A snapshot of life around our place for the last week:

Our cat came down last weekend with what was likely "songbird fever"--ie, gastric upset/food poisoning at eating too many small wild critters that were already a little too dead. Sunday, it felt like all I did was clean up feline bodily fluids (mostly bloody diarrhea): vomit in the hallway, shit in the bathroom, two more of each in the downstairs bathroom, more in three or four other places around the house, etc.

The cat wasn't eating or drinking, so I wound up snagging the eyedropper from my herbal tincture in order to force-feed him water and mooshy food. $150 later, he had his own eyedropper of nasty pina colada-smelling gook. Susan, my herbalist, tried not to laugh too hard when I asked her how to sterilize the eyedropper and explained why I needed this information.

We got our baby turkeys on Friday. I'd gone in with two other people on an order and neither were able to deal with them right away, so all 27 came home with me to start. Let me just say, over two dozen tiny birdies running around in a small box are friggin' impossible to track. A few hours later, one was dead in the empty water bowl and a handful more weren't doing well. Cue me sitting with a syringe and electrolyte water, hand-feeding baby turkeys. Also cue said babies crapping and occasionally vomiting ropey slime all over the front of my ratty T-shirt. Sadly, we lost a second baby that day.

Saturday morning, I went out to water the goats, only to discover that they'd gotten into the bin with the sweet feed in it. The yearling wether wound up with scours (diarrhea) by mid-late afternoon. Luckily, he seemed to be doing pretty well: we had a vigorous argument about me grabbing his collar, then his horns, in order to inspect his backside. I figure that anything well enough to avoid capture was probably doing just fine, and he was.

On Sunday, while doing the morning chores, Greg discovered another turkey poult dead in the broody box. Still another wasn't doing well. Cue more syringing, shit, slimy vomit, and another dead turkey baby.

Then there's the dog's reaction to his change in food, and the 24-hour stomach bug I got at the beginning of this week . . . but I'll spare you those details. Let's just say it's been more of the same 'round here. I sure hope next week is better.

Hooray!  The baby turkeys are here!  It looks like we have Bourbon Reds, Slate Blues, and possibly a couple of Royal Palms.

It's been an anxious week, waiting for these little guys to arrive.  They were hatched on Monday, but didn't arrive until yesterday morning.  Chicks have about a 48-hour window after they hatch in which they don't need food or water, as they are sustained by the nutrition from the yolk.  However, once you get 'em, they need food and water right away.

Most places won't ship less than ten turkey poults (chicks), so I'd gone in on an order with two other women for a total of 25.  The hatchery threw in two extra--and it's a good thing they did, as two of them died yesterday.  As I was the only one with a free schedule, I ended up taking the poults home until Joanne, who is more experienced with poultry, was able to come over. 

I will state for the record that 25 baby turkeys is a LOT for one person to take care of--too many, I'd say.  They all need to be shown where food and water are, which is done by dipping their beaks into each.  However, by the time I got them out of the back of my car, they'd all conked out in their cardboard box.  They woke up from their little nap and began running all over each other like crazy.  I tried to do the food-and-water routine with each of them, but keeping track of them was impossible.  They seemed to be doing all right, although a few still looked very sleepy and tired.

I still needed to take care of the rabbits, goats, feed one of the dogs, and medicate the cat (who'd gotten sick over the weekend), so I left the turkeys for a bit.  I came back and checked in on them several times, but in between Greg coming in to see them and my next round (about an hour), one of them died.  I found it in the empty water dish, eyes shut.  No idea what happened, but I buried him in the garden.

A few of the others looked like they were having some trouble, too.  Even when I would hold food on my fingertip in front of them, they wouldn't peck.  They were looking weak and wobbly, not just sleepy, so I sat down with a syringe and electrolyte water and began hand-feeding them, rotating between them.  I called Joanne in a bit of a panic, but with traffic and construction, it was a good hour or more before she was able to get to me.

By that point, there was really only one that seemed to be in severe danger.  He started gaping his mouth and thrusting out his tongue, which apparently isn't a good sign.  He was also spitting up ropey, slimy fluid, an indication that his digestive tract had pretty much shut down.  I pulled out some simple syrup I'd mixed up for the hummingbird feeder and started loading my syringe with a mix of that and the electrolyte fluid.

Finally, I pretty much gave up.  We got a small box for him, made a bed out of wood shavings, and laid him down in it next to the heater.  Joanne stroked his belly a few times, and he gave a massive poop.  We looked at each other in amazement and I decided to let him rest some more.  When I picked him up and started dosing him with the syringe again, he was doing better!  As the hours went on, he perked up to the point where he started peeping, shat all over me a few times, and even tried to sit up.  Cheered by his progress, I put him back in his box and decided to let him rest.  I went upstairs to eat dinner and spend a little time with Greg (I'd been syringing turkeys for about six and a half hours solid at that point, and he'd just gotten back into town that day).  Sadly, when I came down half an hour later, the poult wasn't in good shape.  I found him with his head thrown back, unmoving, but still warm.  I tried to syringe him, but there was no reaction at all, so I said my good-byes and put him back in his box.  I buried him in the garden this morning, next to his sibling.

It's hard, but that's part of farming.  Death is a natural part of life--or so I keep telling myself after I woke up at 3 am this morning, fretting about what I could have done differently.  I just know now how much attention they'll need--and that 25 is way too many for me to take care of at once.  It's all a learning process.

On the bright side, the rest of them are hale, hearty, and adorable.  Some still have their egg tooth, which will fall off in the next day or two!

The other day, I realized that part of Ben's weird size issues were due to the fact that although he'd blown his winter coat on the front half of his body, his haunches and tail were still covered in thick insulation.  After finger-combing fuzz and grime out of him for a half-hour or so, I grabbed a small hairbrush and started going to town on him.  He loved it.

I brushed him for a couple of hours, combing out thick down (which I was sorely tempted to gather and try to spin--his undercoat was about 3" long) all over the place.  I snipped out the dreadlocks from behind his ears and got most of his pre-shedded back.  Ben did really well, even when I got into the thickly matted stuff.  He would just turn around with a slightly injured look on his face, as if to say, Hey, that kinda hurts!  Although he got fidgety in snarled areas, he never got snippy, which was quite a relief.

Looking at all the hair I got off of him!  Combined with how long and soft his undercoat is, I'm quite tempted to save it, get it processed, and spin it up.  Like I really need another project, I know . . . but it's tempting.  Very.

Also, I would like to note for the record that we need to get him a Kong or some other toy.  In the middle of the night, Ben ate four of our chive plants, although I think a large part of it was the yellow plastic containers they were in.  He left the containers scattered in a semi-circle on the parking pad, and has run off with his little yellow bucket as a play toy, too.  Goofy dog.

Well, he barked all night last night.  And I do mean ALL night. *facepalm*  The sleep last night?  Not so good.

Let him out of the pen today--one of the does was bullying Ben and preventing him from getting to his food.  He took off and went a-roaming.

Ben came back.  I put a leash on him.  He laid down.  I pulled on the leash a little bit, and he went completely apeshit, whining and pulling and thrashing like mad.  I let go, and he ran off.  Poor Ben.

He came back later this evening and hung out in the lower pen.  I went down, fed him a giant Milk-bone, and unclipped the leash (which he was laying on).  I closed the gate behind me and went back to the house.

Cue the barking and mournful howling.  I quickly got the point.

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In separate news, the arboreal bukkake that is the sarvisberry devil-spawn is frickin' killing me.  I think I'm going to have to step the neti pot up to twice a day.  Oh, yeah, and go see Tim.

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Pre-selling the turkeys is going well.  I've gotten four down payments and several other people who have inquired that I need to follow up with.  Now I just need to build the shed for them in the next 3-4 weeks.  Yikes!