Good Morning!

[Jaye]

Good morning. Yeah, @Killerbunny , give an idiot access to fireworks and there is no telling what they will get up to.
Canada day was quail hatch day for us. Bought a dozen supposed Italian quail hatching eggs and threw in a dozen of our own for good measure. Good thing too: all but one of the eleven that hatched yesterday were ours. We also threw in Sylvia's rejects (our broody not broody quail hen) but none of them hatched. At lockdown/ candling time, 9 out of the dozen I had bought were clear. Not impressed with the seller. When I let him know, his response was "sorry about that. I'm working on getting some new blood into my line." So, basically, "sorry, not sorry".
Anyway, we did have eleven lovely lively little quail chicks come into our lives, thanks for the most part to our existing flock of hens, so I'm happy about that. I'm hoping that the one bought egg that hatched will be an Italian female, because we already have a very nice Italian male. Still on the lookout for Italian or Manchurian quail breeders, so if anyone knows of any in the Ottawa area please let me know. Pics to follow, per PTO hatching rules

[Ontario Chick]

Looking forward to the pictures @Jaye , seem to have a resident wild turkey hen with a bunch of chicks a bit worried that Addy will not be able to control her inner Bird dog and bring me one of them soon....

@Killerbunny Perhaps setting up a target at the hayfield may discourage neighborly visits?

Interestingly enough just yesterday I have counted how many people I had to politely explain to that they are trespassing in MY backyard, it's 9 or 10 over 40 years..... still waiting to use my favorite line "OY, private property, bugger off....

Not sure if anybody remembers our adventures with our "wetland Neighbors" who built a $ 700 000 house in a designated wetland, City of Ottawa gave them building permit and MNR wouldn't let them put in a swimming pool.....
they tried to sue us, because they thought we were causing the wetland and they wanted us to take the water out.....had to hire a layer to convince them otherwise .......
well, turned out they didn't learn to love the wetland, the house is up for sale....

[WLLady]

@Ontario Chick oh, i remember that saga. I guess the mosquitos are too much for them? citiots....the whole lot. argh! we didn't have any fireworks out here. we have a quite large couple of reserves here, and with the residential school graves found we are all just a bit in shock/despair...not sure what to call it.....so in solidarity most people out this way did not observe canada day in the traditional way with fireworks.

I've caught a few trespassers out here over the years. can you believe it's been 15 years here on the farm now. incredible. and we're still loving it.

Lost one of my oldest ameraucana girls yesterday. she'd stopped laying a while ago, and was just looking tired this spring. guess old age finally got her. she was 8 years old. she was laying last fall, once in a blue moon. never started again this spring. pretty amazing for a little bird!

fighting squash borers like crazy right now. i think i might have lost one plant yesterday....it was all droopy...i had buried the base, but maybe no soon enough. oh well. there are 6 others in the garden, and i buried them post haste last night just in case. the bugs are insane. The paper wasps had built nests all along the back of my horse electric tape fencing...so yesterday i used a can of wasp spray and did them all in, but not after getting stung 3 times. jerks. they have NEVER built ON the tape before. and the horse sure didn't appreciate the bugs either. if she got too close grazing they'd sting her too. sigh. anyways, fence is retensioned and wasps dispatched.....And this weather is crazy too. we have had 6 inches of rain in the last 6 days. and more forecast today. and it's been super windy the last few days. we had popup storms 2 days ago that should have been warned and weren't. And yesterday apparently hamilton area got bad hail...lots of crop damage up that way. today we are going from no wind to 100km/hr gusts to no wind, to a gentle breeze to nothing to gusts again. it's super strange, so i wonder what kind of storms we'll have this afternoon.....

[Killerbunny]

@Ontario Chick does that mean the BBQ to do the fencing is off? Seems so long ago we were going to et ogether to do it!

[Ontario Chick]

@Killerbunny I think we will wait and see who buys it..........

[lolotsung]

@Ontario Chick for some reason your wetland story reminded me of this sketch. Please see attached. Our property is in a wetland according to the TRCA and we had difficulty convincing the TRCA that there is no WET land here. They agreed in the end. We are at the highest point in our area on top of a hill. Our well ran dry yesterday so no WET for at least 36 feet down confirmed! Country Life!

[WLLady]

Good afternoon everyone....another warm one out there. too warm. usually we don't get this weather until august. oh well, guess it's early this year. Everything is growing so fast with the heat and humidity. Spent some time cleaning up the spilled water mess from the ducks in the barn. yuck. don't need the flies breeding in it. have enough flies as is. I had collected a bunch of eggs i found in the hay, and they were in a bucket waiting on going to the composter. While i was shovelling up the mess it sounded like someone set off a firecracker (just one) in the barn....like a lid blowing off a container. couldn't figure it out....checked all the equipment, nothing leaking, gas was all up in the other shed, so not the lid blowing off one of those containers. so back to shovelling and it happened again....i finally figured out that the bucket of eggs were the cause! I chucked them (from a distance) into the composter and it was like a pile of handgrenades LOL. so funny. they were discards from nests and stuff. who knows how long they'd been in there.....haha. funny thing was they didn't smell, so it wasn't rot, just blowing up in the heat i guess from long gone bacteria? anyways, they can do that in the compost. better than in the barn! I need to finish shovelling out the litter from the hallway in the barn, but one step at a time, it's just too hot. Molly is standing in the stall fast asleep. Lots of fly spray, and i put up the fly traps again. at least we have a good breeze so everything is wide open to give some ventilation. I'm very glad there are no birds in the loft of the barn this year. it would simply be too hot up there for them.
Had another swarm with the same hive that swarmed before. this hive has been obnoxious this year. So yesterday we went through the hive and actually had 2 queens hatch while we were in the hive! it was pretty cool to see. hopefully we have it under control for the next couple of weeks. we did catch the swarm and get it established, as hive 5 (only 3 more than we wanted lol). but DH got stung on the nose....and somehow, amazingly no swelling and it's perfectly fine. i get stung by 3 wasps working on the fence and my arm swells to my elbow....for 3 days! argh! but yeah, honeybee stings are nothing like paperwasp stings, so.....i don't seem to react to honeybees as much. Hopefully we can let everyone be for 2 weeks now so they can just go and be bees and pollinate my garden. honestly chickens, ducks, turkeys are all way way easier than bees. lol

[Killerbunny]

And on the subject of stings we've had a nasty incdent with one of the turkey poults. Little guy hatched Tuesday and I like to give them time on grass asap weather permitting. Saturday pm I put them out and sat down with them A few minutes in one of them went crazy scratching at his face then went wobbly and limp. Grabbed them up and found a tiny stinging something (don't know what) on his face near his eye right on sinus cavity. Could only see it with a loupe and I got it off. I put Visine Allergy on the wound and in his eye which meant he swallowed some. Carried him around for a while wrapped up. Seems like he was in shock with his heart going crazy. He seemed to sleep a bit so anothr dose of allergy stuff. By evening he was walking a little. Seemed to be improving but he now ha an infection around his eye and sinus area we are treating with Polysporin eye drops. Not sure this is going to end well but he is getting around OK. We'll see. No idea if it was a wasp, ant or spider.
Now Miss Tweeps the turkey has decided she wants babies! She quit after 2 weeks last time. Daft bird. I have a nice maternity coop ready for her but I don't like them sitting in heat.

[WLLady]

well, it's almost warm enough here that they don't have to sit....lol.
Did you give him some benadryl (diphenhydramine)? it sounds like he went into shock....especially if his heart rate was really fast.
Hopefully the polysporin will take care of the infection. If he's having a focal reaction (can look like infection) then an antiinflammatory like aspirin can help too. (i should know, i have large focal reactions to vespids every single flippin' time). hopefully he feels better soon!

[Killerbunny]

I gave him pheniramine maleate. He's very tiny (60g) so I don't know how much aspirin I'd give?