A mixed bag

Well today has been a day of ups and downs.  The biggest news I think is that we now have two fewer kittens.  When Annie and I moved in there were two or three cats ready to drop litters around the place.  Now they have done that, and there is a glut of kittens (Rupert Nigel Giles, usually just called Rupert, is one of those).  This morning we caught two of them in a havahart trap, and I carried them off to the pound.  That in and of itself was a mixed bag.  We've known we need to do something about these kittens for a while, but have had a hard time catching them - even now, it took two of them at the same time to set off the trap.  Still, for the good of all, I think we need to lower our cat population, as well as getting the mothers spayed (and now Rupert neutered).  So that was a victory to catch them, but it was a little sad, because bad things may happen to them at the pound.

Most of our new chickens are doing well.  Sadly one of the smaller chicks seems to be having some sort of problem.  We are not 100% sure of the nature, but it seems to be a foot problem.  We are trying to keep it near the water and food, and I guess will hope that it heals - unless it obviously turns worse, in which case we'll have to balance the expense of vet fees with our distaste for mercy killing.  These are the sorts of decisions that make farm life (if that is really what we're up to) difficult.  Knowledge and experience will hopefully eventually make these sorts of decisions at least more clear cut, if not more pleasant to make.

We are also in the decision making process for determining which roosters to, um, how to put this delicately, slaughter this coming weekend.  If we post pictures, don't worry they will not be directly on the blog and they will bare big red labels "warning lark's vomit," I mean "not for sensitive viewers."

Guess that is all for today.

Jeff