Good Saturday Afternoon

It is a sunny and warm day here in NW Georgia. Just a fine day! Yesterday Shelby and I went to visit my parents. Erin and her boyfriend stopped by also and we had a real nice visit. While I was down that way, I went about thirty minutes south of where Mama and Daddy live to pick up some new chicks. I also got to see the parents of the chicks and it looked promising for these chicks to turn out to be show prospects. You never know for sure until they are grown and you take a good look and choose your best and put them in show, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. Here are a few pictures of the parents. I had a picture of the Buff Laced polish rooster, but it turned out blurry, so I won't include it here. These are of the white crested black polish group and the Golden laced polish group. Then, pictures of my new babies I brought home yesterday.











You can see that his tail is not in condition, and the girls are a bit ratty, but that is to be expected at this time of year. It is mating season after all...and soon they will molt and lose a lot of their old feathers and by the end of the year they will have their new feathers coming in. All mine are like this right now too.

Here are the babies.








In other news, day before yesterday I heard a ruckus out on the front porch and two mockingbird parents were having a hissy fit. I knew the problem was going to be one of the cats...and I was right. Mocha had snagged their baby bird. It had feathers and could hop and flutter, but it was not ready at all to fly. I hollered for Ian to come and help me. He crawled under the porch and got the cat. The baby hopped away and I pulled some of the lattice on the front of the porch away and picked the poor little thing up. I brought it right in for inspection. It did have a small puncture wound, but didnt seem to be bleeding from it. I packed on the antibiotic ointment. I fed it at regular intervals. I have done this before with three baby robins many years ago with success. You wet some dry cat food down and let the water soak in. Use tweezers and feed the baby small pieces.

Things looked okay at the moment. Yesterday morning it seemed a bit less enthusiastic about eating, but I made it eat anyway, along with a few drops of water out of a syringe to help wash it all down. I packed up the baby mockingbird along with us to go for our visit to see my parents. Baby birds have to be fed all the time...all day. It wasnt an hour and a half we had been there, and it was not looking good at all. The baby started breathing heavily and after about fifteen minutes it fell over on its side. Minutes later it passed. I believe that nasty cat puncture was the cause of death. It had bled some out onto the babies chest feathers overnight. The cat must have done some internal damage. Poor little thing. I had to try though.

So far today I have not been productive at all, I have been fooling around on the computer for a few hours, Facebooking, posting pictures, emailing, just catching up on here, but now I have to go. I have much to do around here, and it doesnt look like my little magic fairies are going to appear and do it for me. ;) I just wanted to make a post about these precious new babies of mine I have.

He did give me five extras. One was weak and not expected to live. He thought maybe if I took it it would survive. What had happened was some lady had come the day before me and was looking at the chicks in the brooder, and buying some. All the while her two children were messing around. He thinks one of them slid the side door open to the brooder just enough that the chicks got out onto the floor that night. Newborns can't survive without staying warm, they will die. He found seven of them on the floor and obviously away from the heat lamp. All but one bounced back, poor little buddy. I did everything I could. He wanted to sleep a lot, so weak and tired. So I put him in a shoebox, in with the others, but seperate so he wouldnt get stepped on and could rest. He had his own little water and food. But he was just too tired. I found him passed on this morning. Poor little buddy.

I will focus on the ones that are living now though, and not be too sad. I sure do love these new babies, they are so much fun! :)

Everyone have a great Saturday! :)