Scaly Leg Mite - after second treatment. Plus Peepers - Day 4

Sunshine is a handsome bird, and she knows it. She is bossy and demanding. She can fly high and is a expert at chicken ballet.

Since the big chooks showed such progress after one application of vaseline to combat their scaly leg mites, I gave them another treatment last night (two nights after their first treatment). Here are some photos showing the progress. Sparrow especially is looking lots better. Both of them continue to lay their eggs happily.

Ballerinas need good legs, eh Sunshine.

Sparrow contests Sunshine's title of lead ballerina. Naturally. (Sunshine has the bossy-pants-ness to be top of the pecking order. Except for the small detail which is Sparrows enormous size! Lol!)

Now there is a beautiful chicken!

And here are Sparrow the chickens feet 1 day after her second vaseline treatment for scaly leg mites. You can see clean skin coming through yay!

Because it's not often that I am down below chicken-level, I didn't know that Sparrow had this featherless patch on her breast. (Looks like it's been rubbed on the 30cm lip of the chook run, I will have to make it easier for her to jump in and out, perhaps with a ramp?) It doesn't appear to be bothering her and she's not pecking at it, it's not bleeding or infected or anything nasty like that so I will keep an eye on it for now.

The Peepers don't care how many photos I take anymore. They are not frightened by the clicking of the camera anymore.

They are, however, quite frightened of Sunshine. She's worked out that there is food on the ground just inside the peepers hutch, and that she can fit her head through the mesh. I don't think she cares about the peepers one way or the other at the moment.

Barbara hunting for tasty treats. The peepers are no longer so afraid of me, and they definitely know not to be afraid of the blue food shovel!

Dred Rock (nicknames maybe: Rocky? Rockabilly?)

Barbara:

Manu. I swear she gets bigger every day. You can literally see them growing.

They got tired from all the photo-shoot business, and settled in for a cosy nap:

All tucked in for their afternoon siesta. Baby chicks sleep a lot it seems. Too cute!

Sunshine, once again, does not like to be outdone. On cuteness or anything else. Here she is posing with a wild blackbird at the bird (cat) bath and chook (cat) drinking station:

Peepers - Day 2

Day 2 and the Peepers are getting a bit braver. The wooden step down to the grass of their hutch no longer terrifies them quite so much (they fell off a bit to start with).

 They huddle together and move almost as one organism, or at least on brain!

Chomper comes to meet the chicks. He didn't try to attack, just sniffed...

... and decided that since they were in his hutch, they must belong to him!

Chomsky and Sunshine come to an agreement over ownership of the hutch and it's fascinating occupants.

This elegant stretching is what I call chicken ballet.

Barbara is the smallest, she's a Rhode Island Red and I suspect she may only be 4 or 5 weeks old.

The water dish has been replaced with a sturdier version, complete with beach-rocks from Wai-iti to weight it down so they can't tip it over.

Dred Rock and Barbara share a beak of water.

Sunshine comes over to see what all the noise and peeping is about. You can see how little they are.

 We are tall! This is Manu stretching up to get a tasty sandfly.

Manu and Dred Rock both have a lot more plummage than Barbara. Although none have many feathers on their back.

Gorgeous chickie.

Lots of photos and video today.

Bye!