Hectic Week

Besides having the chicks arrive on Wednesday this past week, I ended up taking my mom, who is visiting, to the ER for shortness of breath. This is the second trip to the ER since I picked her up on May 1st. The first time turned out to be bronchitis. This time the doc just had to adjust her medication and she was much better next day. We have decided to take her back home the day after Memorial Day, she misses her home. Maybe next year things will work out better. I had hoped she'd stay till the middle of June, but the below normal temperatures haven't helped her enjoyment here either.

The chicks arrived late, on the coldest day we've had so far in May. Only 49f for the high and it was raining. New born chicks like to be kept at 95 degrees. The feed store was mobbed with people picking up their birds and the noise of 100s of cheeping birds was incredibly loud. It was nothing like this last year, no where near the numbers of birds or people. I can only assume the high price of eggs over the winter and the rising cost of food is making a lot of folks think about growing their own food.

Besides the "meat" chickens which are Cornish X's and living in the garage at the moment, I got 3 guinea fowl and 6 barred rocks. Before I even got them home I could tell one BR had leg trouble, and another one was lethargic. Both of them had legs paler in color than the other 4. The lethargic one began gasping yesterday and died sometime in the night. The other one seems to have paralyzed legs but is gamely trying to eat and drink. I'm a little worried about another one's breathing, I've treated the water with vitamins and antibiotics, I'll just have to wait and see what happens.