4-3-13 – Crooked Acres Wednesday

Posted on by Robyn

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Sights from around Crooked Acres.


Bluebird! I’d say that’s a sure sign of Spring, but I’m fairly certain that he was around all winter.


He just INSISTS on coming down into the back yard, and it always makes me nervous, because Kara is a good little hunter.


Three of the four ducks, standing outside the maternity yard, where Arnold and his siblings are. Somehow, one of the female ducks manages to get into the maternity yard to lay her egg every day, and then she can’t figure out how to get OUT of the yard, so I have to trudge out there and set her free. The other three ducks wait for her, and then they all head out to the pond together.


Arnold is becoming quite the fluffmuffin.


“Is exhausting, hauling all these feathers around, lady.”


One of the roosters, keeping an eye on the wimminfolk.


Peach tree in bloom! (Okay, it might not be a peach tree. It could be a plum tree or apple tree, I have no idea.)


Last weekend we went to Lacon Trade Day (it’s an outdoor flea market) and came home with 20 Cuckoo Marans. $1.50 each! Fred guesstimates that they’re about a week old. They bear a resemblance to Arnold, don’t they? Except they don’t have feathered legs.


Pretty little things, aren’t they?


This is how I know it’s time to refill the bird feeders: the squirrels have emptied theirs and are going after the one meant for the birds.


Those pups are the happiest animals on this property, I swear.


They’re always worried that the other one might have gotten more treats, so they keep a close eye on each other.


“AM WATCHING YOU.”


“I HEARD THERE WAS SNACKS OVER HERE!”


Toasty is surprised to hear that snacks are being given out.


Hen is wondering where her snack is.


Zombie Chicken wants graaaaaains.


Rock Star is faaaaaabulous, as always.


This is an old picture I took in December or thereabouts. That black and white speckled chicken was in the midst of molting, and she was pretty sure that the Rock Star was mocking her ratty appearance.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As promised, the kittens’ 2-week-old pictures!

They’ve certainly gotten fluffier, haven’t they? Especially the fur on their big ol’ noggins!

I weighed them on Monday; I’ll probably weigh them again later today – you can see their updated weight chart at the bottom of their page, here.


Leia enjoys a belly rub (that pink-toed foot over her head actually belongs to the tuxie behind her.


After-snack Kate, licking her lips.


Buttercup, having just woken from her nap.


Jareth is a big fan of the belly rub also.


“HI MAMA!”


Aslan, covered up in siblings.


Oh, LOOK at that smug little monkey face!


Leia and yet another belly rub.


Couldn’t you just eat her up?


Playing peekaboo.


Oh, how those babies love their mama.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Alice Mo
The Cal-i-co
Sure does love
That sunshine
(yo)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Previously
2012: “You’re not touching my babies, are you? I KEEL YOU.”
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: Someone said last week that Beulah looks like she’s in a space ship when she sits in the middle of the ball-track toy. She certainly does!
2008: No entry.
2007: “Oh, I’m not getting involved in this one!”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.

Comments

43 thoughts on “4-3-13 – Crooked Acres Wednesday”

  1. oh the cuteness slays me dead! not just the kittens, but all the chickies and the floofer pups too!

  2. Do any of your cats have the problem of their tear ducts putting black gunk in their eye corners all the time? Thought from the picture that Alice Mo might have a little of that..? My cat has that (so did my last cat) so I am always cleaning her eyes. She scratches her forehead too, which might be related.

    1. One of mine does, and I have the same thing. It doesn’t seem to bother them any.

    2. *raises hand*

      My Eli had Calci as a kitten pretty badly and the end of the story is that both of his tear ducts are scared and blocked.. it created havoc for him as a kitten but with some light therapy he’s doing much better..

      The eyes, ears and nose are all connected. When he was getting light therapy the vet commented that she bet he had bad headaches because of all of it..

    3. That’s actually just Alice’s coloring – it looks like gunk, but it’s permanent color. She didn’t think that one through when she was developing in the womb. 🙂

      Miz Poo’s eyes do tend to be leaky – it’s worse in the Spring and Fall – and I’m forever digging eye boogers off her face (which she hates).

    4. My Percy has drippy eyes, but he also had entropion eyes and needed surgery. The vet reckons his current drippiness is because of that (but he also says better to be a bit overmoisturized than too dry.)

      I’ve never had a kitty with the black goop though.

    5. Yeah, my nearly 19-year-old started developing black gunk in the corner of her eyes a few years ago – It doesn’t seem to bother her at all, other then when I use a soft finger to ease the boogers out. She has ALWAYS had gunky ears (no mites- just gunk) This last visit, my long-suffering vet referred to her as ‘a real wax producer’ and agrees that this is simply her normal.

    1. I agree! Surely it won’t take long for her forever family to find her – she’s just so beautiful! But I think if they showed some of her pictures with the babies and how loving a mama she is, it would only make her more desirable!

      Wasn’t it Maggie’s folks who fell in love with her because she was a young mother?

      2. They actually chose Maggie because she’d been a young mother, and they had an older cat. They thought that having an older brother would give her the chance to be a kitten again, since she’d lost out on that with all her mothering.

        (I have to admit that before Maggie went off to Petsmart, I made Fred promise that if she didn’t get adopted quickly, we’d bring her back here. She was so amazing with the Spice Girls (as well as her own kittens) that I thought she’d be a great “staff” cat. I’m glad she ended up in a home where she didn’t have to work, though!)

  5. I couldn’t figure out why all of a sudden I was calling my cat “Monkey Face” (his nicknames change practically weekly). And after this post, I know. 😀

  6. Their faces have gotten rounder/fuller, also!
    Leia ::sigh:: soooo adorabuls…

    My youngest gets called, “Monkey Butt” for years, now. 🙂

  8. Love the bluebird pics. “Oh, how those babies love their mama.” It sure looks like Kate loves her babies too. I love that arm around her babies in the last two Kate pics.

    1. I second the arm around the baby showing the momma love. So sweet. She is such a good momma. But then again, aren’t they all? Robyn, have you ever had a momma who was not into it? Or maybe another at Challenger’s house? You hear about it in the wild but I think that is most likely situational and not that the momma was not a good momma.

      1. All of my mamas have been really good ones (for which I am very very grateful!), but I’ve heard of mothers who have abandoned their litter. I think that happens more often with very young, first-time mothers.

  9. I love how in the two-week photos, the tuxies are the only ones who appear to have complaints.

  10. I want to thank everyone who responded to my question about feline diabetes. You are all awesome! Everyone here is SO caring and kind. Tommy and his Mom and Dad and human brother went to the vet yesterday for their training on shots and monitoring. His Mom said she could tell he felt better last night after the shot. They are nervous right now, but armed with all your advice and encouragement, I am sure they will be just fine.

    Thank you again – you are the best!

    2. Ibby. I looked for a post here about Feline Diabetes but wasn`t coming up with anything. The folks at http://www.felinediabetes.com message board are amazing help. I trust them more than my vet when it comes to my cat’s diabetic health. They have so much experience and are very caring and will help you get over the hurdle of dealing with fd. My cat is borderline, but when diagnosed and I had to give insulin, the people on that board were my saviors. He was able to come off insulin after only a few weeks, and his change of diet has kept his blood glucose levels to that in the non-diabetic range. Whenever I feel concerned over Basil’s health, I check in with them and get right on it.

      🙂

      1. I also recommend the forums over at felinediabetes.com The collective knowledge of the group is amazing, and there is almost always someone online so if you ever need support, someone is there..

  11. Kate and the Royals are becoming more adorable day by day.

    Will those 20 Cuckoo Marans be eventually heading off to freezer camp too?

    1. It depends – we actually got them to add new blood to the flock, so the hens, at least, will be staying. The roosters will be headed off to Freezer Camp, but we might even keep one of those, depending on temperament.

  13. I think I have said this before but I look forward to your pics from around Crooked Acres all the time! And I do agree, I think that George and Gracie are the happiest animals there, (how do you have such green grass? Ours is brown and pathetic looking right now) I have decided that when I grow up, I want to have a place like yours, with the dogs, ducks, chickens and of course be a cat foster mom! How can anyone not be happy doing that? (and if I lived closer I would claim Leia right now)

    1. I don’t know how it is that the grass (though actually, it’s more weeds!) in the back forty is so green – I’m guessing that the wet winter combined with the mild temperatures we’ve had lately help.

    1. I always know that the girl duck is trapped in the maternity yard when I can see the males pacing back and forth by the fence! 🙂

  17. We had a very young, first time Mother years ago who tried to abandon all but her first born kitten. It turned out, she had hardly any milk; once we were able to get some puppy replacement formula (cat formula was unheard of in Ireland 17 years ago, at least in the countryside) got the kittens full and rubbed them against her, she took them back. We continued the extra feedings for all of them and she continued to nurse them, she probably had terrible mothering herself as she wasn’t always sure what to do (poor thing was probably 6 months old herself, that’s like a nine year old getting pregnant and giving birth about age 11 or 12).

    Her first-born, Mordred, just passed away last year and was always a huge cat; I don’t think it wasn’t that she didn’t want her other babies, just “knew” in that way that nature knows that she could only support one on her own.

    Another cat I knew as a child, always acted like a baby kitten even when grown, she as a barn kitty that belonged to a neighbor, the poor darling had litter after litter that she just left lying there looking confused. A couple of times I tried to hand raise the kittens but it was always too late, spaying was very expensive back then and my Mom just couldn’t afford it for a cat that was not ours (not to mention the old farmer might have gone after us). But she’s the only cat I’ve known like that, I’m pretty sure it was a case of true “cat retardation,” because of her other kitten-like qualities. Her body grew up, but her mind didn’t; she could hunt and she always still had her Mommy. I suspect if they’d given birth at the same time, her Mother would have tried to raise both litters, but that never seemed to happen.

    But again, Mother cats usually have reasons (to them) to abandon kittens; anything from terror that they are in mortal danger (let kittens die and live to try again) to just never growing up themselves and/or extreme youth and lack of parenting skills.

  18. Oh and illness can cause cats to reject kittens, Aurora pushed hers away (but they were six weeks old already) when her spaying went wonky and she was running a high fever. She did take them back when she pulled through, long enough to finish raising them for a few more weeks before she finally died from the complications. I was happy she reattached to her babies though, at least they all had each other for those crucial last few weeks when kittens still really need their Momma. I’ve been a kitten Momma, but cats do it better and the reason breeders don’t re-home kittens until they are 9 to 12 weeks of age, is because they really need that extra bonding time. Though some Mother Cats, especially former ferals and experienced Mothers push their kittens away at eight weeks; we call it “I never had kittens, I never made you” syndrome. This is because in the wild, they would about to have another litter and are simply making room…the cat doesn’t know she’s been spayed…

  19. Betcha girl duck 1 is laying her eggs in the maternity ward because she’s secretly hoping they’ll hatch and blend in with the chicks. Of course, she doesn’t seem to realize that they have to be sat on.. Maybe she thinks the chicks will attempt the job! Anyway, if you wind up with some odd looking ‘chicks’ you’ll know why.

    Those babies just keep getting cuter and cuter!

  20. That “HI MAMA!” pic is so much funnier if one imagines Kate is wincing and getting rudely awakened by that adorable little monkey-kitten mewing up a storm in her ears!

    Also, after-snack Kate looks like 1930s gangster-sneer Kate: “Youse guys better get them kibble sacks from Vinnie today if ya know what’s good for yas!”

  21. From the very start,Buttercup reminded me of a certain animal:

    1.A rare animal from far away,but it has made its rounds on the late night talk shows…

    2.It smells like…POPCORN!

    Anybody? A BEARCAT! Buttercup looks like a bearcat!

    I think its Buttercup’s whiskers that truly cement the look-a-like factor .

  23. Do you mean to imply that you have a feeder set up specifically for the squirrels? What does that look like, and how does it work?

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