free range and also could pass that on to his offspring. He, too, has got to go. We haven't sent many of the chickens yet, but we appreciate each and every one that we do. Most of the birds have names, and all have personalities. I'm not kidding when I say I absolutely *hate* "harvesting" them, but it is a core part of homestead life.

Today we have so far spent hanging out in the bedroom with Hima and Alex, and later on will do various farm things. We have gotten most of the feeder and waterer situations set up now to where most of the outside guys no longer require daily care. The chickens we are still training at this point, so we do still go out at dusk to evict them from the Chicken Trees.


As for the trespassers, yes it is historical. But, most of our issues have been with trespassers not on our land, but on the neighbor's. There is 5-15 acres over there of *hard* country, and we have found evidence of past illegal and questionable behavior. Plus being shot at. We are still thinking about buying that neighbor out, but have not done so quite yet.

 

[bug_n_flock]

Lmao. We have a chicken laying eggs in Freedom's room. Her bedroom window is always open, and it seems a savy barred rock hen is taking advantage of the protection of the house.



Today I am cleaning up in the house. Things have been pretty chaotic lately, so we have fallen behind on cleaning. Mr. Bug is cleaning in our bedroom with the littlies, and I'm working in the kitchen/living room and popping in and out of Freedom's room. She is still in the middle bedroom, but since her quarantine is up I moved a couple of budgies in there to keep her company. Not the same as a person or another mac for her to talk to. I like to think it is similar to giving her a couple of cats to talk to when she is alone in there lol. They seem happy with the arrangement. The next step is to get her out in the livingroom where we all spend more time.



But should we not do that actually? Macs have sensitive lungs, and we have a wood stove for heat in the living room. It generates dust, and also drys the air a lot. We take measures to humidify the air, but the humidity and temp are far from stable.



We found fewer than normal eggs today, the birds are up to something again... hahaha we keep finding hidden stashes of eggs with tens of them in various nests. Most recently(before the discovery in Freedom's room), we found a nest tucked in my overgrown garden. They aren't even supposed to *be* in there, naughty chickenses! Ah well, lol.



Ah, we have a few more rabbits now. The neighbor to the north called us up a couple months ago now, someone had dumped some rabbits on their farm. He had tried to find who they belonged to, and asked if we were missing any rabbits. All of ours were in their cages in the barn, but we offered to take the longears off his hands. They are small rabbits, but tricksy little things. Haha they have escaped more than a few times, but they don't go far and we have re caught them each time. Going to build a "rabbit tractor" for them, since they seem to greatly prefer the grasses and weeds to their pellets and hay. That should help keep the clearing cleared, and also their leavings should help improve the soil around. We are probably going to build a few "tractors", actually, and only hutch some of the rabbits above ground.

 

[bug_n_flock]

Today I am moving birds onto Freedom's room. We will be having some workers come to the property, and for a number of reasons we think it best if there are not a whole lot of exotic animals in the living room when workers come by. They may "only" be budgies, but people talk. That "mechanic" we dealt with was 100% beyond convinced that we had fighting chickens because we said we raised chickens on the farm. Not only was he 100% convinced we fought chickens, *he told other people that we did*!!!!!!! YIPE!



We do NOT fight our PET livestock chickens(which is all of them! We love our chickens, even the ones who go to freezer camp!)!!!! When they square up and or go after a hen too roughly, if they don't settle it in seconds, I chase down the aggressor for some "cuddle therapy" seems being carried around and petted for a while in front of the other birds is a HUGE blow to the bird ego, and the mean ones calm down after that. Hee hee.



But the last thing we need is whatever crazy rumor that might get spread... anything from, "they have a lot of parrots"(deal with people maybe trying to break in), or "they have parakeets and a SNAKE. they MUST be feeding the birds to the snake", or maybe they would think us satanists or snake handlers because of the boa. Sigh. This is the bible belt. Tent revivals are very common, and people do snake handle as part of their expression of their religion out here.


So Freedom is getting more new roommates, and we are going to after the workers come thru, move her into the living room. I put a budgie cage in front of the open window last night, but it didn't stop that hen laying her daily egg there this morning. Hahaha, but she did need a ride out the front door. Bird cage stopped her getting out, but not in.


Freedom is so funny about the budgies, and after a cage of them gets brought in her room, she welcomes them quite politely with a string of "hello"s and "hi"s and "how're you"s etc. SO CUTE!



Alex does not like her, tho. He was absolutely TERRIFIED of her when I brought him in the room to meet her(both in cages), so he will not be staying in her room when the people come by. I don't really blame him. If I was brought into a room to meet a human who had eyeballs the size of my head, I might be a little disturbed.



The waiting list for this year's baby budgies is starting to fill up, and I have been sitting down with notebooks and genetics books a lot, trying to figure out which pairs we will breed this season. I want to pair Hima's parents with other mates this year. Jinx(male) with The Supreme One(ino), and C3P0(female) with probably an opaline male, but not set on that yet. A few other birds I am considering. We will see, we will seeeeeeeee.

 

[bug_n_flock]

I have decided what the first budgie pairing of the season will be, but still have a few more decisions to make before I can start swapping cagemates and starting pairs bonding in advance of breeding season. I don't think we will breed either bird from the pair who raised 13 chicks at the start of the year. They can have more of a break! And none of the babies from last year are quite old enough to breed in my opinion. I do want to breed Hima's dad at least, if not her mom also. The ino hen I want to pair with Jinx as the first pairing of the season. I will keep at least one male from that pairing, hopefully a YF2 one. Shrug, I still have things to decide.



But the big news is... This weekend we will be getting 3 new animals: a baby black and white tegu from a woman who is rehoming it for her daughter(off to college), and a 2 and 1/2 year old breeding pair of cockatiels. Seems a semi-local breeder is looking to downsize as he gets older. Exciting, very very exciting. The pair just finished raising a clutch of 4, so we will give them a break of at least a few months to go thru quarantine, settle in and see a vet before we try to breed them here. I absolutely LOVE cockatiels and I cannot wait to have 2 more of them!! The hen is a pearl and the male is pied.


Today I am cooking bird food and moving furniture around so it is far enough away from the wood stove that it won't catch fire.


I switched what bird cage was in front of the window in Freedom's room, and now the chickens cannot come in. So instead they are jumping in the window of the back bedroom to lay eggs in the house. Lmao

 

[bug_n_flock]

Alex loves his stuffed animal friends. <3
This cuteness is the background of my phone.


View attachment 23059

 

[bug_n_flock]

Today is the big day.... driving a couple hours to get the lizard and the tiels today. I'm so excited, and *way* intimidated by these tiels. I tried explaining to Hubbs, but it is so hard to explain. Maybe other bird folks will get it...


Alex means so unbelievably incredibly much to me that I am completely terrified of messing up with this breeder pair. Not if something goes wrong, but like, if everything goes right. It is such a HUGE responsibility. Not that the budgies aren't, but hey: it's a lot easier to say "no, I think I will keep this entire clutch because the people looking for birds right now suck" with budgies. IDK maybe I'm explaining it wrong. It just is a HUGE responsibility and I feel like any baby that doesn't get put in an amazing, forever home would be letting Alex down? It really is hard to explain. Or even to understand.



IDK maybe I'm just excited and nervous and intimidated a little bit. I think if I had taken on a breeding pair of endangered rare upaide down purple swirly parrots I'd be less intimidated. But the intimidation doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can be another powerful force in ensuring the birds get the best care and go to great homes. Not that I try to send *any* bird to a less than perfect home.



Sorry for the rambling. I gotta go get changed and ready to go.



Last night I was staring at Mr. Grumps realizing that that may have been my last night as a 1 cockatiel owner. The pair are not tame, but I'm under no illusions.. at least 1 baby will be "too attached to me, Mr. Bug, he *has* to stay here, it would be cruel to sell him" Hubbs totally wouldn't be surprised or upset at all. I got me a good'un. or crazy... maybe both. Good n crazy.


Anyway, off to go get ready. So excited/nervous!!

 

[bug_n_flock]

Well, happy news and sad news.

we got the birds(the gentleman handed us a bag of the food they had been eating... a jar of cruddy wal mart seed(UGHHHH!), and a big ole bag of harrisons high potentcy. Hahahaha the contrast just tickles me). Turns out he is also looking to downsize his parakeets significantly(only wants to keep 2 of them). He is an older guy, and he seems to be reaching the point where he will have less and less time to do things for animals in his day. He is excited to start beekeeping, since the bees can feed themselves and also their stings he wants to try and see if they will help his arthritis... we had a nice chat with the guy in the grocery store parking lot where we met him. Lol but anyway, he is going to send me some information about his parakeets, and we may pick up a few more birds from him. Yay new blood from a good source! Some of his birds are pedigreed and none just come from petcosmart or whatever.


Anyway, from there we went to the house of the lady rehoming her daughter's tegu. Another really nice person. We went in and saw the lizard, the setup, handled her a bit, and chatted with the lady for a while(she also had a bearded dragon, baby tortoise, 6 tarantulas, a hamster and a cute kitty sitting in the corner). At some point she casually asked if we also wanted the hamster. I said sure, so we also packed up the hamster. The woman didn't really know much about the hamster, not even its age. Said it was around a year old? But was very hesitant. So we got a hospice hamster, cool. They are easy keepers, no big deal. They live 2-3 years and are considered "elderly" at a year and a half.



We loaded up the animals and headed home. The tiels are easily agitated, but I'm really not sure yet if they are actually not tame. They seemed more agitated by everything going on than by us, and the male even went face to face with me thru the cage bars. Shrug, we will see. We intend to at least socialize them if they are very unfriendly, maybe work on actual taming. They are only two and a half. At some point they will outgrow breeding(not that we intend to breed them constantly or anything like that), and they will live out their retirement here. It would be nice if they were also friendly.



It is obvious the difference between these two feathered energizer bunnies and Mr. Grumps. You can tell he is 15 years older than they are. But they are just as clumsy and silly as he is, they just do it a little faster hahah. They are in our bedroom for quarantine. Alex and Hima are in the living room, and all the other birds are in Freedom's room with her. She REALLY seems to like having so many budgies in her room with her.



The tegu we unpacked in our bedroom for now(but we are still moving things around for fall/winter and she may be moved), her tank sits on top of Hubbs' dresser.



The hamster spent the night in the living room on top of a freezer. When she woke up last night I played with her a bit and she seemed pretty old, but friendly. Now, the sad news: she passed away overnight. This morning I found her stiff in her cage in the spot she was sleeping during the day yesterday. She must have died in her sleep. Maybe age, maybe stress of moving. Sigh, poor thing.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Awwwww on the Hammy! Geez so many critters My brain is on over-load reading about your "family" lol. I feel for Mr Bug lol:32: He sounds like a kind gentle soul and must love YOU very much!!
Pictures are always welcome,yanno? :54:




Jim

 

[bug_n_flock]

I don't have any good photos yet, but here are a few. The babies in the nest are not mine. They re the previous clutch of the cockatiels'. The other photo is the birds loaded up in the truck coming back from meeting the guy.



Today I will be cleaning around the house to work out some emotional hurt and grumpiness. I invited my mom to thanksgiving, but apparently she would rather spend thanksgiving, again, for the second year in a row, with one of her highschool friends. This thanksgiving is the first we are doing at the farm, will be one of our birds, is the first thanksgiving since I got married, and my mom still hasn't even *met* my husband's father and stepmom. Plus I recently found out she is planning to move to some random town with this woman after retiring. She hasn't told anyone yet, she just had left a paper openly on the kitchen table that my husband couldn't help but see the last time he was in town. I have no problems with my mom having a friend, or with her retiring with her friend, or anything like that. But literally hundreds of miles from her closest family?? Can't help but feel like she is choosing that woman over her family. As far as I know it is not romantic. I have had conversations with her before about it and I think they are just best friends. For the record I would be supportive, and my mom knows this so I don't think she would lie about anything like that. I don't get it. Why not retire together somewhere closer to me or my brother? Siiigh. I will talk to her about it at some point, but IDK when or how.



The thing is, her and her friend would be welcome even to come live on our farm, rent free. We would even build a house for them so they could have privacy, but also family just right there. Ah, well. Family stuff can be hard. My thinking is that my mom has always loved babies and kids, so maybe once hubbs and I start having kids she would want to move closer to her grandkids.



Anyway, back to the topic. Today all the birds will get veggie pasta and a tomato sauce I made from scratch to specifically be bird safe. I hope they like it! Especially Freedom, our little pasta junkie.