I took a few animals to a local farmer’s market to make some room this weekend. I joked last month how the vendors end up buying from each other as much as the public does…and I did it myself.
These are Cortunix quail, different colors. 2 days old in this picture, basically little cottonballs. Quail can be tricky to raise and unfortunately I’ve already lost a couple…but I’m looking forward to raising as many as I can out of this batch. Aren’t they cute???
The next picture has two combined groups…the ones with the wing feathers are my new Serama chicks. Tiny chickens, eggs a bit bigger than quail eggs, introduced to me by the booth next to me at the market last month. I also bought a couple adult pairs but that’ll be another post. These are actually several weeks old!
The red ones with barely any feathers are Leghorns from Tractor Supply (that’ll be yet another post lol) and are probably a week old. The reason the two groups are together is the Seramas were huddled together despite it being over 90 on the porch so I decided to see if they’d like a heat lamp. Yep, they did!
The quail were my final critter I wanted on the homestead. The Serama chickens I’m hoping with either help with feed bills through sales or will be single serving sized meals. The leghorns were not in any plans, so I’ll have to see how they grow. I may just raise them and sell, depending on the market and what gender they turn out to be.
But for now, I’ll just enjoy the cute baby stages of all of them 🙂
What to do when there are multiple hens sitting on a big nest?
Well, one thing is to candle the pile of eggs to reduce the number so the remaining ones have a chance at survival…I found that the hens kept rolling eggs around to have their own batch and some were ending up outside the nest.
I bought a rechargeable LED candler on Amazon for under $20 and decided to try it out. Below are two examples, one is a fertile growing egg and the other is a broken egg (not visible until candled).
This is a broken egg. It looks like it either rolled against something hard or got pecked by a beak. If the egg was almost done developing, I’d leave it as the break is only shell level and not into the membrane. But since it’s shell level and the nest is overwhelmed, it was added to the pig food bucket.
This is a fertile and growing egg. Notice the embryo in the middle with blood vessels radiating outward-all is going well!
All of the eggs that candled at this stage were marked and given back to the ducks. Advice: Remove the hen off the nest before trying this or you will probably get a bunch of pinch bites! I only candled after I was certain the hens were staying on the nest so they didn’t abandon it, about a week after I noticed they only came off for food and water.
Well, momma duck has done a good job and her half a dozen babies are ready to go! They (and mom) escaped their separation pen yesterday while I was rescuing a stuck newborn duckling from the wire so I left them with the herd to see how they’d do. Mom decided she was done with them after about 10 minutes and left them on their own. I went back about 2 hours later and could only find 4 out of 6…after searching the entire pen I noticed one of the water tubs was flat on the ground instead of leaning against the pen.
I know not to leave anything leaning when there’s animals small enough to get trapped under, but I was distracted by newborns… I went over and lifted the tub and sure enough, 2 very disgruntled ducklings went zooming out from under it.
I decided to see if they could spend the night with the big ducks, but after listening to their frantic crying changed my mind and herded them back into the separation pen. Despite 2 weeks of seeing everyone else through wire, they just weren’t fitting in. I refastened the wire separator and decided it was time for them to find new homes. I’m gonna miss them!
The goat….freshly washed and wrapped up drying nicely. The sandwich….my lunch, half eaten. The cat…basically a stomach on four legs and really really wanted the sandwich, enough to brave getting near the weird loud thing (aka baby goat) wrapped up in my lap. The end result? Dry goat, full me, and yes…the kitty got a piece of the lunch meat!
Well, I managed to get everything together needed (recommended by vet and things I’ve read online) to treat my trio.
Kaolin Pectin is for treating the diarrhea in the two with it. They weigh 6 and 9 pounds each so I’m giving them 3cc each.
Micro B-12 to boost their nutritional amount of B12, given per label instructions.
Adams Flea and Tick Shampoo…which ended up being almost empty so I used a new bottle. Pyrethrin was the important ingredient the vet wanted me to use and Adams has worked well for me in the past on other animals. I wish they’d put better labels on! As you see, handling and them getting wet wears them off.
Dectomax is a doramectin sold as an injection. Everything I’ve read and heard, and the vet confirmed, says do orally. Apparently goats “process” their feed quicker than other animals so the doseage has to be adjusted higher. I settled on 1ml/35 lbs, ORALLY for their doses. I still had to have a needle (bag behind the bottles) to draw it out of the bottle though, and gave it using a 3cc syringe (not pictured).
Probios was to restore some of the gut flora from being sick, given at label dose. They LOVE the taste! I could only find cattle version so turning the dial was veryyy slow :).
The yellow packet is electrolytes, I mixed up half a cup worth (using package directions) and gave everyone 6 ccs orally. Usually you put it in their water, which I have been doing, but I wanted to make sure they all got some.
Last up is a generic for Baycox-Toltrazuril- which per the vet local breeders have said works the best. I had to get the generic as the name brand was out of stock everywhere, I got it online from a racehorse supply site. He said Corid would be next up to try if I didn’t have that, but you have to do it for 5 days in a row and supplement thiamine. The Toltrazuiril is a one day dose given orally, rate is 1cc/5lb.
Fun part is , all of this will be repeated in 10 days again :).
So after wrestling three little goats, singly, in a nice warm shower I got to have a little fun…This is a towel. Oh, no, my shower is not pink…that’s weird…but anyway this is a very cute towel isn’t it?
Tada! See? Cute! Bambi was not much of a fan of a bath, although she was quiet until I stepped out to grab all the supplements….then the whole neighborhood could hear her!
Back out in the pen after their baths, three goats all lined up getting an apology handful of pellets :). You can see that Molly (far left) is feeling good with her tail nice and perky. Bambi does have abdomen now so she’s filling out slowly. Lizzy (far right) never showed signs of feeling bad, but her eyelid color is improving so the lice treatment seems to be helping.
Here Molly is checking out the minerals…vet said it was ok to start them on em. Left is plain baking soda, and right is Manna Pro brand Goat Minerals. I had gotten them since it was a smaller bag and I figured 3 goats are not going through 25lb of minerals that quick. The vet confirmed my choice as well and said he recommends that type over the generic bagged minerals anyway.
Face picture of Lizzy…who still is very shy of being petted although she is realizing I come with food. And she likes food!
It’s always nerve wracking waiting for first time mothers to deliver while hoping they figure it out! These are the newest two litters, both from first time moms. 6 in one litter 8 in the other. Very happy!
For several days this particular mom and babies were suddenly going through twice as much water as normal. I checked the feed, I checked the bowl for cracks, I checked the bottoms for dirrehea. Nada. Hrmmmmm…
Then I came outside at a time I usually don’t bother the rabbits due to the heat and found this. Someone decided the water bowl was their own personal soaking pool! Aha! Mystery solved :).
