I take Gutsy9 outside as often as I can but I can’t leave him alone because he’s nervous of the bigger birds.
This is King and Princess 1 wondering if Gutsy9 is theirs, but not willing to get too close.
Gutsy9 scurries back to me all the time!
Parkinson’s paradoxes
When most people hear the term ‘Parkinson’s Disease’, they tend to think of Michael J Fox and the Parkinson’s that make you shake, move haphazardly or suffer debilitating tremors. Anthony’s type of PD is not like that and is often termed ‘Parkinsonism’. His symptoms have included a dramatic loss of movement. In many ways this is a kinder PD because of the lack of tremors but on the other hand the crippling immobility of brain/body has been a long, slow series of gradual shocks. First his hands couldn’t do things like open a jar of vegemite, steer a car, operate a chainsaw; then his face stopped ‘working’ in the sense that he no longer smiled and he stopped blinking, so that his eyes took on a blank look. I have already written about some of these things in previous posts so I won’t repeat myself.
One of the most noticeable things about Anthony’s PD is his stillness. Before the nursing lodge he would sit for hours on the front verandah in complete stillness. Sometimes he would be so still that the blue wrens would alight on his lap not realizing he was a human. Sometimes he would be so still I would think he’d died. Sometimes he would be so still he would drop his cup of tea.
Well, today I took Gutsy9, the baby peacock, in again to see Ants at the nursing lodge and guess who loved Anthony’s stillness?
Rejection rescue
Peahen 4: What is that noisy thing?
Princess 2: It’s definitely not mine!
Gutsy9: MUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Argh!
Okay, Gutsy9 is now around 4 days old. I have taken him outside to meet his potential mothers but none of them will take responsibility. They just look at him as if he is an alien and he keeps running back to me anyway. I will keep trying but obviously he will need to get a bit older before he is re-integrated.
In the meantime he is living on my shoulder. I love it!
Control crying
Gutsy-9, the baby peacock, is now about 72 hours old. He has begun to cry, and I mean CRY, if he is separated from me. His crying is like the beautiful sound of birds chirping and tweeting – multiplied by a million, which makes it not so beautiful.
If I put him on the floor he looks at me as if to say how could you abandon me like this?
Control crying methods will be helpful tonight.
One of our turkeys got mauled
Bubble (on the left) and Baby Turkey (on the right) are our two turkeys. They are our pets, not our Christmas dinner. Anyway, I got home the other day to find Ming had left me a note to say BT was in trouble so I went out and found BT’s feather’s everywhere so I assumed he’d been killed. Bubble and I looked everywhere and (just in case you don’t think birds grieve) I have never seen Bubble so distraught. He kept twitching and looking to the left and right constantly. He couldn’t fluff himself up into his usual showoffy pose and he was frantic but in the end I couldn’t find BT and was about to give up until I saw him. He was staggering around in the adjacent paddock, his back raw with wounds so, as soon as Ming got home from milking, I told him BT needed to be put down because I couldn’t stand to see him suffering. But Ming rallied him and put him into the pen with water and grain where BT ate, drank and walked around. I had a closer look at his wounds and realized that, apart from all of his back feathers being torn out, his wounds were fairly superficial.
Not sure if a fox did this or one of our dogs (who usually leave the turkeys alone).
Long story short, BT is now at the local vet’s and on antibiotics and is recovering well.
And the irony? I will be buying a frozen turkey for Christmas lunch that will cost a hell of a lot less than keeping Baby Turkey alive at the vet’s.
‘Gutsy’
Ming-who-is-not-interested-in-birds has decided to re-name 9, Gutsy.
I can see his point!
Gutsy-9 will not leave my shoulder!
A chick called 9
I got home from seeing Ants and went out to feed, and commune with, the birds and whammo! Some tiny scurrying thing caught my eye – a chick! All by itself! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I sat at my picnic table watching it for awhile to see whose chick it was but, despite a lot of interest from the gang and the chooks and peafowl and the guinneas, not one of them came to the party, so I had to catch it (sounds easy but it took about 9 hours!)
So here he/she is, in Ming’s hands. We have no idea what kind of chick this is, but it might be a peachick!
And its name?
9!
We have now cosied 9 into a box with some straw, water and crumbles but 9 is already addicted to cuddles.
I wonder what 9 is!
Godfrey becomes godly
Godfrey: I’m sorry I bit you yesterday, Julie.
Me: No you’re not!
Godfrey: Yes I AM!
Me: No you’re NOT!
Godfrey: I think you are jealous of me, Julie – face it!
Me: Godsy, it is the other way around! I love the gang as much as you do but, and I hate to break this to you, they love me much more than they love you.
Godfrey: But why?
Me: Well, you scare them. You are so overbearing and bossy and your habit of biting the hand that feeds you is not fashionable anymore.
Godfrey: Oh I think I am going to cry, Julie.
Me: Let yourself, Godsy, and try to remember how we began….
Godfrey: I’m so sorry, Julie.
Me: Good!
jmgoyder 