Deflating Demelza

Demelza walked in Tuesday night with a swollen rear end. By the next morning she also had huge saddlebags on her thighs so off to the vet she went. Doug "deflated" her by putting an incision in the base of her tail and she leaked fluid from this for three days. This was full of glucose but strangely enough her blood glucose was normal. He sent bloods away and these showed up that both her small and large proteins are very low. However she is still eating and perky which he feels rules out kidney, heart or liver problems. She has no bare of itchy patches so no allergy either. Which leaves the gut so it looks like she may have ingested something toxic. If she loses her appetite, gets diarrhea or swells up again then she has to be hospitalized for a biopsy.

Quakes and Ancient Hens

After all my excitement about the rabbit cages I fell back to earth when friend John went to check them out and discovered the cage I saw was the only good one. All the rest were battery hen cages (small) and mostly rusted. However yesterday he drove out with the one good cage and two others that I had stored at his place.

It had already been a bit of a traumatic morning as one of my white hens had died. I can't remember which clutch she came from but she was aged between nine and eleven years old. Pretty good life span for a laying hen (not that she has laid many eggs recently). She was only a bit wobbly for one day and died in her sleep. As the mornings are light by 6.30am these days I had her buried by 7am. The majority of my hens are now geriatric ranging up to Peanut (a game fowl cross) who is the great grandmother of them all at twelve. Her daughter Suki is eleven and her granddaughters are all around eight or nine. Most are still laying but I am going to have to think about bringing in new stock at some point. My landlord's partner is raising Plymouth Rock poultry at the moment. Can't see them but can hear the roosters in the morning.

Had three smallish earthquakes late Sunday afternoon- the largest measured 3.7 on the Richter scale. Just a jolt each time, no shaking at all. Apparently they were centered at Hastings which is just twenty minutes away from here. At the moment we're waiting for a cold snap to travel up from the South Island. Just winter's last fling before the warmer weather arrives (she says hopefully).

Chocolate

We're in the midst of another cold snap at the moment so too chilly to do more than essentials outside. I have lots of work to do out in the sheds which is frustrating. Also Chocolate who lives in a hutch on the lawn needs some maintenance. She is such a hardy rabbit and seems to thrive in the outside environment although I think she misses her brother Snowflake who died of RCD/RHD (calicivirus) right beside her last year. She is very small even for an English angora but apparently, according to her previous owners who brought her up here, both her parents were rexes. For some reason two angoras were thrown in the litter although the other one died. You can definitely tell there is crossbreeding in the background as her coat is just rubbish but she has such an adorable face you forgive her anything.

Angel Flown and Thumb Update

Angel has gone walkabout again (early this year as she usually waits until September until she begins disappearing. When she's here she tends to take over the cottage. She's either asleep on a chair you want to use, sitting in front of where you want to walk or else sitting (or cleaning her rear end) on your drawing board where you want to work.

My thumb is slowly recovering from being eaten nearly two weeks ago. The skin has grown in and filled in the hole but the bite marks are still visible and painful so I am still bandaged up. Muggles is back to hopping round and helping himself to toast crusts at breakfast but now I throw them on the floor rather than risk feeding him by hand. I definitely want to keep the rest of my fingers attached.

Piper Poses

Piper has good days and bad days with her cardiomyopathy. A good day she'll get up early and eat all her breakfast, she'll supervise me when I'm outside working and plays with the water coming out of the hose when I'm filling up bottles for the rabbits. A bad day I have to wake her up, she doesn't want to eat and it takes her all morning to come right. I don't know why this is as she regularly has her heart medication (twice a day).


Recently I had a film developed and discovered I'd taken quite a few photos of Piper (before I knew she was so ill). Here she is posing in my bedroom window which is the first room to get some sun in the morning in the winter. As you can see it gets so damp here even the windows cry.




This is the reason I often can't sit in my armchair- no room! Piper is sharing with Peaches and Gypsy. In the evening the young cats take over while Pipe lies at the base of the chair so she can get the full benefit of the heater.