5-2-08

I have a couple of videos for you. The first one is one I took of the incubator yesterday morning. If you look at the egg under the dark chicken, you’ll see a beak sticking out, opening and closing. I think it’s kind of neat.

For the record, we now have 22 chicks out of the 30 eggs Fred put in the incubator; three of those weren’t fertile and were discarded. There are still two eggs in the incubator, but I suspect that they aren’t going to hatch, but we’re giving them the day. I think, considering that this was the first time we’ve ever done this, that 22 out of 30 (really, 27) is REALLY good. Good thing I’m married to a man who researches the holy hell out of everything before he does it.

For the record, newly hatched chicks rapidly start to smell like wet dog. NOT a pleasant smell.

The other is a video I made of Kaylee and Kara when Kaylee was about four days old. Kaylee’s nursing and I’m talking to Kara and rubbing her belly, and then I was talking to Kara and she got all excited and got up to come over to me for a belly rub, so I left the room so Kaylee could eat, and then there’s another 3 1/2 minutes or so of poor Kaylee wanting NOTHING but to nurse, while Kara grooms herself and lays down on top of the other babies and completely ignores Kaylee. Kaylee finally finds her way to Kara and latches on, but it’s a struggle there for a while!

(Side note: If your heart doesn’t melt and pour out your belly button when Kara rubs her face against Kaylee, there is no hope for you.)

It’s 5 minutes long; sorry about that. I’ve mentioned before that I’m no movie editor, haven’t I?

You can download it from here (in MPG format), or watch it on YouTube here:

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Are you really going to be able to eat those baby chickies? Aren’t they too cute?

Yeah, they’re way too cute right now, but in a few months, I think I’ll be able to MURDER THEM and eventually (after they’ve been in the freezer for a little while so I can put some mental distance between the things I MURDERED and the meat in the freezer) I should have no problem eating them.

I’ve never killed a chicken before, though, so only time will tell.

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Look at you Robyn, showin’ off your mad Paint Shop skillz! It’s a very cute logo! Does this mean me and the other Logo makers are out of work?

I think it’s a cute logo, but the way it’s kind of pixellated around the letters drives me nuts and I’m not sure how to fix that. So, no, my regular logo makers should feel free to keep on makin’ ’em!

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If you are eating or are weak-stomached, you don’t want to read this. Skip to the next one!

Forgive me if you have already ‘splained this (I’m a horrible skimmer), but I was wondering: I know that Mama Kitty will litter-train her babies when they are big enough, but in the meantime does she dispose of their little poops (poopettes?) herself?

I answered the question in a comment last week, but yes – Kara takes care of the poop and pee herself. To be a little more graphic than you might want, she uses her tongue to stimulate their… undercarriage, and when the feces and urine comes out, she consumes it. I usually head for the door when she starts sniffing around their hind ends, but sometimes I stay because she gets the MOST disgusted look on her face afterward. Can’t say as I blame her, either.

No wonder she’s so damn gassy all the time.

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I don’t know what kind of camera you are using but if you increase the ISO you might get a better picture since you are not wanting to use the flash. Don’t know how camera savy you are, maybe you are already doing this and so then tell me to shaddup!

I’ve been using my little Sony DSC-P200 because the “good camera” – the Sony Alpha A100 – is so big and noisy that it annoys Kara, and I don’t wanna do that.

I’ve futzed around with all the settings and hiked the ISO up, which is probably the only reason I was able to get any pictures at all. Now that the kittens are coming out of the box a little, it’s easier to get decent pictures of them even though I’m abstaining from using the flash.

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You know, the pigs would have LOVED that stinky broccoli! 🙂 We actually do a “pig mix” with our goat milk and grain. We have a big garbage can with a lid — fill with grain (whatever is cheapest) and then we dump milk in it and let it rot! More is dumped in daily to what is left. Man you rip the lid off that sucker on a 80 degree summer day — whoooooo. But they do great on it and love to eat it.

I just could not bring myself to feed them something that smelled like that, but next time I’ll plug my nose and run it right out to them.

I cannot imagine the smell of rotting milk and grain. And god willing, I’ll never have to smell it myself!

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Was that a jar of Heel of Approval I saw in one of your bins? I love that stuff! It works great if you remember to use it regularly (unlike me).

It was, indeed, a jar of Heel of Approval. I have some hideously ugly feet because I like to walk around barefoot as much as possible (inside, that is – I wear shoes outside, because I don’t relish the thought of tromping through chicken shit in bare feet). If I used the Heel of Approval with any regularity, I’m sure my feet would be less hideous, but once I put it on my feet, I have to put socks on, and I don’t like walking around with socks on all day because… I like walking around barefoot! And I can’t sleep with socks on. It’s a conundrum, it is. I’d like to have less ugly feet, but I don’t want to deal with the pain of walking around in socks all day. WOE.

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Hey, I wish Fred had gotten the “cam” he mentioned for the chicken egg brooding, then you could switch it to show us what’s happening 24/7 with the kittens like this cam: http://kkellogg.camstreams.com/

I wish like hell we had a web cam. It would have been neat to point it at the incubator Wednesday night so people could watch the chicks be born, and it would be neat to be able to keep it in the foster kitten room so y’all could watch the kittens!

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did you dip any marshmallows in the leftover bacon grease and then toast them? (KATG reference)

I am sad to report that dipping marshmallows in the bacon grease and toasting them never entered my mind – but probably only because they were mini marshmallows and it would have been hard to toast them. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have been there!

Speaking of Keith and the Girl, I’m about two weeks behind on my KATG listening, but just listened to the Chemda vs. McNally backstage show and DAMN, that was brutal to listen to. I like McNally, but he sure does strike me as a bit of a pain in the ass to be around.

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Survivor spoilers; skip this if you didn’t watch last night’s episode yet!

That was AWESOME. Seeing the looks on their faces when Amanda stood up with the Idol in her hand was AWESOME. This season is pretty freakin’ awesome; I love me a good blindside.

It SUCKS that James had to leave the game because of an injury to his hand. I like him a lot and I really wanted to see what would happen in an Amanda/ James final two.

This season is awesome, did I mention?

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The kittens’ eyes are slowly continuing to open. Inara now seems to kind of recognize me and will come over to be petted. River’s doing a lot more exploring – I walked into the room yesterday afternoon and Kara was laying in the middle of the floor, and River was nursing. I suspect he’d seen his Momma off in the distance and decided it was time to eat, so tracked her down. Zoe and Kaylee tend to spend more time in the box, but they’re exploring a little more, too.

I love this age, when they still flop around on their stomachs like seals, but respond to being petted (and they certainly do enjoy a good belly rub!) and are starting to see the world.

They kill me with the cute.

(pic) Inara, sitting next to Kara and peering up at…. me!

(pic) Inara and Zoe, coming out of the box.

(pic) River, on an exploratory mission.

Tons of pictures up over at Flickr.

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(pic) Suggie in the sun!

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Previously
2007: Nance knows that when she mentions something, I MUST immediately have one of whatever it is, too, because I am a lemming.
2006: I like my life to be conflict-free, thank you.
2005: …and then she smacks the shit out of him, and he closes his eyes and smacks blindly at her, never ever ever landing a single smack on the portly Poo.
2004: No entry.
2003: It appears that the mother of Crunchy, Chewy, and Cheesy had a hard-core craving for the Crunchy Gordita during her pregnancies, and thus (possibly when she wasn’t smoking crack with one hand and downing the hard liquor with the other, one assumes) named her children after it.
2002: We sure are some dish-using motherfuckers around here.
2001: As if the little bastard had said “Oh, can’t poo on Mom’s newspaper, don’t want to get it all nasty!”
2000: (Every entry won’t be a laundry list of my day, I promise. This not-working thing is still new to me!)