Life and death are sometimes just a breath apart. That is have been driven home to us this past month. Before the birth of our goat kids we had a cat give birth and lost her and the kittens.  It was a freak situation actually.  She was Alannah’s cat and she had suffered severe injury last summer.  Tangled with a skunk and broke her hip.  She drug herself around for 2 wks then managed to regain her gait though her tail always drooped after that and she was pretty much incontinent.  Still, she was Alannah’s cat, seemed in no pain, and we put off making  decision about her.

Then cat came up pregnant (contrary to the questions we get at the checkout line we DO know how that happens lol!)  and then noone had the heart to put her down. We figured we would give her a chance.  She ended up laboring in the sunroom, behaving nothing like a normal cat would under the circumstances.  She was on the windowsill, at the door, you name it.  Finally ended up with a torturous delivery of a dead, deformed kitten with lots of help from Asher. (I told him it would count for biology……)   She couldn’t deliver the rest and was massively infected from the continence issues.  We knew it was time for her but it did shake our confidence in the whole birthing process. The uneventful birth of the goats soon after was a huge boon to the girl’s morale.

Last night Aidan ran outside to start his part of evening chores – filling up the horse’s trough with the hose. He ran back in to announce that a chicken had fallen into the trough some time earlier and was almost dead. Sure enough. She was just holding her nose above the water line when we got her out and she collapsed, shuddering.  Probably sensible farmers would have finished her off.  She is 2 yrs old already, which makes her something considerably more than a "Spring Chicken".  But we tend to feel that life deserves a chance.

There isn’t really much you can do for a chicken.  They are remarkably hardy but do seem to find more than their share of trouble. We went with the "clean and dry" idea.  It works well for preventing disease and was the only trick we had up our sleeves.  We set the hair dryer on low and blew her dry.  Took 40 minutes!  Never underestimate how much water a chicken can hold. She wouldn’t bear weight and laid on her side sorta convulsing the whole time.  Didn’t seem like there was much chance of recovery.  We tucked her in to the broken playpen that was sitting near the trash waiting for pickup and wished her well.

Meantime, Moira started feeding in the barn and ran back in to announce that Oreo the cat had her kittens.  THAT seemed incredible.  She didn’t look all that big – first time mom and all. ; )  She had three lovely looking kittens, one gray and two copies of mom. The children, as taken as their mother is with theme names <g> dubbed them Ding Dong, Snickerdoodle, and Cookie.  While Allen and I silently pondered the long term ramifications of an unspayed cat plus 3 more kittens and their potential reproduction rates the reality of prairie life showed its face.  A coyote was spotted right in the backyard after dark.  We chased him off but it highlighted the unchanging truth that you can’t take anything for granted out here.

We woke up this morning to another surprise.  The hen was up in the playpen wanting out. She looked all primped and puffed with her blow dry from last night. And she laid an egg in gratitude.  Here are her *after* pics.  If she got pneumonia from this there won’t be much we can do but as of now she looks no worse for wear. 

So Happy Mother’s Day Oreo.  And Cutie the chicken, you go girl.