I have torts all over the place! Yay! There's currently 7 torts in 3 litters.
Tuesday, Flashdance x Whiskey Mac had 1 black and 2 torts. 1 is broken with good pattern.
Thursday, Lady Blaque x Whiskey Mac had 1 charlie-marked black and 3 torts. I think 1 of those is broken, too. I say think because it's hard to tell on light colored torts for a few days.
Cool! It's so good to see something besides black, and I'm especially pleased to get broken tort in a 1st generation. That was my goal in bringing in the Shadowland torts...broken torts. And I've now proven 3 of my does to carry non-extension.
Now I have a problem. I don't think Flashdance has any milk. She spends a lot of time in the box with her kits but it doesn't look like they are fed. I'm going to have to mark them so I can give them to L. Blaque. Won't be able to tell the torts apart otherwise. Have to do that today or I'll lose them. Poor things are so thin.
Got the 2 himi sr does bred to the loaner himi buck this week. I look forward to how that turns out. He's very nice with the great head that I need. He's housed next to Messenger who now looks very plain in comparison. Actually, I knew Messenger lacked in the head, it's just more noticeable now.
The older litters are doing well at 5 weeks and still looking promising. I love love love the broken blacks from Dreamcatcher x Whiskey Mac! The torts from Chevelle x Mac look good, too. I haven't sexed for sure yet, but I'm pretty sure one of the torts is a doe.
I have to check, I think there's a couple does due near the end of the month.
In other news:
Guinea eggs! I didn't expect to find them this early in the year. Actually, Tanner found them. I yelled at him for digging at something in the back garden. When I had to yell again, I went out to see what he was doing there. He was eating eggs!!! There were 4 intact eggs and I don't know how many broken ones. Since I hadn't missed a hen, I think she abandoned the nest right after laying. Probably because Tanner bothered her. That's one way I discover a nest is when I don't see the hen, but a male is hanging nearby. I just threw those eggs away. We've had so much rain the nest was a hole made of cold mud, and the hen wasn't setting so I doubt they're viable to try hatching. Last year, the 1st clutch wasn't fertile.
As soon as I get the Summer House rearranged for poultry, I'm going to start confining the hens in there. I think I still have 2 hens in the 4 that are left. I've caught them mating more than once recently, and I think they laid about 30 days after mating according to my memory of last year. So yeah, got to get on that.
Got a heckuva deal at TSC yesterday! They mailed a coupon for $10 off a $30 purchase. No kidding...only had to spend $30 to use it! You don't see that very often. 100 lbs of Manna Pro doesn't come to that much, so I had to buy something else. What should it be? I could've got another bag of MP, but don't need to store more than 2 bags at a time. I went with a bag of black oil sunflower seed which I needed anyways for the wild birds and guineas, and another rubber water bowl for the animals.
These rugged rubber bowls are great in the yard. They won't crack when they freeze. During winter, I set them where they catch as much sun as possible. The black rubber collects solar heat and melts ice faster. For the warm months, I move them to a shady spot.
Ugh! Way too much rain! There's flooding everywhere, the bottom of my yard (the "driveway") is covered in water. I went out yesterday, and the creeks are high and fast and muddy from all the run-off. It's supposed to be clear and dry for most of the next week. I'll need at least 3 weeks of no or minimal rain to dry up the standing water and mud here.
Oh yeah, and my lovely white collie isn't so white right now. I'm hoping he's as fastidious as Whipper about licking his feet clean.
8 days until Spring!
tnt
