{"id":25751,"date":"2018-07-07T21:13:50","date_gmt":"2018-07-07T21:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=25751"},"modified":"2018-07-07T22:20:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-07T22:20:34","slug":"oh-what-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=25751","title":{"rendered":"Oh what a day!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have never been a football fan although my husband is. I watch England matches during the world cup and my husband watches every match. He records those that are on while we are working and watches them later.<\/p>\n

I started by watching the second half of the early England matches but watched all of the last one and found myself looking forward to Saturday’s match! I bought some beers and the ingredients for a barbecue and settled in to watch the match. We were euphoric by the end of the first half. It really felt like we were in with a chance this time.<\/p>\n

During half time I went up to check on the chooks. I have been giving them frozen peas every afternoon since I first posted it here when the weather became ridiculously hot.<\/p>\n

It immediately became apparent that Emerald was in trouble. She has been suffering from the heat the most. She is elderly, she is moulting and she has black plumage. This is the worst combination in the heat. Mostly she sits in the shade but she was on the patio area with her beak wide open and her wings held aloft. Then she wobbled and stumbled and looked like she could barely stay on her feet. I was alarmed.<\/p>\n

I realised that frozen peas were not enough. I think she had spent her time sitting in the shade and probably had not been eating or drinking enough. I added an ice cube to the now warm peas but she wasn’t interested. I decided to make some mash with cold water and added a couple of ice cubes to it. I then added chopped grapes to the top of it and put it in front of Emerald.<\/p>\n

Emerald started to eat the chopped grape and then a bit of the mash. I knew that the second half would have started by now and I thought that it would be just my luck to miss a goal but I felt that Emerald’s welfare depended on me and that was more important. I coaxed her to eat the grape by dropping it in front of her. She gradually ate some grape and drank the pooled water around the ice cubes and then some of the sloppy, chilled, mash. She started to look better. Crisis averted.<\/p>\n

I went back inside to find that England had indeed scored a second goal. Never mind, I could see it on the many repeats. I watched the end of the match and we won, hurrah!<\/p>\n

I have realised that I must give Emerald some extra T.L.C. From now on she will have mash with ice cubes every day and chopped grapes on top. I must make sure she eats and drinks enough during this heat wave.<\/p>\n

What a lot of drama for one day. The next thing was to see what the chicks would do at bedtime.<\/p>\n

At nine o’clock when they usually go in I went to check on them. Cinnamon and Dandelion were next to each other on the left perch. The chicks were hovering at the edge of the patio area. It was if they knew that this was the way they needed to go but it was as if the patio was a taboo area and it would take courage to cross it.<\/p>\n

I herded them across the patio area and through the pop hole which was actually quite easy. Once inside the pop hole they set about digging in the shavings which was what they used to do when they went into the little coop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

They are through the pop hole<\/p><\/div>\n

I checked back a little later and they were heaped in the corner.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

They settle in the corner<\/p><\/div>\n

A little after half past nine the pop hole had closed and I had got the bigger girls in. I decided to try to perch the chicks again. I know it will take a bit of time for them to perch on their own but at the moment while it’s so hot I think they will be cooler on the perch than heaped in the corner.<\/p>\n

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I settled the chicks on the perch once more<\/p><\/div>\n

I swept the patio area to give them a few minutes to settle and then looked back in. They were still perched albeit in a tight huddle. It’s a work in progress but it’s going in the right direction. Phew, what a day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have never been a football fan although my husband is. I watch England matches during the world cup and my husband watches every match. He records those that are on while we are working and watches them later. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25751"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25775,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25751\/revisions\/25775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}