We got home with the dozen new chicks yesterday after lunch, put them in the brooder, and I could tell we would lose a couple. By late afternoon, the reaction to my vaccine was kicking in, but I was still functional and got dinner made, eaten, and cleaned up and a final walk to the basement to check on the chicks. Two had died. Not totally unexpected with any new batch of little birds, but still disheartening.
Last night was not a comfortable night. The vaccine had produced the expected sore shoulder, but also a royal headache and body aches. I slept fitfully, getting up every few hours to dose on the alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen, and the last dose allowing me to sleep in until about 8 a.m. By the time I was up, it was mostly just a headache, one that with meds I could deal with. And the trip to the basement showed that two more chicks had died overnight. That brought my dozen down to 8 and half of my Buff Orpingtons were victims.
The weather app, indicated that we were going to get snow, again, beginning around 2 p.m., eventually overnight, turning to rain. We were low on some grocery store supplies and decided to go back to Rural King to see about replacing the chicks. It turned out to be the same guy was in that area and he stated he was replacing the 4 free, however, there were no more Buff Orpingtons. I asked him what the typical attrition rate was and he said that usually it was very low, but he had lost about 1/3 of the ones that came in yesterday. They had hatched and shipped on Monday and didn’t arrive until Thursday morning. I agreed to taking other breeds for the 4 and add a couple more in case I lost anymore, I would still have a dozen. The coop is going to produce an Easter basket of egg colors. The Buffs and New Hampshire Reds lay light brown eggs and the Americaunas lay blue eggs. I came home with another Americauna as that was one that died, 2 Olive eggers, 2 Easter eggers, and 2 Marans, so dark chocolate eggs, Olive green eggs, and the possibility of pink, green, or blue from the Easter eggers. When I put them in the brooder, I could see that one of them was wobbly and tonight it looks like she won’t last the night, but there will be 14 young hens come mid summer producing a variety of egg colors.
About the time they were settled in, my energy faded and a long nap followed while it did indeed snow.
The driveway has stayed clear, so I expect the roadways have also and when I went out just before dinner to check for eggs, food and water for the locked up hens, there was sleet mixed in with the snow.
The February spinning challenges are winding down, so much of what was spun has been plyed, January and February’s yarns reknit into 6 blanket squares with another on the needles and yarn for two more spun and plied. And some spinning of other fibers begun.
The nap rejuvenated me enough to put dinner on and work on granddaughter’s garden plan some. I hope to get the plan and some seed to her in time to do the early spring planting in a couple of weeks. As I couldn’t remember what I had done with the copies of what I gave her last year, daughter, who was apparently more organized was able to come up with it and send me a scan back. Granddaughter is going to be given a notebook with the reference pages and the plans from last year and this year so she can keep her garden history. DD and GD are planning to double their garden in size this year and add a few vegetables they didn’t grow last year. I am making a duplicate copy of her plan as the reference pages, I also use and I will have the information I shared with her.
I think this is going to be an early night, I still have no energy and a bit of a headache. Tomorrow I should be fine, except for the sore shoulder.
