Another Vet Visit for the Llama
Yesterday I noticed Keira was limping just slightly. I checked and there was some swelling at the top of her rear left leg. Just to be sure I wasn’t imagining things, I had The Farmer take a look also. Yep, looked swollen.
Okay, time to get the vet out and let him look at the swelling and see if he concurred with my diagnosis of why she is losing her hair. So I called the office first thing this morning and set up an appointment for a farm visit.
Checking out the neighborhood.
My absolute favorite vet came out. This guy is smart, good with animals, and good with people. He listens to what you have to say, and if he disagrees he’ll say so, but he doesn’t get arrogant about it like you’re an idiot and he’s smart because he’s the vet. (Can you tell I’ve dealt with some like that?)
He gave her a shot for inflammation, but wasn’t too concerned about the swelling. As for the hair….
It’s just what I thought. It’s stress induced hair-loss, a lot like people get when they have chemotherapy. Between the stress of a difficult delivery, heat stress, and mega-doses of antibiotics. . . plus given the fact she isn’t itching, he didn’t see mites, and she has new hair growing in under what’s coming out… it all added up just the way I figured. But it was still nice to have the vet here and take a look just to be sure.
So at some point she’s probably going to have nothing but fuzz. I hope she can get enough growth to keep her warm before it gets really cold, but if not, there’s always blankets.
There was one other notable fact about the vet’s visit. Keira did not:
- fuss about getting a halter on,
- try to run away when the vet came,
- fuss when he was poking at her back side,
- fuss when he was pulling at her hair
- or do much of anything but flinch when he gave her a shot.
Nope, she just stood there quietly, nuzzling my neck. She is back to her very sweet, lovable llama self. She’s like a whole different animal, personality wise, when she’s pregnant.
Just one more reason not to do that again!
Fowl Watermelon
The Farmer’s watermelon crop is slowing down. He grew a LOT of them this year, but there are several little ones that won’t have time to ripen before it gets too cold. So he’s been busting them open and feeding them to the fowl – the chickens especially like them.
Of course, he had a little trouble opening the gate with all those little watermelons in his arms!
Getting the gate open with an arm full of watermelons is tricky indeed!
But he made it, and went on his merry way!
Watermelon delivery in progress!
As you can see, the chickens keep pecking at them until there’s hardly even any shell left!
"There must be a little bit left somewhere!"
I’m sure the chickens will be sorry when all the watermelons are gone!
Parrot Play & Pranks
Our African Grey Parrot likes to wander around making me often wonder what she’s up to. She’s quite the explorer. She especially likes to investigate little enclosed spaces.
"What 'cha got in there?"
One of her favorite things is to fly from the top of her cage clear down the hallway and into my office and land on my writing desk.
"What should I chew on first?"
Of course I don’t let her stay there long because she likes to chew up notebooks and pencils. A LOT.
Even on her cage she manages to find trouble. Like the nearby curtain. I try to keep it pulled back out of her way, and even put a clothespin on it to hold it in place, but she keep swinging and stretching until she can finally reach it . . .
"Ha, ha, I got ahold of it!"
"Hmmm, wonder if I could climb that?"
"Can I climb that? Why, yes I can!"
It’s not like she doesn’t have lots of toys to play with in her cage and on her play gym. She even likes to chew up old egg cartons.
"DESTROY!"
But parrot toys really don’t interest her. Besides egg cartons, she likes to chew up old phone books, or play with old pill bottles.
"This is MINE!"
I think her infatuation with pill bottles is rather appropriate, since she’s somewhat of a pill herself. Some days she gets into so much mischief I’m ready to throw her out the door.
She knows when she’s in trouble. And she survives by piping up at the last moment and saying something like, “Silly bird. I loooove you.”
Back from the vet. . .
Yes, it was that time again. Toby needed his annual shots. So off we went to the vet. Except for the doing wasn’t near as easy as the telling. Toby is a farm dog so the only time he leaves the place is to go to the vet. Once a year. Hmmmm…
I figured we’d have trouble getting him into the vet’s office. What I did NOT expect was that he wouldn’t want to get in the truck. I don’t remember having such trouble getting him into the truck before, but then, it has been over a year.
At any rate, when cajoling, commands and food bribery all failed, eventually I lifted the front end and the Cave Geek got the back end, and we got him lifted up into the truck enough so that he scrambled in the rest of the way.
Happily, he was actually eager to go into the vet’s office. (Maybe he remembers she has treats?) As long as he could explore and come over for a pet now and then, he was happy.
"Pet me, pet me!"
He wasn’t too thrilled about the second shot, however. He squirmed around and knocked the needle out… I had to get a firmer grip and the vet got it all in the next go round.
And he actually lost 5 pounds! As many treats as he eats, I was afraid he’d have gained weight.
Must be all that chasing rabbits (he never catches).
Growing Peachicks
It’s been a while since I’ve done an update on our little peachicks. We ended up with three, and those three seem to be thriving. They are in a big cage out in the back yard, up off the ground. The chickens still come wandering around the cage, but the peachicks can’t reach the grass or anywhere the chickens might have left droppings. This has worked out before, and will hopefully do so again. No histomoniasis please!
At any rate, these three are from 3 different hatchings, and all different sizes.
Three's a charm?
The oldest is about two months old, and the littlest one is only a month old. For some reason it seems to me like they ought to be older, but checking back I see the first were hatched the latter part of July, and the littlest was hatched the latter part of August, and this is the latter part of September…. so no matter what it “seems” like, yep, they’re only 1-2 months old.
According to Tristan’s comment on Friday’s Four Fowl post, at three months we should be able to tell if they are male or female by the feathers on their back. If they’re male, he says they should have barred feathers. And the females should have solid colored feathers.
Well, they aren’t three months old yet, but I see a lot of barred feathers out there! Guess time will tell if we have three peacocks, or maybe some peahens.