animals

Meet Henry – A new family member

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After a recent post I realised that I haven’t introduced Henry yet. Henry is our newest family member, he is a dog… I won’t go further than that because we are really not sure what breed of dog he is. Here is the full story;

Way back in February (the 19th to be exact), a neighbor called to say that a puppy had wandered out of the bush to sit on her verandah. We had been hearing dogs barking and yelping in the bush for a few weeks and we think that this puppy just got lost from the pack. My neighbor didn’t want another dog and we decided to take the pup and try to rehome him.

The above photo is that puppy. We named him Humphrey.

We gave him a bath and took him to the vet for a check up, vaccinations and microchipping.

At the vet surgery, we met some friends of ours, who fell in love with him instantly… and he fell in love with them.

So Humphrey had a home. He stayed with us for a few weeks while our friends got their house ready for a wild baby, then off he went into the world. He still visits now and then to spend time with Henry.

The photo above is Humphrey today.

While Humphrey was still with us, but after he had found his family, we got a call from the same neighbor, saying she had found another puppy. She said this one had something wrong with him and he was very sick. She was going to put him down because he looked to be suffering. We (of course) said we would take him to the vet. Henry was delivered to our gate within the hour.

I took him to the vet, who told us he had a dislocated hip and a spiral fracture of the hind leg. He was probably going to be a three legged dog. We decided right there that we were now a four dog household (the difficulty of finding a home for a three legged feral pup was just too much).

Above are two photos of Henry on his way to his first vet visit. He had been given some pain medication for the trip (it takes two and a half hours to drive to the vet). Look at that grin!

The above photo is our first of Henry. He looked so small and sick. He was in a huge amount of pain and was still a friendly little boy.

Over the weeks, Henry began to improve and after two weeks of cage rest, he was allowed out to begin the process of building muscle in his bad leg.

Henry and Humphrey playing during cage rest.
Henry on one of his early walks, building muscle but still limping.
Melvin loved that period of time. He had so many friends to play with.
Melvin playing with Henry.
Henry at the vet.

After a few months, we took Henry back to the vet to see how he was going. Previously the vet had predicted that he would either lose the leg or have to have a serious operation to remove the ball joint of his hip as the dislocation had been done a long time before he got medical help. The dislocation had popped back in by itself, but remained ‘loose’. This time, the vet was excited to see that the hip joint was tight and that the fracture had healed clean. Henry was declared a sound dog… and that is when the fun started.

He demands to go on a walk every day, so someone has to take him. He gets into everything, and because he is so large we have had to move everything up to head height to stay ahead of his puppy phase (he loves to steal wool). Despite the inconvenience of locking things away and being dragged out for walks all the time, we love him, he is smart and easily trained, he is a loving boy who just wants everyone to be happy which is lucky because we think he will be a fairly big dog when he is grown. He reminds me a little of Jess, a past family member we lost some time ago.

Please leave a comment with your guess as to his breeding. So far we think there is some Kelpie, Border Collie and Bull Arab in there.

Puddles update – We have babies

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On the 23rd of November Puddles had her babies. There was no fuss or fanfare, she just came down to the shelter and had her first baby. Then some time later had her second.

We now have two delightful little girls to play with. Say hello to Poppy and Posy.

Posy has the black stripe down her back. She seems to enjoy having her photo taken, she is so full of fun and life. Poppy is a shy and retiring girl, but she loves to play too.

We had a couple of days of runny, sticky poos that got all over the babies and mum. My poor daughter got to do clean up duty to be sure the flies were kept at bay. She used a damp rag to clean off the worst of it and Puddles did the rest. We also put tick collars on the little darlings. We have had a terrible paralysis tick season, with more than one goose being struck down and we don’t want to lose these little ones.

Meanwhile, Puddles is enjoying having extra feeds in the morning and at night. She is starting to regain some of the weight she lost when she had her babies. She is the most polite and calm goat I have ever met. She can stay as long as she likes.

Our new boarder – Puddles

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My friend is going away for three months and while she has a very reliable house sitter, she asked if we would like to baby sit Puddles the goat while she is gone. Puddles is due to kid in about three weeks, and she is seven or eight years old, so she could do with a bit of TLC.

We bought her home in the back of the Rav4 (they are such great little cars for moving stock) and introduced her to the sheep.

She took it all in stride and remained calm and friendly through the whole thing. We will make her a comfortable bed of hay once she lets us know where she prefers to sleep and give her a nice lick to keep her mineral content up.

She seems to get on alright with the sheep, but would obviously prefer to be with other goats. Unfortunately, we can’t put her in with the billies we have here (they would just be too rough), but we hope she will become closer to Frieda the sheep with time. The big horned boy below is Mendes and the white boy is Merlin (both magical).

I will try to post updates of our adventures with Puddles as we go. I hope we can keep her healthy and happy until it is time for her to go home.

Spring – Shearing time

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Today was shearing day, we usually shear the sheep when the nights are warm enough for everyone to stay warm and the days are beginning to be uncomfortably hot. This Spring has been wet so far, which means that our sheep run the risk of being damp and warm for long periods of time (flies love that), so we messaged Karl, who shears our sheep for us, early this year.

Peri relaxing while she is shorn
Kracken losing her Winter wool

Karl came out and the sheep were shorn in no time. He always does a great job, treating them with care and respect and talking to them the whole time. This year they all behaved themselves, which is unusual, in previous years we have had to lasso escapees and even tackle one or two as they run past. Luckily, Karl plays football and takes it all in his stride. He seems to find us amusing, and laughs at the lengths we go to to keep our babies comfortable. We set up a shade gazebo for Karl to shear them under and then leave it up for a few days so they don’t get sun burned. We spray every little graze with antiseptic spray (the pink splotches) and give them a soothing feed of hay after their shearing ordeal. At the same time, he takes the time to make sure they are comfortable while he is shearing and they seem to just lay against him or on the ground while he works, and he talks to them like we do, so we count him as one of us, and so do the sheep.

Chloe and Karl leading Kracken to the shearing spot

I now have a bag of lovely wool from Eli to process into wool and knit or weave into something lovely. I could have saved more, but I have plenty of fleece to spin in my craft room already.

Eli after his shearing

Rest easy Jess

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Jess at the vets on her last day

Our oldest dog; Jess died last week. She had been getting gradually sicker and sicker over the last few months and the vet said that her breast cancer had returned. We had her mammary glands removed from her left side two years ago and we hoped that the cancer was all gone, but we were wrong.

Jess at the vet’s when she had her mammary glands removed.

She began having seizures one afternoon last week and continued to have them for a few days. For anyone who hasn’t seen a dog seizure, it is a terrifying experience (for both the dog and the bystanders); her legs went stiff and she arched her back, she dribbled and shook, she looked to be in the worst pain imaginable, then the recovery phase begins and she sat looking blankly at the wall and panting for half an hour or so before returning to normal. I had an appointment at the vet for Melvin and Penny (Melvin’s sister) to get their second immunisations, so I rang up and included Jess in the appointment.

I had to drive to a small local town for Melvin and Penny’s needles, so we made up a bed for Jess in the back, put the travel crate in the front of the car for Melvin and Penny, packed some extra wipes, towels, sheets and food for the journey (standard puppy bag) and away we went. Well…

Melvin got car sick and threw up more than his body weight on his sister after only half an hour of travel. I stopped and cleaned them up and replaced their bedding.

Jess began to fit in the back after another fifteen minutes of travel. I pulled over and comforted her for what seemed like forever. Then changed her bedding and cleaned her up (as she had begun to release her bowels and bladder when she had a fit) and continued on our way.

Melvin and Penny began to have a fight which sounded like the End of Days in miniature. I pulled over again and gave them some time apart by walking them seperately so they could toilet. Time was beginning to blur by now, so I rang the vet and told them I would be late.

I ran into a twenty minute wait at road works and realized I had not bought any water bottle for myself, but I offered all the dogs a drink from the bottle I had packed for them (then I had a drink from it too).

Melvin was sick… again. I pulled over and changed the bedding again and gave Jess a toilet break.

Eventually, after what seemed to be the longest drive in the universe, I made it to the vet. The puppies had their shots (with much crying and patting) and the vet examined Jess, gave her an anti-seizure shot and told me I had to take her to the main office for some blood tests. She also told me that there wasn’t much they could really do for Jess. The vet has a small outpost in one of the local towns (where I was taking everyone), but their office is a two hour drive away.

I drove to the vet’s main office in a kind of daze. It didn’t seem to take long to get there and nobody was sick, had a seizure or needed the toilet for the whole drive. When I got there, Jess had an examination and blood tests and the vet said we could try anti-seizure medication, but it may not work and that he thought that her cancer had made it to her brain and she was now in pain. I rang everyone at home and we made the decision to let her go peacefully. I stayed with her for the end and she ended her life with a sigh of relief.

Jess, just after a seizure.

She has been forgetful for a while now and spent most of her days sleeping and eating in various places throughout the humpy. We let her enjoy her twilight years by feeding her soaked biscuits and special treats (like poached eggs) twice a day and making sure her bed was always clean and waiting for her. She has had a good retirement.

She came to us as an abused dog (read about it here) and we did our best to let her know that she was family and we loved her. Eventually, she came to trust that we had her best interests at heart and relaxed into our family. She gave up being obsessed with random animals and became the true leader of the household. I will miss her calm, steady gaze on everything that goes on in the humpy. I will miss her hoarse bark (single) of greeting when I get home from work. Most of all, I will miss the goodnight pats we shared at bedtime, where the ritual is always to pat everyone goodnight and turn off the lights; now there is one missing.

Her favourite bed is on the lounge.
Sharing the lounge with a chook.

Rest easy Jess, I will try to keep it all in good order for you.

New family member – Melvin

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For about three years now I have been trying to tell myself we don’t need a puppy. We have three aging dogs already, and multiple other species. We have jobs and lives and no time to do anything really. We don’t need more bills and vet visits and training and such… oh, who am I kidding. I want to feel the smooth, silky head of a puppy. I want to cuddle the tiny, warm mass of trust while they sleep and I want to get to know a new spirit and watch him/her grow into a confident, happy adult. So, we got a puppy.

I was walking down the street of our local town (on my way to buy some medicinal hot chips after work) when I saw a neighbour sitting on a bench holding a tiny puppy. Of course, I immediately went up and introduced myself to the puppy. She is a mini fox terrier, and so sweet and playful. Of course I fell in love. Upon asking if there were any more in the litter, I was told there was one male left. I asked my neighbour to pass on my desire for a puppy to her mum (the breeder of the litter) and left it at that. I assumed that the last puppy would already have found a home; who can resist that amount of cuteness?

Fast forward to a week later, I was again in town, in the slightly larger regional town waiting for a set of tires to be fitted to my car (that’s another story). I was wasting time looking in shops when I ran into my neighbour’s mother. Of course I asked about the puppy and found out that she still had him. I left her company with the knowledge that we were expecting a new family member.

My neighbour picked up the puppy from her Mum for us and in return we ferried both of the pups to the vet for their first check up and microchipping. The two siblings played well together all day and I managed to get a lot of blankets and toys with their scent on them for when we took our boy home all alone for his first night in a new family. The theory being that the scent of his sister would help him feel more at home in a strange new place.

They both got bills of good health from the vet and I delivered the little girl to her home and took our boy to his new home. We had been busy (mostly my daughter’s work) setting up all the requirements of a new puppy. He has a crate beside my bed for night time sleeping and a playpen in the lounge room for day time play. He has multiple blankets and cloths for cuddling up to at night , he has toys and the all important teething ring. We bought specialised puppy food and milk because he is very young and probably still needs a milk source. He slept in his crate at night from the first night, with frequent trips outside for toilet breaks (no sleep for us at all), our other dogs sleep on the end of our beds and he will be allowed to sleep there too when he is older. For the moment, he is too small to sleep on the bed, because he could fall off or be rolled on in the night. He still has multiple cuddle sessions with us throughout the day, and it is just as addictive as I remember it to be; holding that warm, snuggling little body safely against my side (or neck) while he snoozes with such perfect trust and love.

He follows us around for a large part of the day and we take turns walking him up the driveway with Val (my daughter’s dog) to tire him out throughout the day.

He loves to play (what puppy doesn’t) and will spend hours with his favourite toys.

If I sound besotted, it’s because I am! Although it could be partly sleep deprivation and hysteria bought about by picking up ‘accidents’ and trying to beat the bladder in the trinightly dash outside for toilet breaks. He is a lovable little burden and I am not sorry he is now a part of our family.

Oh… by the way… we called him Melvin (via popular vote). He has already become Smelly Melly to my daughter.

The earthbag chook house- rubble stem wall

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I know… I haven’t finished the bathroom walls yet. It has been years since I had any time or energy to attack the building of the bathroom. We have showered outdoors through another two Winter’s of cold wind and frosty toes. However… the chook house needs to be built, and I really want to build some fire resistant animal shelters. Once it is rendered, earthbag walls are fire proof and roof structures can be made fire safe (if not totally fire proof), so I decided to build with earthbags again.

The basic chook house design criteria is as small a building as I can make and still be functional (I only want to keep a few chooks now we are using fewer eggs). I decided on a curved shape (like half an egg) with a high ‘window’ for the chooks to get in and out of, and a small, tight fitting door on the Southern side (facing the humpy) made from thick, solid wood. I will probably make a space in the wall that can be accessed from the outside as nesting boxes (with a solid wood, tight fitting hatch) and include some pipes near the ceiling with wire mesh covers to act as ventilation. This will be a fairly dark, dim space for the chooks to sleep in and lay their eggs, which is what they prefer anyway, there should be enough light to see when dawn comes though.

I decided to use a rubble/rock stem wall, just because I wanted to see how it will perform with earthbags stacked on top. I spent a few days collecting rocks from our property, then my daughter and I dug a shallow trench in the shape we wanted the chook house to be.

The start of the trench
Loads of rocks on the farm ute
Waiting to become a wall
My daughter has a talent for building rock walls it seems
The trench for the rest of the walls was dug slowly
Ready for walls
Nearly there
Stage one complete

Hopefully the earthbags will lay on the top of the wall, this should be high enough to keep the rain water off the earth rendered walls. The gaps between the rocks will allow mice and snakes to get into the chook house (to be avoided if possible), so I am planning on rendering over the rocks with something that will seal the gaps, maybe a cement based render?

The floor of the house will probably be an earth floor, similar to what we will have in the house. It will give me a chance to play with the concept and learn how to make a good, hardwearing floor.

I am planning on a living roof on the chook house, this will hopefully insulate the chooks inside from heat and cold, be more fire proof and will allow me space to plant pumpkins. I will have to find a way to seal the eaves of the roof so they are less likely to burn, but that problem is in the future. For now, I have finished the stem wall, the bags for the wall come next, then I have to think about how to frame a door, an access window and nest boxes.

Aggressive rooster – Pickett

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Baby Pickett

Pickett, our current flock rooster, started life as a struggling chick hatched by the school chooks. His mother had abandoned him in the nest and he was in danger of freezing to death. I picked him up and popped him into my pocket for the day while I taught maths and science. He came home with me and was raised by himself in the humpy.

Adult Pickett

He eventually became a beautiful rooster and we decided to make him the flock rooster after Big (our previous rooster) died. He has always been a friendly rooster who takes his job seriously. Recently we have raised two more roosters who have been released into the flock, which seems to have changed the dynamic a little.

Daffy, one of the newer roosters

Now Pickett has begun to be really defensive of his girls, even with me. He has developed some long spurs and is not afraid to use them. He recently attacked my legs while I was feeding the animals outside and did some damage to me.

In response to this, once the blood was cleaned up, we caught him and trimmed the ends of his spurs so he can’t do so much actual damage. I am also trying what my daughter calls ‘cuddle therapy’ with him; essentially, when he approaches me in an aggressive way I simply pick him up and give him a cuddle. He sees this as me asserting my dominance over him (which is nothing but the truth) and it helps me to still see him as the appealing little fuzz ball he was as a chick. We will see if this helps to retrain his brain.

You can see his spurs in this photo

Roosters are naturally protective of the flock (after all, they have to prove their worth to the hens) and this can easily turn to aggressive behaviours towards humans. There is little that can be done to calm an angry rooster, and I have found the best strategy is to try to pick them up and hold them until the storm passes. Running away only makes them worse, as does hitting or kicking them. I have heard some really horrifying stories about roosters; from putting a bucket over them to kicking them to death, and I can’t help but feel sad for both the rooster and the human involved. The rooster is obeying an instict to protect himself and his family and the human is obeying the same instinct. Once a rooster sees you as a threat, it is very hard to win him over again, but we can at least try.

Sadly, the fact that Pickett is aggressive now means that we may not be able to allow him to breed another generation of chicks as aggression tends to run in blood lines. We try to keep only gentle souls here, but we always give everyone plenty of chances to turn their behaviour around.

Local insects and animals – Green tree frog

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The green tree frogs are back!!! We haven’t seen them here for years. First the extended dry period then the massive fire season seem to have knocked the population down so much that spotting a tree frog is cause for excitement.

Green tree frogs were once so common here at the humpy that we had invasions of froglings hopping through the humpy some nights as they left their spawning dam and went out into the world in search of adventure. After finding a tree frog on the pillow at bed time once or twice, we invested in mosquito nets for the beds that were tucked under the mattress to keep them out. In recent years we have missed seeing them around. I am so pleased that we have a few popping back up.

They eat mostly insects, but have also been known to gobble up the odd gecko and sometimes baby mice. In return, a lot of creatures eat them, black snakes love the taste of tree frog, as do brown snakes and pythons. Our ducks will chase them if left to their own devices too (we have rescued more than one big frog from the duck pen). They are mostly seen at night moving from their day beds to the hunting ground, or around the dam when it is raining, looking for love in the karaoke bar.

I love the sound of tree frogs calling from hidden places in the afternoon, it always predicts that a storm or rain is coming. They call in the rain; singing a song of joy and coming fertility until the rain has no choice but to fall on them (and us).

 
Apparently, this poor frog is depressed. She is a brown colour which means her mood is not good. Who knew frogs are like mood rings?

We have plenty of places a tree frog can hide and stay damp in the humpy garden. If you don’t have any place for them to hide outside, they will find a way into your house and look for a place there; they are particularly fond of flush toilets (everyone wants a house with a pool), behind paintings and under pot plants. Outside they like plants that have big leaves, damp pots and piles of rocks or old wood.

This girl is in need of a good meal and a quiet pond to swim in.

I find tree frogs charming and quirky, I know some people are afraid of them and find them ugly, but I can’t help but see the stoic joy they find in settling into the perfect place for the day, the glee they exhibit when they find a huge moth to eat and the self satisfaction of their measured hop…hop…hop on a tin roof at night. Welcome back Australian tree frogs, we missed you.

Egg-bound quail – Finch

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This isn’t a photo of Finch. Just a quail of the same species. We can’t find a photo of her.

We have a quail named Finch (don’t ask, we had a lamb named Kitty too), she is a King quail (confirmed with a quick call to my daughter) who lives in our aviary. She lays eggs in the Spring despite not having a partner at all. A few days ago, my daughter discovered that she was egg bound and probably had been for several days (it can be hard to tell with aviary birds).

Egg binding is really serious for birds, it kills a lot of them. Basically, the egg gets stuck in the oviduct and can crack and rot inside the bird. It can be hard to spot in the early stages, the bird might be just a bit slower than usual and off her food a little. Usually, they quickly progress to fluffing up, then death if nothing is done to help them.

Again, not Finch. This Xray shows what egg binding is.

We got Finch out of the aviary and gave her a warm soak in a salty water bath (think Sitz bath, for those of you who have had kids), then dried her off and put her in a quiet cage with a heat lamp and a soft towel. She didn’t manage to pass the egg, so we decided to see what we could do.

We turned her over and saw that the egg was ‘crowning’ and was unusually large (poor girl), so we greased her bottom up with lots of fresh aloe and tried to encourage the egg to pass (very, very gently). Eventually I used a razor blade to cut the part of the membrane that seemed to be over the egg, thinking this would clear the egg and let her retract the prolapse. It took a while, but we were able to work the egg out by greasing her with aloe, soaking in warm salty water and gently moving the egg back and forth to make the dried up membrane let go of the shell. The egg had a crack in it when we eventually got it out. The crack had been there for a while as the egg had started to rot. We immediately got worried; this is usually a death knell for egg bound birds. Another look at her behind showed that the prolapse was still swollen and sore looking. Under the lamp, we could see that she had another egg in there. This is not a good thing, and usually leads to a quick death, but I managed to encourage her to gently push the egg out by massaging her abdomen (the bit behind her hips, but under the wings). The fact that she had two eggs in the tubes, and one of them was cracked mean’t that we fully expected her to die within hours. We had given her a single drop of Meloxicam (a painkiller and anti-inflammatory for birds and other animals) before we began the operation, but we gave her another drop, thinking at least she would die in comfort. We put her in her enclosed cage with heat and water and some chicken crumbles (easy to digest for sick grain eaters) and left her to decide her own fate. Two hours later, she was still alive. She still seemed strong, so we added some oral antibiotic to her water and hoped for the best.

Aloe, cut up and ready to smear
Finch in her heat lamp cage

That was two days ago, and I wish I had taken photos of the operation, because she is a miraculous bird. She has sucked all but a tiny part of the prolapse back inside and is shedding the dead parts of her oviducts. She is eating small amounts of crumble and canary seed with pain killer added to it. We are soaking her bottom in salty water once a day to clean off the gunk and slathering her up with aloe twice a day to keep infection down and help with the inflammation too. She may still die (it’s hard to tell what’s going on inside there), but she has survived beyond all expectation and proven herself one tough little bird.

Finch getting ready for a soak
The prolapse after 2 days, during the soaking process

Afterword; Finch died at day 5. She probably had an infection inside and damage to her oviducts. She hung on longer than I thought possible and has my respect for how tough she was. She is now a part of the funeral forest.

A new home for Finch’s tough spirit