It was a pretty quiet day today. The vet got back to us late last night with the findings on Judith the Australorp's necropsy. She was not egg bound after all, but had an infection of some sort, which appeared to be bacterial. As a precaution, we began treating the whole flock with Tetracycline dissolved in their water. The treatment will last for a week, and began last night. As a food purist and organic farmer, I do not believe in using antibiotics or any other pharmaceuticals, pesticides or other chemicals willy-nilly. But, as we can't be 100% sure what the culprit is here, we are hedging our bets slightly and treating the whole flock prophylactically, lest we lose them all.
In addition to using medicines on my animals that I'd rather not, this treatment prescribed by our vet has an additional downside - its effect on the eggs. All of the eggs laid while the flock are on antibiotics are considered unfit for consumption. Therefore, we have to throw approximately 7-10 dozen eggs away during the medicated time frame, and for a few days following the treatment.
We're considering our options here, since, for one thing, that is a LOT of eggs to dispose of. If we were to throw them all in the compost pile, we'd almost certainly bring a hoard of raccoons, foxes and opossums to our doorstep. No thanks!
Maybe we could/should bury them then?
The other options we are entertaining/researching, are hatching them out, or saving them for making Pysanky, Ukrainian Easter eggs.
We'll have to decide soon, because chicken ovaries wait for no man. Or woman. They are hardcore like that.
Goat Milk, 1/2 gallon (64 ounces)
Eggs - None collected
Tomatoes - 8 ounces
Bachelor Buttons - A few cups of flowers for dehydrating. The don't really have a fragrance, but they are beautiful, even when dried.
We also weighed Bill's parmesan, which is now 6 days old, just to track the weight loss that occurs as it dries. Today it was 1 lb, 7 ounces.
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