oh what a night!

did you get that storm last night? i could almost hear my grass saying aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

iffy quail had been to the vet on Friday, nothing positive to say sadly, she could find no apparent reason for the paralysis which had spead down one side, and gave me the 'it may be kinder...' speech. i asked if there was any hope, always hope she reassured me. i decided to take the weekend to decide. she was in a hospital cage in our aviary porch, i was feeding her softened chick crumbs every few hours and dribbling water into her beak with a dropper but no change. when i went out at 6 this morning she was dead. its so sad but it was her decision not mine or the vets, i gave her the best chance.

it leaves me with a bit of a dilemma though. my ratios were perfect, one cock and 5 hens in the upstairs run, the same downstairs. but iffy has gone now and so has hannah montana, and to top it off, one of our beautiful hens with a perfect string of pearls crowed yesterday revealing herself as a boy. so its 2 cocks to 4 hens upstairs and one cock to 3 hens downstairs. i need 5 more hens to bring the ratio up to 1 and 4. i clearly need to rethink the living quarters and talk the beardy one into building me something bigger. all i wanterd was a few cute birds, why does it have to be so stressful?

i think i can finally hear movement upstairs but it would probably be too much to expect all of them to accompany me to church this morning, one or two might we will see.