Wednesday, July 3, 2013

That's 3 isn't it??

I am hoping it is the 3 bad things and that the bad stuff is over for a while. Last Thursday was a terrible day for me. As mentioned below, the majority of my chicken and guinea fowl flock was killed last week, over 40 birds in 1 day...not sure by what as I was away from the farm for a day and night, and when Damian returned to the farm the next day, he found them all. There were about 10 birds still there, about 5 inside the coop and 4 outside in the yard, all dead, the other 30 odd were all gone. I am assuming a fox, perhaps a pack of dogs or a dingo family?? I don't know, I haven't seen anything at all while I have been at the property for the last 6 months, but they have obviously picked up when our dogs have been away from the property and taken advantage. To say I am devastated is an understatement, I have lost light sussex, speckled sussex, silver spangled hamburgh, silver laced wyandottes, australorps, white leghorn, plymouth rocks, pekins, frizzle, maran, araucanas and anconas, pearl pied and lavender guinea fowls...all in 1 go...I have 1 neurotic ancona rooster left who sleeps on the roof of the coop, and 4 guinea fowl. I have lost all of my laying hens, all of my lovely, lovely girls, and I had some absolutely gorgeous natured girls growing up. I have a baby maran pair and a baby araucana pair left that were in a separate cage in the shed. About 15 minutes after Damian rang to tell me, I reversed the ute in to a little yaris that had zipped in behind me while I was reversing and smashed her back window and put a small dent in her rear hatch. Even though she wasn't there when I started reversing and she came in behind me and then stopped it is technically my fault because I hit her, I had been holding it all together for the sake of Kasey as she was upset enough about the chickens, but when I reversed in to this other car, I just lost it, and was in uncontrollable tears for about 15 minutes or so. After all that had calmed down and I made sure this other driver had organised for a repairer to come and fix her back window and had translated details over the phone for her as she was Japanese and did not have very good English skills, I had a doctors appointment and asked the doc to check my ear which I have had a perforation in for the last couple of years. I felt that I might have had an infection, but she advised me that I have a fungus growing in my ear, and due to the hole in my eardrum I can't have drops to fix it, and so I need to have the surgery I have been avoiding to fix the perforation and the surgeon will need to do something about the fungus as well during the surgery. The car and the surgery I can deal with, but losing my chickens has absolutely knocked me for six. From the beautiful girls who would come running and walk around with me, and jump on my feet and want to be picked up and cuddled, to the gorgeous plymouth rock rooster who thought I was his girlfriend and would do his little dance beside me every day, my gorgeous silver spangled hamburgh rooster whose tail feathers were getting so long and grand, and my beautiful little black araucana hen, she loved to be cuddled...gotta wonder what the point is sometimes...

1 comment:

  1. Oh Deb, you nearly brought me to tears. So sorry for your loss. Hope it gets better from here on....

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