And Then There Were Three

It is too bad that you can't tell if an animal will be a good mama by looking at them.  It would save so much heartache.  Daphne is not a good mama.  After she booted three of her babies from the nest on Sunday, I made some changes to it, added a heat lamp, and crossed my fingers.  Unfortunately, she booted that same baby who came back from the edge one more time, and this time she wasn't so lucky. 

Out of the 6 beautiful babies she made, only 3 remain.  Two girls and one boy.

I have taken them in.  Literally.  They are in the house, sleeping in their nest in front of the woodstove.  I feed them with a syringe.  They will be the tamest rabbits on the planet when they grow up, that's for sure.

Innocence personified.  Then she peed on me.

They are very sweet and very wiggly, and a joy.  But they are a good amount of work, too.  I am looking forward to their opening their eyes, so they can find their ways around a bit and eat some real food.  One more week until that happens!

Winter has been renamed Cleo, and is doing very well.  She seemed to have Pink Eye the last two days, so she's been in heavy lockdown and been treated for it.  However, yesterday she was flagging heavily, so I let her out with Stewart.  Stewart loved the way she smelled, but he had some performance anxiety--he was so busy worrying about his other girls (who were locked in their yard), he couldn't do the deed.  I finally let everyone out, and he got down to business.  I can pretty safely say that he's bred her. 

Today she was flagging a little, but her heat seems to be short, so I let them all out together again, to catch the tail end of it.  Yes, he had no problem breeding her again.  All goes well, there will be babies born here from mid-May to early July, with Dulci going first and Cleo going last.  We will be busy! On the good front, Cleo's eyes were nice and clear this morning, and there was no sign of pink swelling.  I'm hoping I beat it back, or that it wasn't Pink Eye to begin with.  It's hard to say.  Cleo has been SO stressed about moving here, it could be anything at all.  Goats are funny like that.

Speaking of "like that", not to be outdone, Dulci was sick this morning.  Either she ate something she shouldn't have yesterday when they were out foraging, she didn't drink enough water overnight, or someone butted her in the stomach but good, but this morning she was droopy and looked like she had a stomachache.  She's done this to me before, delicate flower that she is, and I mixed up a bunch of rhododendron poisoning antidote, just in case.  I forced it down her throat and shot her in the butt with B vitamins.  She perked up pretty well, but she was still kind of tired all day.  She drank a ton of water this evening, so that might have been a lot of the issue.  Tomorrow will tell.  That girl loves her drama, she does.  Hopefully she'll be ok.

My girls do not love Cleo, but they don't hate her with a passion, either.  Minerva isn't loving her, but Minerva is queen, so she has to approve of everyone, and she's a tough nut to crack.  Lilly is second in that respect.  Dulci is the one who doesn't seem to mind too too much, and Stewart let her share his dinner this evening, which shocked me but good--he takes his food very seriously.  Then, when she retired to her garage-barn pen for the evening, he made his wookie noises looking for her.  He cracks me up, with the "ownership" he's taken of "his" girls in this short amount of time.  It's going to be interesting when he has to move to his bachelor pad in a couple of months.  I have a feeling there will be a lot of wookie noises then.  I may need to buy earplugs for the whole neighborhood.

Other than that, all the outdoor cats have an upper respiratory infection and are being treated, which they like not at all, and tomorrow we are supposed to get snow.  Either 3 inches or 15 inches, depending on who you ask.  So, pretty much business as usual here at Chicken Scratch.

If you're in the path of the storm, stay safe.  I'll let you know how it turns out here!