Well, Georgie the goose died last Tuesday. I came home from school to find him collapsed by the lilac bush. I had him on my lap for about 10 minutes hoping he'd come out of it, but in the end, he convulsed a few times and died. Dave was a trooper and got him dressed out and put in the freezer for me. I've put his feathers and down in a bag that I made from pillow ticking and dried it.
We learned quite a bit from the process and we'll be using those skills soon. Cuz you see, Fred's been doing the same thing: Collapsing out of breath...horcking up a lung like he's got asthma. We've discussed the future of Fred and the ducks, but it will wait until we have the cone.
http://meadowcreature.com/poultry/ sells one like we have on order.Ours is on backorder for another week. Basically it's a galvanized steel cone with a hole in the bottom. Drop your poultry into it, pull out the head and chop it off, or slice the jugular and let them bleed out. Sounds pretty hideous, right? Actually, it's one of the fastest and less painful ways to kill poultry. The animal isn't flopping around breaking wings and such, it struggles for less than a minute before it is dead dead. I don't want my goosies to suffer more than they have to.
The Bantam Hens have lost 3 of their chicks: 2 were found in the wading pools drowned and one we just have not found at all. The problem with the chicks is that they like to jump and run. They jump in the pools and can't get out. Ah well, we took out 2 of the 5 pools we have available. It's getting colder anyways and the ducks and geese aren't in them as much.
School is getting better handled. The first few weeks were just insane. Now that I've been in it a month, I can calm down a bit and focus. That doesn't mean I'm not freaking out, but it's just about more than school now. I don't feel the need to be constantly studying.
I've finished off one Rikke hat which is made from brown alpaca. It's a nice slouchy hat that holds a lot of hair. Warm! My issue is with working in the mornings feeding/watering/filling pools for poultry, it falls down over my eyes more than I'd like.
Now I'm just a font of great news aren't I??? Yeah, it's been a trying week. Until we either send Fred off to Goosie heaven, or he recovers miraculously, I will be working for 2 hours every morning to 'release the hounds' as I call it, then sit with Fred as he tries to recover from collapsing. That's the hardest bit of all and one I don't look forward to.
I'll see if I can get in a Random Tuesday tomorrow.
We learned quite a bit from the process and we'll be using those skills soon. Cuz you see, Fred's been doing the same thing: Collapsing out of breath...horcking up a lung like he's got asthma. We've discussed the future of Fred and the ducks, but it will wait until we have the cone.
http://meadowcreature.com/poultry/ sells one like we have on order.Ours is on backorder for another week. Basically it's a galvanized steel cone with a hole in the bottom. Drop your poultry into it, pull out the head and chop it off, or slice the jugular and let them bleed out. Sounds pretty hideous, right? Actually, it's one of the fastest and less painful ways to kill poultry. The animal isn't flopping around breaking wings and such, it struggles for less than a minute before it is dead dead. I don't want my goosies to suffer more than they have to.
The Bantam Hens have lost 3 of their chicks: 2 were found in the wading pools drowned and one we just have not found at all. The problem with the chicks is that they like to jump and run. They jump in the pools and can't get out. Ah well, we took out 2 of the 5 pools we have available. It's getting colder anyways and the ducks and geese aren't in them as much.
School is getting better handled. The first few weeks were just insane. Now that I've been in it a month, I can calm down a bit and focus. That doesn't mean I'm not freaking out, but it's just about more than school now. I don't feel the need to be constantly studying.
I've finished off one Rikke hat which is made from brown alpaca. It's a nice slouchy hat that holds a lot of hair. Warm! My issue is with working in the mornings feeding/watering/filling pools for poultry, it falls down over my eyes more than I'd like.
Now I'm just a font of great news aren't I??? Yeah, it's been a trying week. Until we either send Fred off to Goosie heaven, or he recovers miraculously, I will be working for 2 hours every morning to 'release the hounds' as I call it, then sit with Fred as he tries to recover from collapsing. That's the hardest bit of all and one I don't look forward to.
I'll see if I can get in a Random Tuesday tomorrow.
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