Another busy weekend outside. Our Sunday night legs begin to wane as the forever walking, bending and lifting jobs get priority. Weed pulling has never been the name of a fitness class, but definitely should be, 'now dig, dig, and puuullll...those weeds'. We do take time out for coffee with Minnie and our sheep (all bar one, oops) are all in lamb with Boris now the shepherd. The three girls are heavy and happy to find anything green. We've now started our two rows of espaliered apple trees so looking forward to some wonderful blossom (and hopefully fruit) in the coming years. And my Friday drama was resolved by Friday evening. Well actually, it wasn't mine, it was Crossbeak's. He was ready in his cardboard box at 9am for his appointment with his vet for major plastic surgery on his beak. He was excited and kept popping his little curvy beak outside the round hole carved in the side of the box for air. We arrived at the vet and the nurse took him into surgery. I waited nervously. A little snip, surely that's all, I thought. The vet came out and I asked "how'd he go?" He replied, "Not so good I'm afraid". My God, I panicked for a brief moment imagining the vet to have slipped with the clippers...but the vet advised his beak was a serious deformity that really couldn't be corrected. He said he was surprised that he'd even lasted this long. The vet was able to clip back some of his beak but it bled and he was concerned that if he knocks it, the beak may bleed again and this would need to be stopped. So with some dabbed cotton tips for repair work, I took poor little Crossbeak home. I guess it's like any plastic surgery, there is the swelling and bleeding before the healing but I wasn't ready for what I saw in the box when I opened it. He was in shock. He couldn't walk out of the box and his beak was not a pretty sight. Why did I do this? I thought. Next time when mother nature throws me an abnormality I will but out. I said to husband farmer, if our baby lambs are born with three heads, so be it. Fortunately, we soon realised that little Crossbeak is more resilient than we thought. He managed to recover from his ordeal, clean up his beak and was back eating out of the seed bin as he usually does by the end of the day, with a somewhat shorter and less curvy beak. Phew. It was a lot of stress for a mere $20 vet bill.
Monday 7 August 2017
Crossbeak and the big reveal
Another busy weekend outside. Our Sunday night legs begin to wane as the forever walking, bending and lifting jobs get priority. Weed pulling has never been the name of a fitness class, but definitely should be, 'now dig, dig, and puuullll...those weeds'. We do take time out for coffee with Minnie and our sheep (all bar one, oops) are all in lamb with Boris now the shepherd. The three girls are heavy and happy to find anything green. We've now started our two rows of espaliered apple trees so looking forward to some wonderful blossom (and hopefully fruit) in the coming years. And my Friday drama was resolved by Friday evening. Well actually, it wasn't mine, it was Crossbeak's. He was ready in his cardboard box at 9am for his appointment with his vet for major plastic surgery on his beak. He was excited and kept popping his little curvy beak outside the round hole carved in the side of the box for air. We arrived at the vet and the nurse took him into surgery. I waited nervously. A little snip, surely that's all, I thought. The vet came out and I asked "how'd he go?" He replied, "Not so good I'm afraid". My God, I panicked for a brief moment imagining the vet to have slipped with the clippers...but the vet advised his beak was a serious deformity that really couldn't be corrected. He said he was surprised that he'd even lasted this long. The vet was able to clip back some of his beak but it bled and he was concerned that if he knocks it, the beak may bleed again and this would need to be stopped. So with some dabbed cotton tips for repair work, I took poor little Crossbeak home. I guess it's like any plastic surgery, there is the swelling and bleeding before the healing but I wasn't ready for what I saw in the box when I opened it. He was in shock. He couldn't walk out of the box and his beak was not a pretty sight. Why did I do this? I thought. Next time when mother nature throws me an abnormality I will but out. I said to husband farmer, if our baby lambs are born with three heads, so be it. Fortunately, we soon realised that little Crossbeak is more resilient than we thought. He managed to recover from his ordeal, clean up his beak and was back eating out of the seed bin as he usually does by the end of the day, with a somewhat shorter and less curvy beak. Phew. It was a lot of stress for a mere $20 vet bill.
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I hope he continues to recover. What an ordeal! Very cheap vet though. Cost me $80 each to get 2 chickens put down (separate occasions). Wouldn't have minded if I'd been able to bring a living chicken home with me.
ReplyDeleteSorry for your loss (money and chickens)!! And yes, I was fortunate to have such a tough little feller.
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