Just got back from the Allotment. Although we (DH&I and Other Chap) take it in turns to go down and do the daily feeding and watering, I still go down every day to administer the antibiotics to Rose and Ruby.
Both girls' wounds are healing well, but it's still too soon to put them back in with Roo and Mrs, although we can tell from R&R's behaviours that they want to go back in now.
Their poo has been very mushy whilst on antibiotics. For the last couple of weeks I have been giving them a dollop of yoghurt with some AviPro mixed in,; for the last week I've been sprinkling Poultry Spice on their pellets; and for the last four days I've given each girl one single drop of Nettex Poultry Drops. I have been skipping out their poo every day so that I can check what is happening. Today, one of them had almost formed a proper poo shape.
At least it's progress.
But none of this has anything to do with the title of today's post.
As usual, I visited all four pens and said hello to each bird. Over in the Laydees pen, 4 of them are broody and Norman has switched to Cockerel mode. Or Cockerelle mode, perhaps.
As usual, she pecked me on my shoe as soon as I entered her pen. That's her way of asking for corn. I bent down to give her some corn, and she did that little Cockerel dance, the one they do when they are getting ready to fight. Then her hackles were up, and then she tried to HongKongPhooey me. She's a tiny bird so she didn't reach very high, and I saw it coming so I moved.
At this stage in the proceedings, the best course of action is to pick her up and give her a cuddle. She wouldn't let me near her today.
Oh well.
Next visit was the Littlee pen. They all crowded round to eat corn from my hand, and I spottend that one of the boys is on the cusp of changing. We already know which are the cockerels but, this morning ,"Blue Ring", has cockerel shaped tail feathers and they are green. And his stance has changed slightly. He's about to burst out as a proper little Man now... and it means we need to take action in the next day or two before we start having Man trouble.
We initially thought it would be 14 weeks, but when we saw how big they were and how quick, we thought it might be 12 weeks. We didn't expect it to be 11.5 weeks. I know there isn't a lot of difference between 11.5 and 12, but when I say 12 what I had in mind was anything up to 12 weeks 6 days.
I'm not sure what it means for the other 2 boys yet.
And it'll be decision time about the Girls. More about that in a later post; life is often more complicated than one hopes.
Both girls' wounds are healing well, but it's still too soon to put them back in with Roo and Mrs, although we can tell from R&R's behaviours that they want to go back in now.
Their poo has been very mushy whilst on antibiotics. For the last couple of weeks I have been giving them a dollop of yoghurt with some AviPro mixed in,; for the last week I've been sprinkling Poultry Spice on their pellets; and for the last four days I've given each girl one single drop of Nettex Poultry Drops. I have been skipping out their poo every day so that I can check what is happening. Today, one of them had almost formed a proper poo shape.
At least it's progress.
But none of this has anything to do with the title of today's post.
As usual, I visited all four pens and said hello to each bird. Over in the Laydees pen, 4 of them are broody and Norman has switched to Cockerel mode. Or Cockerelle mode, perhaps.
As usual, she pecked me on my shoe as soon as I entered her pen. That's her way of asking for corn. I bent down to give her some corn, and she did that little Cockerel dance, the one they do when they are getting ready to fight. Then her hackles were up, and then she tried to HongKongPhooey me. She's a tiny bird so she didn't reach very high, and I saw it coming so I moved.
At this stage in the proceedings, the best course of action is to pick her up and give her a cuddle. She wouldn't let me near her today.
Oh well.
Next visit was the Littlee pen. They all crowded round to eat corn from my hand, and I spottend that one of the boys is on the cusp of changing. We already know which are the cockerels but, this morning ,"Blue Ring", has cockerel shaped tail feathers and they are green. And his stance has changed slightly. He's about to burst out as a proper little Man now... and it means we need to take action in the next day or two before we start having Man trouble.
We initially thought it would be 14 weeks, but when we saw how big they were and how quick, we thought it might be 12 weeks. We didn't expect it to be 11.5 weeks. I know there isn't a lot of difference between 11.5 and 12, but when I say 12 what I had in mind was anything up to 12 weeks 6 days.
I'm not sure what it means for the other 2 boys yet.
And it'll be decision time about the Girls. More about that in a later post; life is often more complicated than one hopes.
