This morning, when Tabby went out to milk the goats, she was just in time to see Christa give birth to a cute little female kid! She said Christa handled the birth like a pro.
Christa cleaned up her baby, I cut the hanging umbilical cord and treated the area with iodine, the Christa posed with Tabby for a photo.
In Christa's family, kids are given flower names. So we carried on the tradition and named the little one "Sundrop" after the many sundrop wildflowers we had in our yard this spring.
Here are two pictures I took this evening of Sundrop. Don't believe the second photo - she has normal eyes, I promise!
In bad/sad news, Tribulation, our last little guinea keet, has died. A rather horrific death too. Frank was leaving for work and found the keet's headless body. Tabby, who has learned about poultry death in her chicken magazines, examined Tribulation's body and declared that a bird of prey had gotten it. (The way the head was snipped off.) Since it seemed to have happened overnight, we assume an owl got it. I know it was just a guinea keet, but I was soooooo disappointed.
Then Leah Rose, Tribulation's mama, disappeared. We haven't seen her in about a week. We assume she was killed, though are hoping that she is hiding somewhere on a nest, and will show up in a few weeks. Sigh.
Here's the last picture of I have Leah Rose (the white guinea) and Tribulation:
Finally, in worrisome news, North Carolina's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services "is requiring all poultry owners, regardless of the number of birds, to register with NCFarmID." (see link here: http://www.ncagr.gov/avianflu/ ) Why? They say it is so they can alert poultry owners of an avian flu outbreak on a farm near them.
Tabby tells me that from her reading, she learned avian flu is a terrible, devastating disease to chickens. And we do love our feathered friends and want them to be healthy. So this new requirement is for our good - and our chickens good - right?
Well I don't know. I am not a big government person. I'm not sure how the Department of Agriculture was able to implement this without going through the official legislative process. Of course because they didn't, then I assume they can't enforce it.
And I don't understand why we "need" this - there has not even been one case of avian flu among poultry in North Carolina. Will registering our chickens keep this disease out of the state? Of course not. Yes I understand the officials are saying it's all being done to protect our birds. But ... do I really want my freedom/privacy/rights infringed upon even if it can "save the life of just one chicken?"
Hopefully my wild imagination is over reacting. But I just don't like the idea of registering anything. I don't like being on government officials lists. I don't like the idea of someone in power deciding one day that "the common person" may not own poultry anymore. Then they consult that handy list and make the rounds confiscating chickens.
Think things like that don't happen? Maybe not in the U.S. with chickens ... yet. But history sure shows us it has happened with plenty of other things. (If you want to read about how Hitler used gun registration lists - in the countries he invaded - to disarm the people, just read my dad's book (which I helped him research) entitled Gun Control in the Third Reich by Stephen P. Halbrook.)
I know guns and chickens are not the same thing. But I'm suspicious all the same.
I didn't know your dad wrote a book!
ReplyDeleteYep! He's actually written a bunch. See http://stephenhalbrook.com/books.html I helped with most of them. :)
DeleteOh cool. Thanks for the link.
DeleteGoat babies! I love them! I'm so sorry to hear about your guinea...I would just be devastated. I would also be very skeptical about chicken registry. I know we feel the same about the government.
ReplyDeleteThank you my friend! It's nice knowing you feel the same way about animals and the gov't.
DeleteHaving 17 guinea keets and now none. It is disappointing. The other female we have was sitting on a nest of eggs recently. We bought an incubator so we could take the eggs and hatch and raise the birds safely. But right after the incubator came all the eggs disappeared! Something must have eaten them. :(
I feel the same way about the registry. I'm on a number of chicken and farming pages, and the only way I can see this helping them stop the spread is so they know where all the chickens are and can come in and kill them if they think they're a risk. I don't know what I'd do if I were in your position, but I know I wouldn't feel good about registering a perfectly healthy flock!
ReplyDeleteThat's neat you own chickens too! Do you have other animals?
ReplyDelete