Just another day in paradise

 Today was just another day in the life of a hobby farmer. I guess we have a hobby farm. Maybe it's less than that even. But we are sure it is a farm. The birds and goats and cats and dogs. All the critters. Not actually. Not yet. But girls can dream.

Today we had some mundane "work" to do. Moving birds around according to keepers or goners. And our silkie flock is getting smaller and the grow out pen is getting to be quite a flock. So we had to flip the space. 

A friend messaged me about hens. Well, I have some in my grow out pen. So we also spent time looking over our birds that weren't really chicks anymore but they weren't full grown either. They haven't told us yet if they're hens or roos. But the other day I noticed that they are getting close to telling us. The roos are starting to get a comb, but the hens not-so-much yet. So that's a clue. And then the neck feathers are showing up male or female. Roos have more pointy neck feathers and the hens are more rounded. So there's clue number two. And so far we didn't see saddle feathers on our roos. But that will be the next clue. I'm pretty confident that we've found hens for my neighbor. If not, they are just a mile up the road, so we'll get it fixed. 

But then a little bit of excitement happened. I saw our cat was messing around in the grass, maybe a hole in the ground? Then Jadyn calls out to me... "Domino caught a mouse! Or is it a rabbit? What sound do bunnies make?" I said, "they scream." "Maybe its a bunny then." I am trying to figure it out. I'm inside the goat pen, and Domino is not. But it kind of looks like his captive has four legs. And although mice have four legs, you can't usually see them from any kind of distance. Just then, the tom who has adopted us (and apparently us him as well since my daughter named him), James, comes after Domino. Domino is a fixed, small cat; James is neither of those things. Domino panics and drops his prey. So I scramble out of the goat pen to try to find this little critter. Me and a whole bunch of other farm cats. I found him because a crowd had started to gather of at least three cats, not yet pouncing or playing, just gathering with an abundance of curiosity. I snatched up that baby bunny. He was so tiny. So atleast for tonight we are bunny rescuers. I will call the zoo in the morning and see if they can rehab him. I've done a little bit of reading tonight. He had some goat milk and by some articles it was adequate, and some articles say it is not enough. But rabbits are not like cats. They don't need to eat every couple hours. Thank God. Wild rabbit babies only eat once or twice a day. That's it. Goat's milk is hella versatile. We were so grateful last summer when we had kittens and we got the dairy goat. Becasue KMR is expensive! Ironically enough, that's what is recommended for the bunny too. Kitten Replacement Milk or goat milk. So I thawed some goat milk out and coaxed the baby to drink. There was one moment when my hand slipped an squeezed a little more than I meant to and there's always a chance I got that baby too much liquid and he aspirated. But I'm praying not. We worried about him being warm enough. But from what I read, it's more worrisome to get them overheated. So while it's cooler in the backroom, I don't want him to overheat. What I fixed up for him is one of our brooder cages for chicks with the not-as-hot bulb in the heat lamp. And it said to put them somewhere dark. With the heat lamp plugged in, there's an abundance of light and my makeshift burrow (a small trashcan) still was pretty lit. So I also covered that with cardboard to make the inside more night-like. I'll have to check it in a minute to make sure that bulb is far enough away from the cardboard. Anyway.... that was exciting, exhilirating, exhausting. That was my day. 

    

Bunny's current habitat