Chickens & Cows

I weaned the calf late last week by putting her mother in a separate pen and leaving her in the pen with her father. So far it's been relatively painless. There's been just a bit of mooing from mom two pens over but for the most part all is calm and good.

Here's father and daughter. She's growing nicely.

With one exception the chicks I got from the hatchery are doing well. About six of them developed a case of "pasty butt", where their vents (number 3 definition of the noun) get caked up for some unknown reason. I washed them carefully with warm water. Only one had a recurrence and sadly, it was just too much for the little chick. So now there are 11 cuckoo marans and five speckled sussex. Oddly enough none of the sussex chicks were affected.
Here are the two wheaton marans chicks that hatched from the eggs. Notice the feathers on their legs have started developing. This one is a little darker.

This is the lighter one.

Since I'm no expert I still can't tell if they are girls or boys. I have noticed that the darker one has more of a comb and less of a tail at this point. I don't know if that means anything. If I had to guess I'd say the lighter one is a hen and the darker one will be a rooster. We'll just have to wait and see.

This will be my last post for at least a week and a half. We are leaving on vacation tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it because first of all it's VACATION, and secondly and most important we'll be meeting up with all my husband's family and their families. Sadly, we have to leave Carli and her little family behind because she has to work.

Til then!