Babies and More!

 My cousin and his crew started work on the island in the middle of the lawn, and redoing the retaining wall out front. This was yesterday-they have much of the wall for the new raised bed done, as of today. 

 

 One of my does, Hannah, had a litter of babies last week. When I first checked them, it looked like I had 4 solid gray like the sire, and three brokens. The other day I took a closer look and I actually have 2 chocolate, 1 black and 1 gray! These are the first chocolate ones born here, and were totally unexpected! I plan to keep one if it passes my requirements otherwise.

 Coastal had fall chicks, and they were all specialty breeds, so Mom and I got some. I got some more Lavender Orpingtons(they are supposed to be pullets, so have a better chance than with the unsexed ones I got this spring that turned out to be 1 hen and 4 roosters), and Mom got some Sapphire Gems and Crested Polish. The single duckling was one of two that a hen hatched, and one died when I forgot to turn the heat lamp on one night. 

I butchered a few old hens and extra roosters a few weeks ago, and Brittany and I did about 20 ducks yesterday. 

 The kittens are 4 weeks old now, and starting to be fun and cute. I took them over to the lawn for a photo shoot yesterday. 

I haven't named the kittens as I will only be keeping one, but there are a few that have some sort of call name.

This one is Mike Mulligan. I didn't get a good picture of it, but his black markings on his back, over top of his ribcage, look like a pair of lungs-Mike Mulligan is the name of the surgeon who preformed Brandie's lung transplant surgery. 

Nothing for this one, but he is the biggest and fluffiest of the litter.

 

The one on the right is a female. 

  

This one is called "Moosestachio"-Marcus tried calling him Hitler, but I don't like that name! 

 

Look who's back!! We had a couple setbacks and the whole healing process took longer than I had hoped, but now she's all healed up and raring to go! 

I love how good she is with other animals! Kate was always super aggressive towards everything, and often inflicted injury to unsuspecting critters. 

She wasn't 100% sure about these kittens, but was comfortable enough to hang around and put up with them-for a time, and then she'd get too excited and have to launch away to do a few laps around the lawn to calm down. 

This is the kitten I plan to keep. It is a female, and I'm still working on a name for it. I have a name idea that keeps coming back, but it seems to me like it's more for a husky, solid kitten, not a dainty little thing like this one is. 

Pippa cut up her shoulder last week and had to get a few stitches. She probably would have been fine without stitches if I'd been able to bandage it, but without a bandage it would have been sure to get filled up with fly larva. She earned a lot of points on that vet visit-she is a dam raised kid and fairly wild, but when she was on the exam table getting stitched, she made no noise and didn't move a hoof once, much less fight. Temperament is so much more than tame-it is a goat that can accept the strange things that humans will do to them throughout their life without an undue fuss every time.

That said, after her first shot of Penicillin, she didn't want caught anymore. I chased her into an alleyway and caught her once, and then got Jinger out for the next two injections. She was so focused on Jinger she didn't care much about me anymore, and was simple to catch.