Duck explorers, Grandpa’s scrape, location challenges, new incubator

For several days Mama opened the door on the brooder box in the grow out pen to allow the ducks access to the yard in the enclosure. For the first two days, they did not even try to leave the box. They would look out of the opening but never felt brave enough to leave the box. However, Saturday morning, we moved the feed and water to the yard from the box to encourage them to explore the additional terrain. It took a couple hours for them to step outside, but they eventually did. We also added a shallow dish to the yard that would allow them to splash in the water (only three inches deep) offered in that dish. That took less time for them to begin to entertain themselves. They are not ready to swim yet. They have a lot of down exposed and not a lot of feathers, but they did enjoy the shallow dish of water. Within a few minutes of dunking themselves in the water followed by a dash around the yard, they were all a muddy mess. A happy mess, but a mess, nonetheless.

Mama got a phone call from Victoria as the service was ending Sunday morning. She waited until the service was dismissed to call back – thinking that there may have been an urgency to the call since Victoria had to know we were still in church when she placed the call. It was urgent on Victoria’s part. Grandpa had fallen and was scraped up from that fall. Some background to the incident. Saturday afternoon, Grandpa had quizzed Mama as to the owner of the bicycle in the garage. We told Grandpa that it was Victoria’s, but she had not used it very often. He told us that he wanted to begin riding the bike to see if he could build some strength in his legs.

The numbness he is constantly dealing with has crept up to his knees in both legs and he postulated that some light exercise might help get the blood flow to the appendages stimulated and maybe reawaken the legs. Riding a bike seemed a safe way and enjoyable way to attempt that rejuvenation. What he did not anticipate, as he attempted to ride the bike, was that he would be unable to raise his right leg high enough to match the rise of the peddle on that side of the bike. When he was unable, and the forward momentum of the bike failed, he stalled and fell. He was not seriously hurt, but we were a little concerned to see for ourselves how bad the injury was. Victoria was very shaken by his fall but did her best to treat and cover the skinned forearm. She told us she was shaking so badly that she could barely apply the gauze and bandages.

Of more immediate concern to me and Mama was the fact that Victoria was not to lift anything over ten pounds following her recent surgery. In the fear and shock of the moment, she had immediately rushed to Grandpa’s aid and lifted him off the ground. He obviously weighs more than ten pounds, but she was not thinking clearly. As a result of lifting Grandpa back to his feet she was hurting at the locations of the incisions on her chest. That was concerning! We monitored her pain and finally relaxed a bit as it began to abate. All in all, it was a minor incident, but we were shaken a bit by it all. Mama was very upset as we left the church in a hurry having gathered Cheyenne and Aubrey to drop them off as we tried to rush home. That upset the girls somewhat and Mama called Alex after things settled down to let them know everything was okay. I am glad she let them know. I was glad we could honestly say that.

The bottle babies are becoming difficult to contain. They no longer are successfully contained in the box we started them in. They have figured out that they can jump out of the box. Quite impressive on their part since the box is twice as tall as they are. Anyway, Mama and I talked about putting the tiny ones in with the female goats. We did that once before but not with this grouping of nanny goats. We cannot be sure they will not be knocked about too much by the much older, much larger goats. But we have to do something and keeping them in the pig building is problematic if we are to maintain the five-times-per-day feeding schedule. Having them in a closer location would at least make those trips out to feed less inconvenient. So, we may try that this week. Mama will have to keep close watch over the integration, but it would provide a workable solution. After all, that is where the three will eventually end up as we fully integrate them into our herd. We just do not want that to be to their detriment by doing so too early. These tiny ones can be easily intimidated.

 As we have eggs in three incubators, I am getting a little concerned about how we are going to manage the hatchlings. We have eight ducklings in the grow out pen and cannot safely integrate the potential six we are currently incubating. We have three tiny Banty chicks in a tote in the sunroom and twenty-four chicken eggs in one of the three incubators. Since these twenty-four eggs came from Sarah, we have a high level of confidence that they are fertile and can expect most of them to hatch successfully. Within a few weeks, we may be overrun with hatchlings. Mama and I will, once again, figure it out, but it will add to our challenges in segregating the groups of little ones.

Our hope is that we will be able to sell some of the chicks at Trade Days in June and/or July. We will see how well that works out for us.