Happy 5767, everyone !!!

Dusty had her kittens !!

On Friday, September 22, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began at sundown. (read more on Rosh Hashanah...) That night I dreamed that Dusty, my grey tabby cat, was having her kittens.  Not too unusual a dream, since she getting huge and due any day.   Saturday morning she did seem very fussy and was poking around in corners and boxes, so I said to myself, "This could be the day!"  I looked under her tail and yes, she was dilated a bit.   As you can see, she came through the delivery OK -- but there were some tense moments.

She had been spending a lot of time under the bed so I fixed up a box for her there, and when I showed it to her, she hopped right in and lay down.   But she didn't stay there.  She was very restless and kept coming up to me and meowing. Well, it was her first litter (and hopefully her last --this was an unplanned pregnancy), so I thought maybe she was just confused.   But she seemed to be in more distress than other pregnant cats I've had.  I checked her again and could now see part of the sac around the first kitten -- and the tip of a tail. OH NO!!  the kitten was breach. 

I called my wife, Caryl, who is a retired nurse, and while she was looking, a little foot started coming out.  What to do?   We are miles from the nearest vet, and we were without a car today because my stepson's van was in the shop so he borrowed our car.   And it was Rosh Hashanah... Whatever help Dusty got would have to come from us and God.

There was no way we could turn the kitten around inside her.  The kitten would have to be born breach.  Caryl suggested we gently push the foot back in and hope the kitten moved enough to come out butt first.   So we did -- twice.  I also did some very serious praying.  "Dear God," I prayed, "Please help my little cat!"  Right after that, she had a series of contractions and the kitten came out OK -- butt first, with its tail neatly tucked under its tummy.  Baruch HaShem!  ("Praise the Lord!")  The rest of the kittens came easily after that -- all seven of them, for a total of eight!  Yes, eight!  No wonder she had gotten so huge! 

Here they are, 2 days after birth.  Dusty is a good mama, and right now she's nursing them all, but we will have to keep an eye out to be sure she has enough milk for everybody as they grow.  (Next trip into town I'll get some cat formula just in case.)   In that pile there are 2 orange ones (most likely males, orange is sex-linked) one silver grey, and five tabbys, some of which are tri-colored (most likely females.)

Were these the first kittens born in the New Year 5767?  I don't know.   But they certainly are very special to us !!

This is Sunshine --

a cross-breed rooster (probably Leghorn x Buff Orpington).   If he looks a little ragged today -- well, he's been through a lot in his short life.  (No, he isn't blind, just has reddish eyes on a red face.  But he's had his challenges.  Read on...) 

In the fall of 2005.... 

My neighbor Bob from down the road stopped by and asked if I wanted a chicken.  Seems this rooster had turned up at his brother's place and was being chased by the dogs and pecked by other chickens, until he finally squeezed himself behind some hay bales in the barn and hid.   His brother didn't need a rooster, but neither did he want to eat it or see it be killed.   Could I take it?   How could I say "No" to a story like that? 

He gets his name

Bob had the chicken in a sack in the back of his pick-up and said the bird was pretty wild, so I didn't get a look at him until I put him into an empty cage.  Man, was that rooster in sorry shape.  Most of his feathers were missing or broken, his comb, face, and back were all bloodied up, and he was absolutely terrified (can you blame him?).  From what was left of his  feathers he appeared to be white with golden shoulders.  I immediately thought of the John Denver song, "Sunshine on My Shoulders " (which, BTW, was written in Minnesota) so I named him "Sunshine."

A bird with a problem...

Sunshine spent that winter living in a cage by himself, both to heal and because he was so terrified of the other chickens.  I speculate that he was somebody's "Easter chick" that had imprinted on humans, then grown too big and noisy to keep, so they dumped him "in the country" to fend for himself.  Which he did not do very well.  Had we not captured him, he would never have survived a Minnesota winter.    He was definitely a young bird from that year's hatch -- you can tell by the short spurs on his legs, which had not even grown in at the time I got him.

In the spring of 2006 a predator killed the rooster in one of my flocks, so I thought maybe Sunshine could live with those hens.  Total disaster!  They chased him until he hid in the corner or in the nest boxes.  Looking back, I think they saw him as an intruder who was a threat to their soon-to-be-hatched chicks.    So it was back to the cage again.  I hated that, because he is a big bird who needs to get out and stretch.   In order to give him some freedom, I let him run loose among the stalls inside the coop when Rocky Rooster was outside -- because, if you have read Rocky's story on my blog,  you know that he is an aggressive bird who would beat Sunshine up in a minute.  (sometimes I feel I'm supervising a playground...)

The happy ending....

So here it is, a year later and autumn again, and those roosterless hens are moulting and growing new feathers for winter.   By now, Sunshine has gotten to know them through the chicken wire door.   Plus, fall is the season when breeding is pretty much over, the chicks are grown, and wild birds are beginning to flock.   Could the hens accept Sunshine now?  I gave it a try this morning, and....    YES !!!!!  This time, there were no fights.  Sunshine began to flap his wings and strut like a rooster should.   This picture you see was taken minutes after he joined the flock -- a happy, confident bird, eating peacefully with a little banty hen named Spunky.   And that's when I found out that Sunshine is what I call a "dancer" -- a rooster who struts and shows off and courts the hens gently, rather than "rape" them like some roosters do.    (This dancing is definitely a good quality to breed for.)  He still looks pretty straggley in places, especially his tail, but he's losing his old battered tail feathers in the annual moult and, as the new ones come in, I think he will be even more beautiful.   If all goes well, he will sire some chicks in the spring, to add more genetic diversity to my colorful flock. 

Meet Gypsy Dog --

As you can see, she's definitely part German Shepherd.  The other side of the family?  Who knows?  We suspect some sort of terrier, because she sure loves to shake her toys!  Whatever breeds she is, she's a great dog!

She was rescued by my stepson, who found her wandering around near a friend's house.  She was much smaller back then, and so thin she could hardly walk.  Frankly, she looked as if she would not last out the day.  She was also so badly covered with mange that most of her hair was missing, her skin was black, and she had scratched herself until she was bleeding in several places.   We thought she was an old dog on her last legs and might have to be euthanized, so, when I took her to the vet the next day, I wasn't sure if she would be coming back with me or not.

Well, the vet took one look at her teeth and told me she was a FIVE-MONTH-OLD  PUPPY !!!  Poor thing !!!     Obviously, somebody had dumped her and she had been on the road a long time --which is why I named her Gypsy.  I decided right then and there to keep her.  After all, who would adopt such a sick, mangy dog if she went to a shelter? 

With good nutrition, the proper shots, and a course of systemic medicine for the mange (which is caused by a skin mite parisite), she has recovered.  I didn't take any pix of her when we found her (just too awful and sad to look at) but you can see her now, a year later, happy and healthy.  Getting rid of the mange took six months with two relapses, but it's all gone now.   Except for some scars on her muzzle (which you can see in the photo), her hair grew back just fine.

She grew up to be a fine, loyal dog that we love.  The only emotional scar from her ordeal is that she is VERY defensive about food.  Can't blame her, she almost starved to death, so when food is there, she wolfs it down.  We have to feed her separately from our other dog, Jasmine,  and away from the cats, or she tries to take everybody else's food, too.  (To her credit, she has never bitten another animal or person, just snarled and growled.)   Except for feeding time, she gets along fine with Jasmine and the cats, some of whom curl up and sleep with her.    

OK everybody -- let's create the longest PETS blog (after all, my blog theme is animals) -- I'll start by telling you the names and species of mine:

Cats:  Coolio, Sapphire, Rainbow, Buffy, Nightshade, Tribble, Dusty, Patches, Tina, Amanda, Tippy, Chayah, Dana, Bugsy, Annabelle, KoalaCat

Dogs: Jasmine (Collie/Shepherd), Gypsy (Shepherd/something), Sherlock (mini-Schnauzer)

Geese:  Clark, Prince, Sarah -- and two eggs Clark is sitting on right now

Chickens:  Spunky, Lady Bird, Mendel, Golda, Frieda, Sunshine, Taffy, Flapper, WhiteWing, Peacenik, Rufus,  Eclipse, Starfire, Cocky -- and a bunch as yet unnamed.

Tarantula -- Elvira (12 years old, so I know she's a female.  Males don't live that long.)

 So -- whatever you've got hopping, running, barking, purring, swimming, flapping, scratching, clucking, hissing, honking, quacking, crawling, slithering or just being quiet around your place  --

HERE THEY ARE  -- LEWIS and CLARK --

OK, so they're not the ORIGINALS -- but they are explorers just the same!

Lewis and Clark originally belonged to an elderly woman who could not take care of them anymore.  (Geese have LONG lifespans! Average is 30 years, the record is 101.)  They didn't have names when they arrived -- but we soon named them Lewis and Clark because they liked to go exploring around our 15 acres "where no goose had gone before."  

Lewis (the white gander on the left) soon became the Alpha bird of the flock and now leads the whole gaggle on their expeditions.  For the first year after we got Lewis, he kept trying to find the lake where he had lived before (impossible -- it's 30 miles away) and would go wandering downhill to my neighbor's pond, or across the road to another neighbor's horse pasture -- with the rest of the flock following in single file.  Going to the pond wasn't so bad -- my neighbor enjoyed seeing them swimming and grazing on the shore -- but spooking the horses was a big no-no.  So we had to put an end to these expeditions and fence them in for a while, until they adjusted to us.  I dug out a water hole for them to bathe, and Lewis soon became content to stay at home --  our yard is now his yard, and he defends that territory!  He'll chase off anyone or anything he feels does not belong here.  (If a barking dog is a deterrant to thieves, a honking, flapping, hissing  goose is even better.)   On the other hand, if he knows and trusts you, he comes right up and loudly demands some food.  (Yes, geese do recognize individual people -- and their vehicles.  They are very smart birds.)

As you can see, Lewis is mottled with grey -- He's a crossbreed (I think Toulouse x Embden) whose wing feathers come out two-toned and resemble eagle or owl feathers.   (Each year the patterns are a bit different --he seems to be getting greyer as he ages.  But then again, aren't we all?)   Not all of his feathers have this two-tone pattern, but those which do make EXCELLENT fake eagle feathers for Native costumes, etc.   The black markings look much more natural than anything you could create with dyes.  And they have good energy because they are NOT by-products of the factory-farm meat industry.

 Clark, his lifelong and loyal mate, is a Grey Toulouse.  Her wing feathers make excellent quills for quill pens.  The people who buy them range from Jewish calligraphers (soferim) writing mezuzzahs and Torah scrolls, to re-enactors creating living history projects.   Her eggs also make excellent matzoh balls during Passover.  (we haven't hatched any -- five geese are enough for us.  Although, if you want some for hatching, we can sell them on ebay in the spring.)  You can buy feathers from Lewis and Clark in my store, The Happy Rooster.  Isn't it nice to know EXACTLY where you feathers came from?

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