Good bye Lilly, Hello Wolfie

To get the sad news out of the way first, Lilly died this weekend.

As far as we can tell it was because she's been so stressed lately. The fact that they've only been eating their high protein/high vitamin pellets in the morning and evening means that their diet hasn't been as good lately and she's been not laying for a few weeks. I know that the (mostly) plants they've been eating through the day has been filling their bellies but stressing their bodies. Since the goats were locked up for us to fetch Wolfie from the airport I left them their pellets all day to try to help them, and then we had the goats locked up all Friday while we went to Yarmouth for some necessities, so the chickens had their pellets all day twice almost in a row, and then Saturday when I was making some pork for us, I gave the chickens some scraps. In an attempt to supplement their diet with some pork scraps, I may have caused her death. :-( 

It turns out that when chickens have a low protein diet for a while (like the past month or two) and then get a bunch of meat (like Saturday), there's a chance that a bacteria that is in their guts all the time will go hog wild and cause death within hours. I suppose I'm lucky I didn't loose them all, but, yeah. I'm still feeling guilty about it, but I didn't know what I didn't know and the rest are doing okay.

Before Wolfie got here wasn't really interesting but it was hectic. Hugslut getting home and both of us trying to relax a bit while simultaneously trying to get last-minute stuff (like setting up the spare room) done before he arrived. Wolfie has been settling in and we've been planning what to do this up coming week. Turns out he does like the peppery nasturtium leaves but there's plenty of them to go around so he can have as much as he wants and there will still be armloads for the goats.

We visited the UFO museum in Shag Harbour yesterday and today we're going shopping for the wood/door needed to build the barn wall. Hopefully we can get the chickens their goat free space before any other stress related issues.

Unfortunately it has be VERY foggy this week so we haven't been able to stargaze but maybe it will clear up soon. It's been fun teaching Wolfie farm stuff and also making goat's milk only cheeses for him. Wolfie helped me with the goat's hoof trimming yesterday, and the girls are looking better but their hooves still aren't 100%. Their fur is also getting nice and glossy with no dandruff so the copper really helped. :-) Honey's sore is completely sealed up and not infected so it should just be a matter of time before it's a small scar instead of a scab.

There should be plenty of interesting stuff on the next update but I wanted to get this update out so there's not a big long gap and then ALL THE THINGS to put into one post.