Welcome To The Zoo – Page 3

It comes to this….

Since the coyote drama I have not let my girls free roam and they dearly miss it. Whenever I walk over they crowd the coopyard door thinking I’m surely going to let them out THIS time….

So after weeks of this pathetic behavior I decided to bring a beach chair out there and for about a half hour on most days I let them out to dig and scratch and flutter and flap and run and jump for joy.. because that’s what they do after being cooped up for so long. You always wondered where that expression came from, didn’t ya. If a coyote wanders near I’ll beat him with my bare hands, I’m so mad at the losses he’s already inflicted.

The hens and bunnies have gotten used to each other

and now appear to be on friendly terms. Cloud and Harley are

also only allowed out in their “yard” while I’m sitting there

or cleaning the coop and hutch.

Below, Harley and Cloud with Luna and Lily.

This group below are my girls from the chick clutch I raised this spring.

They have just begun laying.

I’m off to a sunflower festival to paint faces with sunflowers.

It’s so darn humid here, you know those skies that look like they could

sprout a tornado or hurricane?…. that I think the face paints

are going to slide right off the little faces.

We’ll see…. Have a good weekend all –

Salem Feed & Grain

So.. I brought home the two baby bunnies, Harley & Cloud… and placed them in the prepared “Nursery Chicken Coop”. We’ve got a menagerie here, as you have probably figured out.. and I try to keep my animal care expenses down to respectable levels (*ahem) and thought I could make due with bunnies in a sort-of hutch-like coop. The supposed non-animal-loving husband took one look at it and said “it’s not safe enough, go get a real rabbit hutch.”

Who am I to argue! But there-in lied the rub. I called around looking for a decent rabbit hutch. Thought in a semi- rural area like ours it would be pretty simple. Petco nearby had nothing for outdoor use, but could order one. I looked at their stuff online, and the reviews. ” Nice looking but cheaply made, wood was flimsy”. “Plastic”. “Way too small for two rabbits although it is advertised as appropriate for two.”. Ok then! On to Agway. WAY TOO EXPSENIVE and not adequate space in my opinion. SO … then I googled local.. and found a fellow who makes hutches! And they were really nice styles! But they were at minimum $799!!!!… What???…. *sigh*

Yes I know I’m married to a builder. You know the shoemaker who’s family goes without shoes….

Not that we go without housing, just not a home made hutch. Priorities and available time and all that stuff.

Then I remembered a stop we made a few months back at a feed store about 40 minutes from here. Oh, how I love that place…If you live within an hour radius, or are traveling down I-95 in CT, it is soooo worth stopping in. Salem Feed & Grain

Pictures say a thousands words here…

There was indeed one double bunny hutch available for sale out on their front porch.

Sturdy construction, up off the ground (preditor protection)

and the price was right.

Now, to pimp out this bunny hutch!

Oops I did it again….

I had this mini chicken coop, you see. It served its purpose by helping me to raise my newest brood of chicks until they were old enough to join the regular coop group. That time arrived several weeks ago and so.. an empty mini coop sat idle.

With nothing in it.

As it should be.

Unless you are me.

When I was a young girl living on Staten Island where there is not much open land to speak of, if I saw a really big yard that had no animals living in it, I thought “what a waste of space. Oooh the possibilities!”. When we took the occasional vacation and drove out into the countryside, should there be an open field that had no horses living in it… I again thought “what a waste of space. Oooh the possibilities!”.

So, you know… the empty coop.

Empty no more.

Say hello to Harley & Cloud, because I simply could not imagine leaving such potential untapped.

I’ll fill you in on the bunny hutch saga in the next post….

Because a coop just ain’t a hutch. –

Didn’t see THAT coming

Remember the new fountain installation in the backyard?

Oooooooookay then. *sigh*

I’ve been doing a lot of hosing off of said fountain…every.single.day.

Heartworm Disease in Dogs.

When I adopted Frasier and had him thoroughly check out by my vet, it was discovered he had a good case of heartworm, which, if untreated, will eventually kill the dog. The worms suffocate the heart and lungs, etc. The treatment is expensive (about $700.) but necessary. And.. there is a three to five month – Keep the dog calm and quiet – period of time because the dying worms start traveling through their bloodstream and you don’t want them getting caught up in the heart, lungs, etc… causing paralysis or death. Ugh. THAT.. was no easy feat with Frasier.

So, Ben had a skin tag thing on his leg and I brought him to the vet to have it checked and removed earlier this week. While there he had his yearly heartworm and Lyme test. I got the call the next day – both came back positive. WHAT? I do give my dogs heartworm pills, but not during the winter months because mosquitos don’t live here in those seasons. Down south the problem is much more prevalent. This is where Frasier came from. SO… how did BEN get it?…. I freaked a little. Had all four dogs brought back and tested .. all are negative. After a second heartworm test in house on Ben, it was decided the first one was a false positive, especially since he has no evidence of heartworm disease. I’m glad he doesn’t have heartworm, kind of alarming that the first came back positive, falsely. He’s on Doxycycline for the Lyme disease, which is far too common in humans and animals in New England.

Lesson here – always ask for a second test with heartworm if you get a postive test result, because they can be inaccurate and the treatment is rough on the dog and costly. Also, don’t skimp on the monthly treatment… although here in the north where the winters are cold, it’s OK according to my vet to skip the very cold winter months. Not doing so puts you at risk for a costly and difficult treatment for your dog.

Misty Morning on the Farm

I am thankful every single day for the animals and farm that grace my life. This morning I walked around with camera in hand and gratitude in my heart.

… even for the mouse family I discovered in a large bucket in the tack room, since relocated.

Opie looking for a peppermint treat

Lacey and Coady with morning hay

The Egg Plant

One of my originals and my favorite chicken, Rose.

She is the friendliest and lays light blue eggs –

The hens love to free roam and I allow it often.

Great bug control.

Andie is calling for her hen friend, Henrietta, who is still in the nesting box

laying an egg…

With Raven, apparently.

These are a few of the youngsters, not yet grown enough

to join the other hens.

Now that breakfast grain is finished, Opie and Max have gone out to pasture.

At 27 years of age, Max is still in great shape.

Max is not a big fan of grain and hay… often not finishing his meals in winter.

He always fills out so much nicer in summer, when the pasture is rich.

Down at the house, the perennial gardens are in their forth year and are filling out nicely.

The vegetable gardens are planted and beginning to thrive.

It’s been a slow start. Weird weather, etc.

Zinnia and Tomatoes in this bed.

Lettuce, onions, shallots, garlic, parsley and basil in the other.

My potted “Stuff” is very happy….

mostly begonias, which are so easy to keep happy.

The knockout roses suffered a blow from green worms…

thanks to Connie at Hartwood Roses I got info on how to treat it and they are gone.

But, the foliage is tattered.

Have a good weekend, all – we’ve got another adoption event coming up.

More on that in the next post. If you’re local and looking for a new family

member, have we got the dog for you!

Lions Mane Jellies

I can almost hear the collective “HUH?”…..

Frasier and I took a hike along Hammonassets rocky waterfront trails this morning and when we came to where we like to dip our feet in the water, well…. we didn’t. Just as I kicked off my sneaks and stepped into the chilly ocean water I spotted them. Hundreds of what I thought were man o’war jellyfish. Come to find out later after posting on FB, they are actually Lions Mane Jellies. For all these years whenever I spotted one of these, I pretty much yiped and got out of the water. Turns out they are not deadly. Their sting might be annoying, but it’s a mild irritation. I’ve read some conflicting info on the Lions Mane jellies though… Supposedily originating in the deep arctic oceans, they can reach huge sizes, like 40 lbs. and 7 feet long, I kid you not. These are very small in comparison. Some the size of a dessert plate, others like a silver dollar.

Beautiful, aren’t they?

Some jellyfish facts:

* Jellies are ancient animals, having roamed the seas

for at least 500 million years

* Jellies don’t have brains as we typically think of them: rather, they have a network of neurons (“nerve net”) that allows jellies to sense their environments, such as changes in water chemistry indicating food or the touch of another animal. The nerve net has some specialized structures such as statocysts, which are balance sensors that help jellies know whether they are facing up or down, and light-sensing organs called ocelli, which can sense the presence and absence of light.

* Jellies are found in oceans worldwide, in shallow and deep water, and a few can even be found living in freshwater.

* Jellyfish are carnivorous, and will eat just about anything they run into! Most jellies primarily eat plankton, tiny organisms that drift along in the water, although larger ones may also eat crustaceans, fish and even other jellyfish .

* Humans eat jellyfish: people have fished for jellies for at least 1700 years off the coast of China.

* Many jellyfish are able to produce light—an ability known as bioluminescence. They have proteins in some tissues that undergo a chemical reaction to produce blue or green light in response to stimuli such as touch. No one’s quite sure why jellies bioluminesce, but it seems to be mainly a defense tactic. A bright enough flash could be enough to startle a predator—or to attract an even bigger predator to make the jelly’s predator into prey.

I had the lovely experience of getting stung by the long tentacles of a clear jelly fish that had been lying on the beach in Panama City, Florida years ago. OUCH! The only relief? … soaking my foot in meat tenderizer mixed with Vinegar. So there’s your remedy in case you ever find yourself afflicted with a jellyfish sting. It works!

About the chick click

The chicks are growing so incredibly fast! Yesterday I renovated their condo to include a third room. First two rooms were Weber grill boxs courtesy of the hardware store, and the new addition is a refrigerator box courtesy of the appliance store down town.

Where I go from here with their living quarters is still a mystery, because they can’t live among my hens in the actual chicken coop until they are about 16 weeks old, lest they get henpecked and bullied. We certainly don’t want that.

Video taken yesterday, they are almost all feathered out already at just five weeks!

Out of the mouths….

Him– She just grabbed the keys, see that? No leash either. She’s not taking us, I can tell.

Her- that’s ok, wait till we hear the car start, then I’ll show you where the half empty bag of BBQ chips is. I think you can reach it. Then we’ll pee in her shoes.