Her nest where she has spent the last six weeks nurturing and turning her lovely eggs was empty with some telltale signs of hatched chicks and two that were not as fortunate. And here she is!
Okay, I see one baby chick, I know there are more...
Five chicks! Aren't they cute? It looks like those two in front of her may be quarreling and she is breaking it up, doesn't it?
Okay, enough of my parade about the new additions to our household. Good grief, what will I be like when I'm an actual grandmother of humans?!
Well, yesterday, DD19 came out to the house and she was petting our lovely dog, Cooper, who by the way is no longer limping. She petted a lump. What kind of lump? The kind that grows and swells with blood. Disgusting! It is going to be a tick year for sure. This is his third tick and it is only mid-June. After the first two, I put that flea and tick medicine on his back that is supposed to spread out on his body and repel ticks. Apparently it doesn't spread to the face. Here you can see it on his jowl. It's as big as my thumbnail!
DH is braving holding the tweezers and pulling the thing off.
Cooper is not too sure about all of this.
There it is...
what darling baby chicks you have!!! oh, poor cooper...those ticks are awful. my two dogs have been just eaten up with the ticks this year and so have i and hubby. we have not had problems with ticks, chiggers, or fleas in a lotta years until this spring...just going out to the garden or to the mailbox and sure enough, there is one or two crawling up the arm or leg. seems the ticks love to latch onto my dogs ears best and thankfully they have short hair so at least we can find the tick pretty easily. we dont use that stuff that you apply to their backs either..nor do we use flea and tick collars or powders. too many allergies to that stuff and they never seem to work either.
ReplyDeleteThe tick repellent didn't seem to work for Cooper either. It's not a pleasant task, but we may just have to pull them off as the show up. I don't know that these chemicals available to us help us more or hurt us in the long run. Luckily, we haven't had any on us (yet, knock, knock), but boy they sure aren't pleasant and they creep me out! I hope they aren't too much of a nuisance for you. Do you just pull them off, or how do you deal with them?
Deleteyes, we just take the tweezer and pull them off...put them into an old ashtray and burn them...sometimes, if the get in deep, they will cause itching so i have a spray with antibacterial/antibiotic that we doctor the spot with...we have to be very careful with the bug bites and stings..my older dog miss daisy is quite allergic to bug bites, esp. fleas. and of course we live out in the country surrounded by woods..i am not near as squeamish as i once was! :)
DeleteWhen I lived in Virginia 6 years ago, we had a really bad tick problem. The only way we got rid of them was to have a commercial bug company come out. The ticks were just everywhere in the woods, surrounding properties. Spray one home/farm, they would die or jump to the other. My mom even ended up with Lyme disease and in the emergency room.
ReplyDeleteSandy,
ReplyDeleteIt just seems like feast or famine when it comes to insects. I have noticed we have a ton of yellow jackets and wasps as well. I am sorry to hear about your mom. I hope she has not been too adversely affected. I know Lyme disease is not pleasant to have at all.
I hate ticks...using the word hate here...my father once bought a flock of ducks only because they love to eat ticks.
ReplyDelete:) Did the ducks to the job they were supposed to?
DeleteYikes! That is one big tick. I guess putting the tick repellant on his back didn’t cause it to spread as far as his face. You could do it from the middle, or put some on the back and then on the front part, maybe the neck or somewhere close. Poor guy. That must’ve really hurt coming out.
ReplyDeleteMaurise