Update on the baby ringtail

Just a very quick post to let you know how the baby ringtail got on.

I called the vets on Wednesday to see if it had been put down, died or survived.

Great news!!!

The nurse told me she was so glad I called. WIRES couldn't come and pick it up on the Tuesday, so she had taken it home for the night. She said that it was doing really really well. It had taken food from a syringe with no problems at all and was very lively and SO cute.

She was really positive and had obviously fallen in love with the little one (it was really cute).

What a great outcome!!! I'm really pleased - I think if I hadn't found it when I did, it would have died within the next 15 mins or so - for sure. It was so cold when I picked it up, it felt like it was dead. It barely moved when I grabbed it.

Very happy :-)

Look what I found in the CHOOK PEN!!!

So, I was checking the chooks and the mums & bubs, topping up water and food, giving the others a pat etc etc while Michael was having a sleep.

After I had finished, I happened to glance down at the base of the confier tree and YUK saw a dead rat.

Yukky I thought, it look to have a bit of blood around its mouth. Then I looked again & thought hmmm that doesn't look like a rat. Peered down and had a closer look and thought......

Oh NO, its a dead baby ring tail possum. Poor little thing, i'll go and get a plastic bag and put it in the bin. Whilst I was peering down...............

I SAW IT BREATHE!!!!!!

OMG, IT IS ALIVE!!!!!!

I bolted to the house and grabbed a towel. Quickly picked it up - wet, freezing cold and half dead and wrapped it in the towel. Bolted back inside the house. Quickly found my wheat pack and chucked it in the microwave for 1.30mins. Raced to the recycle bin and pulled out one of Alex's shoe boxes she had put in there, pulled open the cupboard and grabbed a handtowel. Put the wheatpack in the box and put the handtowel over it and carefully placed the wet and cold little bubba in the box and covered it up.

Immediately it snuggled in to the warmth (it was freezing cold). I called WIRES and they told me to take it to the local vet. I called the local vet and advised them that I would be there when Michael woke up.

By now it had warmed up and was much more alive!!! I checked it over & it seemed the blood may have come from a scrape on the nose. Its fur was drying and becoming fluffy.

Poor little baby. The vets said it was very little (it was about the size of a rat). They said they would check it over and call WIRES if it was ok. I hope it is saved........... it seemed to pick up after some TLC from me. With a good feed, I hope it will survive.

Weekend stuff

Whitey with 3 of her bubbas, 1 is snuggled under her

Another fairly busy weekend here. Michael is asleep at the moment and it is quite overcast. Jemma is playing with some toys. We are meant to be going to the park but I don't really want to wake Michael up yet, so will wait a little.

Frizz with 5 of her bubbas, the grey ones will lay blue/green eggs if they are girls

Well, the chicks have all hatched. I guess there were about 12 eggs that didn't hatch and only the one in the incubator which drowned. None of the others have hatched. All up, Frizz has 5 babies and Whitey has 4 babies. One baby died as it got out of the nest and couldn't get back (before I moved them to the hutches).

The chicks are SO gorgeous. They main ones to hatch were the bantam chicks (these are the grey/blue coloured ones). They will lay blue/green eggs!!! Jemma is responsible for taking care of them and she is doing a very good job.

Here is a pic of my chook pens that Greg built. This one is the big chook pen - the original one that Greg built. This was an unused part on the garden and is now very productive!!!

The big pen, with the chooks

Here is a pic of the baby pen (although now the babies are big). This wasn't a very productive part of the garden either (the garden bed it was on didn't do very well) and now is!!

The baby pen, still need a paint - we will get there eventually!!!

I bought a passion fruit vine on Saturday. I want it to grow over the wire of the pen. It will serve a few purposes - shade for summer for the chooks, passionfruit for us YUM and I believe the chooks like to nibble on the leaves. What a multi purpose plant!!!!

The Diggers Heirloom tomato plant on L, passionfruit on R

Jemma wanted to grow some tomatoes, so we bought a plant. I love tomato and so do the chooks so it will do us both!!!

It has been lovely working in the garden this weekend. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too ;-)

LOTS of babies now.....

This morning i went out and Frizz had 2 babies and White had 1 baby.

This afternoon Frizz has 6 babies and White has 2 or 3 babies with a couple pipping (I think, hard to see properly).

They are absolutely gorgeous - the pics above Jemma took as she was very excited.

We are going to move them tomorrow into the hutches. I will put any eggs into the nest but will watch and if the hen get off then I will put in the incubator. Very exciting.

No more have hatched in the incubator - so not sure what is happening there??? We will wait and see.

I'm still sad about the little bubba we lost but these little ones make it all worthwhile. The drowning incident will not happen again - live & learn.

They are just lovely!!!!!

Poor baby chook dies - I am very sad

I am in tears at the moment after we found poor baby chookie in the water container, drowned.

We set up the incubator a little differently this time as we were caught off guard last time with an early hatcher, but this time we were prepared and we fitted the floor to the incubator better, but the water container was open - we didn't even consider it a problem.

Jemma said this afternoon that she thought it might get into the water but I thought it was high enough that it couldn't. Silly me, it did cross my mind too but I thought no it wouldn't be able to get up over the top and then in there.

We have now put mesh over the top and this will never happen again. I am devestated as I watched this little one hatch and it was beautiful.

One of the other little blue eggs has hatched under frizz, which is good news, but no others yet. No more in the incubator have made a move. I hope this one wasn't my only one to hatch in the incubator and then I accidently killed it............................

So sad......................... :-(

They say with highs you get lows and the bigger the high, the bigger the low and I was on such a high from seeing that new life come into the world today and now, gone................ I feel extremely low right now and such guilt because I feel I should have known that it might get into the water.

Well, tomorrow is a new day and fingers crossed for some new little ones tomorrow........

New baby chicken!!!!!

Very exciting news - our first little bubba in the incubator has hatched!!!

It is a bantam lavender Araucana chick. Fingers crossed it is a girl and she will lay blue coloured eggs!!! BEAUTIFUL!!

When Greg got up this morning this is what the eggs looked like:

And at 12 noon this is what I watched emerge from its shell:

I haven't actually seen a chick hatch from an egg before (I missed the others). It was amazing!!! I was in awe that this beautiful chirping little thing could come from some eggs we put in a man made environment - amazing stuff!!

I hope the broodys go well, the grey silky has some due today and feisty frizz tomorrow. Will go and check for chirping!!!

Very excited!!!!

Changes

Michael sitting on Gregs lap for a cuddle

I decided to make some changes to the blog, hope you like it. If not tell me and I can change it back. I thought it might be a bit easier to read?? We'll see!!!

Some exciting news........... the chicks should be hatching this week!! The eggs are under the chooks and they are still sitting tight :-) Also, we stopped turning the eggs in the incubator this evening. Here is a pic of them ready to hatch over the next couple of days (hopefully).

The egg on the far right I don't think is developing, but the rest seem to have large masses in them

I went over and met a Lilian, who I met on BYP site. What a wonderful lady and her backyard was fantastic - she had the cutest chook pen and a great garden - it was really lovely. Sadly they had been on holdiays and a creature came in and killed their 3 chooks. Very sad. Lilian loaned me 2 rabbit hutches that I will put the mums and bubs in so they are protected from preadators while they are so little. If she would like some more chooks, then she can have some of the hens that hatch.

The bedroom reno is virtually complete. We needed to put another coat of paint on the feature wall, but as I wasn't 100% happy with the colour, I changed it. Greg will re-paint next weekend as we ran out of time this weekend.

I went to Spotlight and got some curtains and a black cushion. I also picked up my Wedding photo on Tuesday - I love it - it looks so beautiful. Greg now just needs to patch the wall where we took down the brackets from the pelmet (not needed anymore) and do the feature wall!!!

I was going for a hotel room kind of look and I think I have achieved that. Very happy with the look I have achieved!!!

One of my oldest friends, Liz, has had a terrible operation this week (Thursday). Liz was diagnosed with abdominal cancer about 2 years ago. It was a rare form - one in a million the Drs said (thats our Liz). They operated and Liz recovered really well. Sadly the cancer came back and they have had to operate again. It's a very nasty operation & I don't think they will leave much of her abdominal organs inside this time, which is extremely sad as Liz doesn't have any children and is so young (36yo) & just got married this year :-( I wish her well with her recovery - she came through the operation really well and is in ICU now. They are starting chemo tomorrow :-( Good luck Liz (((((HUGS)))))

A party day & bedroom reno progress

Cupcakes that Chris made - SO yummo

Jemma, Pyrate, Sophie & Julian on the trampoline


Some of us posing for a pic!!!


Michael with his party hat on, eating a sausage

Our kids birthday party was meant to be last weekend, but it was too cold & wet. We postponed it until this weekend. Once again it was cold & wet so we had it at our place.

It was great, I think everyone had a great time!!!

Also, Greg painted the wall on Saturday and I set up all the linen on Saturday night after we got back from Mum & Dads place. I think it is looking pretty good. The colour is a good match, not quite perfect (but it will do!!!! ) It looks quite "pink" in the photo, and it is a bit, but not as much as that pic represents. I wouldn't repaint (OMG paint is nearly $40 for a 1L tin) because it looks fantastic still!!! I still have to get a little black cushion and change the curtains, but so far so good.

I got the black throw at Target for $25 which was a BARGAIN. Its beautiful & soft & looks great. I bought some other bedside lamps from Target but they were crap, so I took them back and got these ones (not taken out of their plastic in the pic). They look pretty good.

Am picking up the wedding pic on Tuesday from the photographer. It will look great with that up. Now on the hunt for some curtains.......................

Starting the bedroom reno

I have started the reno on the bedroom. I actually think it will look quite good actually!!

At lunch today I got some paint matched to the doona (hard because we had to do it by sight as it was striped doona).

Got a sample pot to see how it would look. Wow it looks really great I think.

Here are some pics. I just put the pillows up on the bed and laid the linen over them etc to give an idea. I was really impressed actually.

Still need a black little cushion and a black throw, but you get the idea. Will update with progress over the weekend.

Its great fun!!!

Updating the decor

It is freezing here so we lit the fire!! Honey loves it OMG how FAT is she!!!

I have been thinking for quite a while now that I would like to update our bedroom. The comforter I have is beautiful, however it is blue and white and it gets absolutely FILTHY all the time, mainly with the cats laying all over it, especially at night.

The nightmare is that I can't wash it in the washing machine as it is too big. I have to take it to the laundromat and use their big industrial maching - at $15 a wash - & I BYO powder, its expensive!!! Also, I would like a change too as I have had it now for nearly 4years.

There are some quite good sales on at the moment which I have taken advantage of. I will update the progress of the room as it goes, but here is the room now (please excuse my messy washing everywhere).

I decided I wanted to go for a brown & another colour. I got a lovely doona cover from Myer on sale at 40% off. I needed something to go with it and I am really hopeless when it comes to matching colour etc. So today I took Michael and we went to the shops and a lovely girl in one of the shops called My House helped me put together a "look" hehehe.

She suggested some Euro pillow covers in a cream with black and brown (for a bit of a feature). How good did it look!!! Fantastic (I never would have tried it). She put a cream cushion & a black cushion and it looked really fantastic. It will go brilliantly with our new wedding photo we ordered from the photographer. The good news was that everything I bought was 50% off so it only cost $25 for the euro pillows & cream cushion (their black one was a bit sequiney for my taste). I have to buy some sheets in cream/beige & a black pillow & throw. We will see how it looks - I will update as we go.

Its been a yucky weekend but we really needed the rain. Our Mothers Group Kids Birthday was a wash out but will be on next week. Fingers crossed for nice weather.

The chooks are still clucky and sitting on eggs. I removed one from Frizz as it was cold to touch when I touched it and it was sticking out from her a bit. The incubator is going well except we had a blackout for about 1.5 hrs today grrrrrrrr. Oh well we will see how we go :-)

Have a great week

Rachael

Michael is walking!!!

Here is a video that Greg took today:

He has been getting more & more confident walking around the furniture and had taken a couple of steps.

But now he is away. He is walking everywhere!!! There is no stopping him now...............