Picture dump

I feel like I'm more tired than I ought to be. Every day, it seems like, I am planning to NOT go anywhere and just do the stuff I want to do around the home and farm, and every day I have to go somewhere for some reason. I really hate it. It's funny though, because I never used to be such a homebody. Something about having your own home?

I have written a whole lot of blog posts over the past several days, all in my head, while working. None of them made it here. Right now, of course, I have no blog post in my head, so I am going to dump a bunch of photos on you. Okay?

Tavi, for whatever reason, loves lying in Percival's crate and playing with his chewing bone.

Finished coop door, before being hung or painted. I'll have to go get more pics of it now.

Happy Face showing off our chicks in their tractor. The nesting boxes are on top; both the chicks and the nesting boxes are in the coop now. The tractor and nesting boxes were given to me by a dear lady who was excited about helping me get started with chickens.

Inside the coop. I have now added several roosts.

One day's harvest of zucchini. So far all together we have picked 22 of these, and they are still coming. They actually don't look as good in this pic as they do in real life. The smallest one is about 9 inches long. I recently read that they should be picked smaller so that the plants don't think the season is over. Hmmm.

This is a picture of me, at 9 am, after working in the garden for 2 hours.  I thought the dirt and sweat would show up more. I also thought I was smiling. I certainly am feeling good. This is when I was doing the celery. I have a bunch of pictures of how I planted it. I will put them in a post soon, because I am so excited that they are growing! Despite having been dug up by our dog twice.

I am behind...tomorrow I will get more pictures, and then soon tell what I am doing with the celery and show the painted and finished coop. I might even talk about my kids some. They are the ones, btw, largely keeping the house together while I work outside. They seem to prefer it, even the ones who claim they want to be farmers. But tomorrow...tomorrow I am starting work on the fall garden, and they are going to help me do that. Because that is going to involve digging in my hard as rock clay, that is full of actual rocks, and they will help me. I also have to paint the coop door, and then in the afternoon I work cleaning an office with my friend. So, despite that it is only 9 o'clock and the sun has only just set and I am a major night-owl, I am going to bed. My older kids will stay up about an hour reading or drawing, and my youngers are playing quietly in their room.I am sooo far behind on my tv watching...it's a good thing.

Late Night Silliness

You know how your brain writes your best stuff in the middle of the night, when you don't want to get up and put it down, so you just pray you'll remember it and then you never do?
I actually got up and wrote it down. It probably won't seem as awesome in the morning, but it sure was a fun and surprisingly easy.

I'm not getting up in the morning, I'm gonna stay in bed.
The alarm can ring all it wants to, the pillow will cover my head.
The sun can shine warm and brightly, the kids' smiles can do that too,
I'm staying in bed in the morning, 'cause there's too many dishes to do. There's too many dishes and too many clothes,
diapers to change and beans up the nose.
There's toys on the floor and games in the hall,
more books than shelves to hold them all.
I'm tired and sore, don't want to get dressed,
I'm staying in bed and ignoring this mess.
There's only so many things I can do, and as far as today went, it was just building the coo....p.
That was enough, I think, to earn me a break.
I'll stay in my bed and I'll eat me some cake.
I meant to end this poem changing my mind,
but the bed feels too good
So maybe next time!

Too Tired

It's too late and I'm too tired to post much, but I didn't want anyone thinking I was disappearing. Again. I have lots to say and a whole lot of pictures to post. I finished the coop today, except for the painting, so there's that. It's the worst looking coop you ever saw, but I'm going to paint it wacky colors and call it Suessian. You know my 7th kid was named after Dr. Suess? Well, now you do. Which is why his online nickname is Suess from now on. I just decided.

It is 11:44 pm and I am exhausted. I made it church this morning finally, which was wonderful. I love our church. Someday I'll have to talk about why.

As soon as I came home I got back to work on patching all the holes in the coop (a new one every time I looked, I swear. I think we used about as much wood patching it up as it took to build in the first place) and finishing the door. I thought yesterday I had about an hour of work left. But not only did I underestimate the work it would still take, I also overestimated the kids' enthusiasm to help this time. I worked alone for several hours, because I didn't feel like dragging reluctant kids out in the heat only to have slow grudging help. This is probably a sign of bad parenting. On the other hand, when I finally did tell them it was time to put the door up and I couldn't do it alone, I had between 3 and 6 out there cheerfully offering to hammer nails in all sort of unnecessary places, yanking on the chicken wire, losing screws, and helping me move the heavy ruggedly sturdy door back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and yes, still more back and forth, as we figured out how to actually attach it in such a way that it would open and close with a minimum of gaps. I am not great at planning ahead, and if the door is an ugly patchwork of random bits, attaching it in place was a whole 'nother adventure in "making do." Get this: the chicken door I lovingly made, probably the best looking piece of the door, wouldn't open because it bumped the side of the coop just the barest amount. Did I grab sand paper or a wood plane? Nope, don't have those. I attacked the side of the door with a machete. I can hear the gasps of horror. I know. But I was going to finish that dad-blamed thing tonight!! After a while of swinging the machete and getting only a little ways along, I started using it as a chisel with my hammer. That worked slightly better. And you know what? That chicken door opens great. Take that, you "right tool for the job" people. I'll show you a picture tomorrow. You perfectionist will have nightmares. Did I mentioned my saw horse is stacked cinder blocks? My kids absolutely forbid me to jury-rig their bikes into a wheelbarrow. Hm. Jury-rigged Farm. Maybe that would work.

My hands are torn up because I'm a weird sado-masochist who doesn't believe in gloves. I'm proud of the blisters and can't wait for the callouses, but I have to buy a finger-nail brush. I'm the tannest I've ever been in my whole life, I think, along with touches of sunburn, and since I'm living in tank tops and workout shorts it's not even a farmer's tan. I may have to scrub my feet with steel wool if I ever want them to be clean again. I have mosquito bites all over, whole lots of them. My roots are over a inch long, I think,  but I still can't find any gray in them. I'm still about 50 pounds overweight, but I've lost an inch or two. I think I will let farming be my workout for a while, maybe forever. I'd love to look "good" but I'm pretty pleased with what my body is doing for me right now, and I think that is transferring to what I see in the mirror a bit. I'm down to 31 chickens and 5 guineas, but what I have seems healthy and vigorous. All the weaklings but one have either died off or gotten strong enough to not be noticed anymore. No more goat, but plenty of plans for more animals. Later, later. I have enough new stuff going on at the moment. My garden is awesome and I'm about to make it awesomer, but since this is only supposed to be a short picture-less post I'm going to go to sleep now and put it all out there tomorrow. Good night!!

Tomorrow I'll talk about this, and why I'm not so happy with our dog right now.

I wrote a really great blog post last night, in my head, at 2 am

It was about different types of guilt and failure and expectations and responsibility....

This is not it.

I know having your best ideas in the middle of the night is normal. Is it also normal to have your best ideas while driving and don't have anything to write on? I don't have a smartphone, but if I did, could I use it as a voice recorder? If so I might suddenly want one.

Oh well.

Yesterday I also finally built an ugly but sturdy door for my chicken coop. Now all I have to do is attach it to the coop and add the little flap to cover the chicken hole, and I'll have a fully functional coop! Yay!

Ugly homemade chicken coop door

The guineas, at least, are ready to move into it. I wonder how long I will have these guineas, since yesterday, the day before their one month birthday, one mysteriously escaped and hasn't been seen since. It may or may not still be alive...it has plenty of places to go and hide and the weather isn't bad enough to kill it, but my cat or dog or the neighbors' cats and dogs probably would. Or a hawk. It can somewhat sorta fly, and we have lots of trees and thick brush. I was rather hoping that I would find it cheeping outside of the pen all its flock is in this morning, but no such luck. They say guineas like to come back home to their family (other guineas, not humans.) I think I'm just going to assume it is dead, tell the kids to assume it is living the high life out there somewhere, and be happily surprised if it shows up. The really sad thing is I have no idea how it got out. I'm pretty sure it's too big to just squeeze through, but I've been wrong before.

 I'm going to regrow celery. Have you seen that pin on Pinterest?  My husband eats celery daily to control his gout, and my children often have it as well. I will occasionally stick a stalk or two in my smoothies, but while the flavor is fine I can't stand the fibrous texture, so I don't eat it a lot. I should have it more, celery is surprisingly good for you. It's good for inflammation and blood pressure and more. Anyhow, we buy it weekly, and obviously I would much rather grow it for free, so we'll see how it works. I will update here. Right now I have two celery bottoms soaking in a pie dish. To keep up with our consumption I believe I'll need to have at least twenty bunches going at all times.

We are apparently getting rid of our goat.

Bill Grogan and Ki checking out the coop door.

It's a good thing. He has done for us all and more than we were hoping for, both as a brush clear-er and as an intro to farm animal care. He's awesome and friendly, but lonely and scared most of the time. We don't have our fence up yet (now THAT is going to be quite the chore) and so he is tethered, and he just doesn't like it. We found someone on craigslist with a large fenced pasture that has a lonely donkey in it. The man just likes to have the animals for entertainment and love; I think poor Grogan would be happier with him. He's even willing to have us come visit. We probably won't, but it makes us feel better about giving him to a stranger.

I bought a small bag of organic red potatoes from Walmart for $2 so I'm sending the boys out to dig a patch of yard to plant them in. These will be the first things planted directly in my soil; everything else is container grown in store bought soil and compost. My plan, that I really need to work on, is to make long mulch-on-top-of-cardboard piles in my yard, stir compost in and plant ground cover crops on them so that next year I have good soil to turn into garden beds. I have enough cardboard to probably layer my entire acres and almost half, but I need to actually pick up the phone and call tree chipping places till I find one willing to dump their mess in my yard. I HATE talking on the phone. HATE IT.

Wondering what's going on with the Ninja Time Lord while I yammer on about farm stuff? He's...better? In that he no longer has a fever and can go a full hour without making a beeline for the toilet. His stomach still hurts and he feels weak. He went to a minor medical center this morning where they were supremely unhelpful, but did at least provide a doctor's note so he won't get in trouble with his work. He plans on going back to work tonight.

He works too much. He thinks we need more money than we do and that's my fault, because I always manage to spend as much as makes. We are both enablers when it comes to spending money on stupid stuff. We don't buy big expensive stupid stuff, we don't go on vacations, we don't have fancy appliances or electronics, and the only nice things in the house are the items my parent's have bought us, and yet and yet and yet....we could do much better. I don't need to buy every geeky shirt I come across that is awesome. I should probably stop checking TeeFury everyday. (As soon as I do that, they will have an awesome Farscape or Stargate shirt, I just know it.) We certainly don't need to eat as many "treat" foods. I probably don't need any much more homeschool supplies. I should use the library more. I should be less wasteful with the things we already have. I should go less places and save gas. NTL asked me how much money I thought he would need to make per month next year after I have laying chickens, meat birds and rabbits, and a larger garden, and when I figured it out and told him, he enjoyed the laugh quite a lot. I was probably underestimating a little bit, but it would cut his hours by more than a third. I must learn to do with less and make better use of what I have. It's the type of person I want to be anyway. It shouldn't be so hard, you'd think.

I also need to figure out another way to blog than just stream-of-consciousness...

PS: I am giving all family members nicknames, and going back and changing names used earlier on the blog. Just 'cause. If you know me, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out who is who, and I may add a picture key to the blog. But that would be later, because this has taken too long already.

PSS: and the goat is gone. The man and his family who came seemed very nice and good with Grogan. We had him exactly one month and boy, did he teach us a lot. I hope he has an excellent and long life.

More Emergency Room fun

So two months ago I took Ki to the emergency room for swallowing magnets. It was an all night affair with x-rays and laxatives and everything, but he's okay. Two weeks ago I took him back for a nasty gash below his eyebrow that was trying to let all of the inside of his eyelid out. That was an all day affair with surgery and everything, but he's okay.

Tomorrow, finally, another member of the family gets his turn: my poor husband, the Ninja Time Lord. He has had a fever of over 100 degrees for more than 36 hours now, and unless he makes a miraculous recovery overnight I'm dragging him to the hospital tomorrow. He's missed three days of work now and I don't remember the last time that's happened. I don't actually remember that ever happening. 

I'm also supposed to get a new driver's license and a dog kennel and water the church's flowers, but if my previous experiences with the E.R. hold true I won't be doing anything but taking care of the NTL tomorrow. I hope he's okay.

It's been an stressful Father's Day. Our air conditioning broke last night too. Which reminds me, I need to cancel the appointment I made to get it fixed tomorrow. A wonderful man, husband to a wonderful woman from my homeschool co-op, drove 45 minutes on Father's Day to come fix our air conditioning at a ridiculously low price. It was a short in the wire and low freon, so we need to arrange to get our leak fixed. Something to do tomor....Tuesday, I guess.

Our chicks and our goat are doing well. The kids are all healthy, even if Tavi thinks the best way to communicate is to angrily scream all day.

Anyone play World of Warcraft? The girls are dragging me kicking and screaming into it. A good mom develops interests to help her bond with her kids, right? First time I haven't been able to just get one interested in my interests instead. I have no sense of time on the best of days, WoW certainly doesn't help.

I talked to my dad this evening like I should, but his gift won't arrive for another couple of weeks. I extend the holidays, yes I do.

I don't really have anything to say right now. I'm tired and my feet still hurt and I'm worried, which isn't adding a single hour to my life but is taking hours out of my sleep, so I'm just going to remember that God is good and I am blessed and go to bed now.

Happy Father's Day, everyone.

Good day but OUCH!

I had an awesome morning, but I may not stand up for a few days. But first! I want to introduce you to the breeds are currently have growing up here. I know I know, I'm obsessed with these chickens. I need to remember my goat and my other animals and oh yeah the kids! and my poor sick husband....

Anyhow, back to the chickens!

I currently own: 6 guinea keets, 4 weeks old. It's hard to tell for sure what colors they will finally be, but I believe I have three pearls, one porcelain, one brown, and one royal purple. What are those colors actually? Here. Of course, it could change. Take a look at those pics of the keets. They all look just the same, pretty much.

I have 8 Ameraucana, and yes, they are real actual light blue egg laying Ameraucanas, not Easter Eggers, for those who know enough to be suspicious. I bought these straight run, and at the moment I am thinking 4 pullets (females) and 4 roos (short for rooster, so yah, I shouldn't have to tell you they're males). But I'm really new at this so they could surprise me yet. They were about 4 weeks old when I bought them from the lady who sells us our farm fresh eggs, for a few more months at least. They are almost 8 weeks old now.

Last Sunday? I think it was Sunday, I got 6  two week old mixed breed chicks from my homeschooling friend, 5 pullets and one roo. Those pullets are guaranteed, which means if one turns out to have boy parts she give me another girl hen. She's pretty confident in her sexing abilities. That is, telling the gender of chicks apart. Don't think I meant anything else. They could be some sort of Australorp/Ameraucana/Brahma/Rhode mix or something, but they all come from good layers.

And then, finally, I picked 15 pullets from the post office that I ordered from Ideal Poultry. I already said this, I got 10 assorted and 5 Ideal 236s. But thanks to the sharp eyes of my friend, I now know what my assorted are! (She saw where is was written on the paper that came with them.) I have two of each: New Hampshire Red, Black Sex Link, Silver Spangled Hamburg, Ancona, and Barred Rock.

Tuesday my poor mistreated eggs hatched. Let me tell you people, there are good reasons for those very specific temperature requirements. I'm not using this incubator again, at least not without upgrading it to have an automatic egg turner and putting it up high in my bedroom where no one can mess with it. It's not the incubators fault, exactly, but it doesn't make the job easy on you. Especially when you have kids who mess with it. It only takes once. Out of 48 eggs 6 hatched, and that was 6 more than I expected. I was happy at first but what I didn't realize but know now is...if chicks survive mishandling of their eggs, there will often be something wrong with them. Three chicks hatched with their yolk sacks outside of their bodies, and two of those had curled toes. The three hatched healthy are fine, I have one Barred Rock like above and two Rhode Island Reds. One other Rhode Island Red is still alive. Her yolk sac was drawn into her body but it doesn't like her tummy completely closed up. There is a large scab there now. We are applying triple antibiotic ointment and keeping her separate for the moment. She is doing well, but is lonely and chirps loudly when no one is holding her. If she lives, she will be the tamest chicken in history, as she pretty much lives on my children.

Out of my 33 chicks, 20 are guaranteed pullets, and I think I have at least 4 more. That leaves me with 9 roos, of which I want to keep two. So, 7 will either be given away or eaten. I'm good either way. I only want 20 hens at this point, so if all my chicks survive to 8 weeks I will have four to sell or give away. They are worth a lot more at that age because they are so hard to get there.

Bored yet? Sorry.

Today was a good day, though, because I met my friend Megan and her two friends (they share an awesome homesteading blog, check it out! Homesteading Housewives) downtown at the Greenville Farmers' Market. I bought 4 dozen eggs. I'm pathetic, I've lived in the Greenville area 10 years and this is the first time I've been there. I've been to other farmers markets around here though! Megan is a friend from church who is really into homesteading, and she introduced me to her two friends also into homesteading. I really liked them and I think they liked me okay too. We are going to do turkeys and meat chickens together! I am very excited.

I wore the wrong shoes though. I developed a blister on the back of one heal, so I took off my shoes to walk from the cupcake shop (shhh, my kids think I just went to the market) all the way down Main St to my car. It didn't hurt till I got in the car. I'm barefoot all the time around the house and farm, from carpet floors with legos all over to a gravel drive way to my nettle-filled yard, and yet it did not prepare me for half a mile of rough hot concrete. I have blisters all over the bottoms of my feet. Pity me. So much for finishing my coop door. I swear that thing is becoming the bane of my existence.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Don't forget. I am doing my typical "extending the holiday" since my dad won't be getting his gift for another week or two, but I will call him. My husband already received his gifts, trying to make him feel better since he came down with a 101 degree fever yesterday. Pity him more than me, it wasn't his fault.

May not go to church, since he is sick and it's Father's Day and my feet hurt so much, but it's my teams turn for coffee hour, so I'd at least have to go clean up. Plus I missed last week and I hate missing church. I have the best church.

Now I'm just rambling so I'll go. I wanted to put pictures in this post but I don't have any at the moment, unless you want to see my blistered feet. No? Okay, I'll spare you.

Happy Fathers' Day fathers everywhere!

7:52 pm
Oh yeah, new word to consider working into a possible name for this place: Ramshackle. I like it. Yep, still trying to come up with a name. :p

So tired.

I got to bed about 4:30 am last night. When baby is sick, mommy doesn't get to sleep. She seems fine now. I would pull my own eye teeth for a chance to go back to bed.

We received 15 chicks from Ideal Poultry today. I went to the post office to pick them up, and wasn't I the bell of the ball for a few minutes, despite wearing pajama pants and no make up and my hair pulled back into a greasy ponytail. No one saw me, they were all fixated on the chirping box in my arms.

I piked up 5 Ideal 236 pullets and 10 assorted pullets. Not knowing what they are is kind of exciting! Of those 10 assorted two of those are identical to the barred rocks I've hatched here, so I'm assuming more barred rocks, which I am happy about. I have no idea what the others are.

Chicks are more fun when they are colorful.

The reddish with black stripes on the right is a Rhode Island Red from my incubated eggs.

What's this? I have no idea.

The one in the back is the barred rock I hatched here. The one in front is from Ideal Poultry.

If anyone would like to guess please do! The Ideals are the lemon yellow ones. They are supposed to be ridiculously prolific layers. I'm looking forward to finding out for myself! The hatchery chicks are almost exactly the same size as the ones we hatched yesterday, so they are all in together.

So far I have 6 chicks out of my own eggs, I have two blacks and 4 strawberry blondes, which are barred rocks and rhode island reds, respectively. Of course it will be a few weeks before I know which are pullets and which are roos. One rock and one red each have unabsorbed yolk sacs which are worrying, despite being told not to worry. I was told they would be absorbed if I just left them alone, but it doesn't look like that is happening...instead they have turned from tight little balloons against their belly into long jelly ribbons. But supposedly there is nothing I can do but keep them safe and clean and wait. We'll see. The other eggs, well, no signs of life from them, but I'm giving them till Friday night. 6 out of 48 is not great, but it's 6 more than I expected to get. I won't be incubating any eggs again for quite some time, but when I do I will have an automatic turner and keep them high up away from kids.

So all together I have 6 keets and 35 chicks. I am DONE. Well, at least until these are fully grown and I know how many hens vs roos I have, as well as how many survive that long. Mortality rates among chicks are high, unfortunately. My goal is about 20 hens and 2 roos. I think I should get that out of this mess, and if I have too many the hens are easy to sell and the roos are yummy.

If the rock with the yolk sac lives I get to make him pipe cleaner casts for his curled toes. How fun is that? :p

Meanwhile, over the past couple of days I have neglected my children for my chicks, and that needs to stop. They've enjoyed the break from school and housework, but wow, do we need to get back to it! We have friends coming over tomorrow! Both brooders need cleaned and I must finish the coop door and run before Monday. I'm supposed to go pick up free tires from craigslist today and I work cleaning an office this evening. My squash and tomatoes need their cages made and put on them pretty much right now.

So can I go to bed now?

Update 10:39
Got back from work half an hour ago. Both chicks with yolk sacs are dead. Others seem fine. Finally going to bed now.

And now it's June

Not great at updating, am I? Yep, I'm one of THOSE bloggers. Well, what I'm doing now is so exciting (to me) I'm posting just a couple of sentences every hour on Facebook, and that makes me one of THOSE friends. So here's to trying to fix both of those issues. I'll just up date my blog every hour. One post per day/edited every time I want to post something farm related on Facebook. I'm using my blog like a Twitter feed/Instagram? Ok. I'd rather do that than add those to yet another online way of socializing.

So quick update: we are still at our new wonderful home, and now I have a garden,

a dog, a cat (plus two other cats we occasionally see keeping our yard pest free), an albino snake somewhere in the house if it's still alive,  

a goat (!)

 6 guineas I hatched from eggs in an incubator (!!),

8 ameraucana chicks about 5 weeks old I bought from my eating egg lady,

6 mixed breed 2 week old chicks I bought from a homeschooling friend, and 4 brand new hatched TODAY chicks (2 barred rock and 2 rhode island red),

and a whole lot of eggs still waiting to see if they will hatch today or tomorrow.

Oh, and my oldest daughter owns two pure bred French Angora bunnies, one of which is pregnant. 

These are the Facebook posts I've made over the last week:

June 4

Got home from church to find the neighbors' dogs attacked our goat. Thankfully First Born Son was home sick and rescued him, but his wound, which had looked so close to healed, is ripped back open and won't stop slowly bleeding. He is also favoring one leg. Ironically, this is the same neighbor who knocked on my door last month at 12:30 AM (yes, I was asleep) to let me know our dog had chewed up his rubber boots and stolen a baseball cap. Percival (the dog) has since been on a chain but his dogs weren't. He and his girlfriend are a young couple with a week old baby, and dogs that have the same ability to sneak out doors and slip off chains our dog had. I feel bad for them, and our goat, but mostly I'm worried about our future livestock. I hope this gets worked out with no hard feelings and no dead animals. — feeling worried.

June 8

Lost another chick this evening. I have no idea what happened. He seemed fine this morning, just like all of them, they spent the afternoon outside and before we moved him back into the brooder he was lethargic and had really watery poo. Kept him separate from the others for a bit and gave him vitamin water, then he started twisting his neck weird and stiffening his legs and losing balance and shaking. Died about 3 hours after we noticed he wasn't doing well. 

Well, those started out depressing, huh? It gets better.

17 hours ago

My eggs are chirping! My eggs are chirping! I'm going to have zombie chicks!

(I'd thought all my eggs were dead for sure...the temperature had NOT stayed steady.)

13 hours ago

Chick number 1 has emerged! It's a Barred Rock!

6 hours ago

Getting up this morning a Rhode Island Red has joined my Barred Rock in the incubator, and a third one is almost out! Two Rhode Islands Red! I have two of each now and at least 3 more working their way out! I have 9 hens at least out of the other chicks so far, and if these are 50/50 I'll have another 2 or 3 at least, depending if more hatch. Then, of course, we'll have to see how many actually survive.

5 hours ago

These red heat lamps aren't kidding around.

4 hours ago

Y'all are going to be so sick of my chicken posts, so here's a chicken/child post. Tavi is being sooo good, she is leaning over and cooing at them, and gently reaching in with one finger to pet them. I haven't had to stop her once yet. Well, not since last week. That's awesome for a not-yet-two year old.

And the one I just resisted adding to Facebook:

2 pm

Newest chick has a large unabsorbed yolk sac. :( I have placed him on a small saucer in the incubator with a damp paper towel to keep him clean and safe. Hopefully it will reabsorb and not start bleeding everywhere.

3:11 pm

It looks like the yolk sac has been absorbed. I'm going to put Neosporin on his belly and then try to fix his toes. They are all curled up. Supposed to be an easy fix, I think I've heard.

4:59 pm

I'm not sure what to do now. I don't have vetwrap, we are out of pipe cleaners, the yolk sac won't absorb, and the chick is not interested in just laying down and dying. :(