Visitation

Today, the small leg bands arrived. After chores and dinner, Wyatt went to begin catching the outside chicks while I worked in the greenhouse. They proved to be quite tough to catch.

Before I know it, Wyatt was coming toward me with a tiny baby in one hand. I reminded him they were tiny, and we should focus on the larger chicks first. I leaned over to inspect the little baby, maybe 2 days old. She must be from the doe barn Mama, but one eye was closed. I asked why her eye was closed, and Wyatt said she had gotten into the big pen, where a Buff Orpington had gone after her.

I sent Wyatt in to dip her beak in water, and see if she could adjust with the others in the trough. A few moments later, as I was trading watering cans, he returned, baby in hand.

“Did she drink?”

“She gulped it down.”

“Then why didn’t you let her recover in the trough?”

“They were ganging up on her.” He sat down and cuddled the little baby and talked to her softly. Anybody that saw this sweet, protective side of Wyatt would never guess he was such a tough lineman.

I sent him back in to reinstall the divider and put one or both of the little babies who came in injured the other night with her, out of the way of the bigger chicks. On my way through the house, I checked in on the injured baby. By that time, any friends who had been with her had switch over to where the bigger chicks were.

Each time I passed by the trough, I looked in. One, both, or none of the other little ones have popped in, moving back and forth from across the divider. There is just enough space for the little one to join the others if she wants, and for the larger ones to get used to her. Maybe the chance at visitation and familiarity will let them all settle in. I have to keep trusting them, but protecting the little one.

Oh, we did finally catch some of the older chicks- the ones from fair. But when we put the first leg band on, and went to take her photo for the project, the leg band fell right off. Oops, time to reorder.

These are the three littlest this mornng in the trough.  The one who came in last night is on the right.  Silly Doyle is on the lef, and the one we were so worried about over the weekend is in the center.

A little update, she was holding her own last night as I was up late finishing grading. This morning she is a little slower than the rest, but getting along fine in the trough. Looks like this might even work out.

Trusting in Love and Friendship for Healing

It has been a tough year around our farm. The vet knows us well- ugh, and as fun and rewarding as county fair was, the intense workload left us exhausted. When we left for the fair, we already 15 baby chickens, six even went along with their Mama as a display during 4H week.

When we returned from fair, Grandma was still with us, looking after auntie’s doctor appointments, and Daddy left town the day after we went home. When the children, Grandma and I came home from town on Monday afternoon, we began unloading the car and dividing the chores. As I unloaded my arms inside, Wyatt came running to me to say, “Mama, didn’t you notice?”

As any Mama living in a state of perpetual exhaustion knows- nope, I had no clue what I had missed on my way in the door. Wyatt led me back out to a Mama with several babies sitting at the base of the Ocotillo just off the front porch steps. We all marveled at yet another bunch of babies, as my mind tallied that the baby count was now into the twenties. Wyatt set about food and water, and egg collection for the evening, as Bailey headed out to the goaties and I unloaded the car.

I wandered out to do the walk around, and noticed a couple of the babies had been separated from the Mama, falling into a tire. By the time I found the other Mama who had gone to fair, I had collected four babies. Over the course of the next hour, we continually gave the babies back to their Mama. We even tried to readjust two with the Mama from fair, who had taken over a different baby who had been abandoned. These new babies must have been too little to keep up, this hadn’t worked either.

Wyatt then set about to find the Mama again, who had hatched her babies in a nest situated under the smallest step to the front porch. He crawled under the deck, and found more lost babies. After another hour, we realized it wasn’t working. Wyatt left the two remaining eggs to the Mama, and we gathered the other babies in a trough with bedding and grabbed the warming lights and headed for the house.

The following day (Tuesday), the remaining babies would hatch. They, too, seemed to be too much for the Mama and joined the babies in the house. Boy was Daddy going to be happy to have them greet him after the TDY!

Fast forward a couple weeks. Saturday afternoon, some new babies were discovered who had hatched in a corner behind the doe barn. When Bailey found them, two were hung up. She called in Wyatt, as the hens don’t tolerate anyone else touching their babies. I was in the house working as the injured babies came in, shivering and scared. I found a notebook to section off an end of the trough. Between hand holding and feeding, they seemed to perk up, but whenever we put them down, one seemed to hide in a corner and only sleep. The other would cuddle it, then shove aside and sneak around the divider to the larger poults on the other side.

I was so worried the little ones would get hurt. I kept separating them, the older babies are already escaping their trough, sleeping on the edge, and running between bouts of stretching their young wings. But the one Wyatt called Doyle wanted to play, and the little one seemed lonely. And then the older chicks began to pile up on their side of the divider, beak to beak with the struggling chick.

Finally, I gave up and removed the divider while I was working on dinner. I was there, and could stop things if I needed to. Little Doyle got up and ran to her new friends. And the smaller one perked up.

Then an older chick spread her wings, and gathered the two new hatchlings with her to eat, then take a nap near the lights. She and a friend kept looking after the tiny ones. As evening drew on, the weak one began to run and hop like Doyle. Wyatt sat and held each of the babies in turn, with the two tiny one and their friend together.

I took a chance and let them stay together over night.

This morning, more of the older ones had snuck out, were playing under the trough. Remington took me to gather them before demanding breakfast, pointing them out and giving me that “Good grief, Mama” look, before gathering the other dogs to meet by their bowls. The tiny babies were holding their own- both of them.

I hadn’t been too sure about any of it, but I did trust the instincts of the older chicks- and it was right. They love one another like little siblings, the siblings they are. The friends they are. Score one for letting trust and love lead the way.

A little reminder about Communication

We are on our way home from Oracle, and the Triangle Y YMCA Camp. This month, in Arizona, is the Month of the Military Child. Today was a partnership event where the youth do fun activities aimed at building teamwork, leadership and cooperation, and the whole family saw demonstrations and went through a room with available resources.


We learned about ACT and SAT prep available from Military One Source. We learned about some short camps coming up locally, and listened to the Army military youth of the year talk about volunteerism and staying positive and on goal. The afternoon LRC (leadership reaction course) was for the kids, but we parents were invited to follow along. It was proctored by the drug and gang task force members of the local military. There were seven different stations, including the carpet walk across the hot lava with the goblin stealing the carpets, a BDU relay, a challenge of using wood planks to get youth across an imaginary pond of water between concrete pylons, and more. Each task was designed to highlight a leadership skill or quality, an when they broke each skill down afterward to what worked and what didn’t, they related the youth back to the adaptations of life when their military family member deploys or returns.

There was one challenge with plastic pieces and a marble. The man in charge asked for a leader, and by now Wyatt knew to volunteer fast. They were to create an aqueduct of sorts to get the marble from the start area to the bucket several feet away. The man in charge said there needed to me more people (the group ours were in had two sets of two siblings), and had the mothers join in. I later found out why. We took several tries, though had a hard time communicating what changes needed to be made in order to improve our outcomes. Had we had one more try, I think we could have adjusted enough to complete the task. In the after breakdown, the man in charge asked what skill they were supposed to be working on- the kids figured out about communication pretty quickly.

The man in charge set about to remind the youth about how important communication is among the family members when hey family member leaves or returns. He had them talk about the roles they take on when their father is gone, and how they have to communicate with both their parents as well as their siblings before, during and after deployment. Then he set about to very pointedly remind the moms he had recruited that it is also our duty to lead by example in the communication structure and not leave out our husbands when they return or make them feel less a part of the family structure. It was VERY pointed. Kind of hit home, too.

As we all climbed the steps up to the main area where the youth would build a puzzle from the pieces collected as reward for completing tasks, I mentioned it to Charlie, and how pointed it was. He said he hoped I learned it. It was odd to hear from this man I didn’t know. I often read about how military wives feel frustrated and alone, and are tired of having to be strong, smile, and never have a day off. I often wonder why, if we all go through the same feelings, we are still in this place. It was kind of funny to hear that so many of the husbands all feel left out when they come home, too.

Just food for thought that led me to this blog piece. Hope you remember to take the time to communicate with and appreciate those around you.