Strawberries, Canning, Gardening, Ducks, the Milk Man and a Berkey!

When I was a kid we had a milk man. It was normal to have milk delivered to your doorstep and put in a little insulated box every week. As a kid I never gave it a second thought. The Smith Brothers Dairy was just a few miles from our house. When I became a teen some of Smith Brothers Farm was bought and a really big shopping mall was built on some of the best and richest farmland in the valley. We stopped getting milk on the porch and the dairy moved several miles further south in the valley. As an adult I moved in the same direction only up on the hill above the valley and I still didn't have milk delivery. The store was so close. Now I live several miles north and west on an island and guess what I just discovered I can do? Ya! Milk delivery! Half and half and buttermilk and anything else I might want. And who have I chosen to get milk from? You guessed it. The same dairy I grew up with. And why?  Because I am tired of wasting my money on dead ultra pasteurized milk.

 I'm also tired of lugging home that yummy milk in the cute heavy glass bottles that cost twice as much and that requires a deposit. Then you have to remember to return the bottles. Not to mention the occasional broken 1/2 gallon of milk in the bottom of the grocery bag and the fact that the nutritional value of milk is depleted when it is exposed to light.  Smith Brothers delivers for nearly the same as the grocery store charges, delivers in cartons that are made of recycled material and the milk is fresh and NOT ultra pasteurized. This means I can actually make cheese out of it too! Haven't tried it yet but I am about to. I will let you know how it works.

Strawberry season is finally here. In a good year the season would have started the last week in May. A normal season starts sometime in the first 2 weeks in June and only last a couple of weeks maybe three.  I know this because it was always so easy for me to miss it. The last few years strawberry season has been extremely late due to wetter and cooler than normal weather and has actually been overlapping raspberry season. Around here we have a saying that summer doesn't start until the 5th of July. I never minded that it was wet for the 4th. I figured it just cut down on fire hazards. But this berry thing is getting a little hard to manage. I need the time between strawberries and raspberries to get another pay check. Not to mention Bing cherry season is in full swing. I can a lot of cherries. It is very handy to open a quart of cherries and put them on the table with dinner in the dark of winter when you need to round out a meal. At any rate

strawberries are finally here. I bought two 12 lb. flats two day ago. I made jam, canned ice cream topping, and froze the rest. They weren't the greatest tasting berries I have ever had. We have had way too much rain and way too little sun so they were big, plump, and watery tasting. Now that the 5th of July is here (and so is the sun right on que) I will give it a week and go see if they taste any better.
Notice the picture of my jam to the right?  In the background is a gift from my man. Recognize it? Ya! A Berkey water filter! I have been complaining about the taste of our water since we moved here. For the first time in years we are on city water and it is very chlorinated. It taste awful and sometimes it taste like dirt. Nothing like the clean fresh tasting water we use to get from our well. Even our finicky cat hates the taste. I have also not been too keen on having to rely on the water company in the event of some catastrophe to provide clean potable water. With the Berkey we can filter the pond water if we have to. This could come in handy since the Cascade earthquake fault runs right in front of our four acres. In the mean time I'm going to drink water that resembles the good stuff we are use to.

The garden is finally almost under control. (if that is possible) I will be harvesting sugar snap peas this week and from the look of it we should have a bumper crop. The tomatoes have some size to them and I was smart enough this year to space them far enough apart to have room to grow. I did get the out of control section of garden weeded and the squash, pumpkin and zucchini plants all put in. I bought those as starts so

they should be taking off here in the next week. The potatoes are huge and I have pulled a few out here and there for a couple of meals. They were nearly the size of my hand. The plants are still green and growing so I will keep hilling them up in my potato towers and see what I get. I planted green, wax, and purple string beans about three weeks ago and the plants are about 4 inches tall. The day time temperatures were still in the forties to low fifties so I was a little concerned the beans wouldn't germinate. So far so good. Cucumbers are not very happy. I didn't have much luck with those last year either. The lettuce in the cold frame finally bolted but we had several salads from that. I pulled the rest out and fed it to the geese and replanted bell peppers and cherry tomatoes.
I'm on to planning a winter garden. I am hoping to convince the man to help me with a small hoop house/row cover to plant broccoli, cauliflower, beets and other fall crops.
The geese and ducks are all doing well and seem to have got past what ever was making them sick. I still don't know what it was for sure that was doing it and I still can't help but look out the windows and count heads every hour or so. That is my update. Now I am  going to try to switch to the updated blogger interface so if I disappear you will know what happened. Blogger ate me.

Botulism Poisoning in Waterfowl

I have been accused of being too attentive to the animals entrusted to my care. I will admit that I am not one of those people that acquire animals just to corral them behind a fence and forget about them, letting them fend for themselves. You can learn a lot about animals if you take the time to observe them on a continuous basis. You can even learn their "language". For instance I know when there is something threatening in the yard by the noise my little 1 1/2 pound bantam rooster makes. Certain noises from him send me to the window or out the door to check.  It is the reason I have him. He may be small but he does all the rooster things that the big boys do including defending the girls.see story here I know when one of the hens has been cornered by one or both of the ganders after trespassing on their territory by the kind of racket the geese make. It is different from the other vocalizations they make and I have had to rescue more than one chicken who has had the misfortune of getting on their bad side. Ducks on the other hand don't have as many vocalizations as geese and chickens so I have to depend on knowing visually if something is amiss. This I have learned the hard way.

This year I decided to increased my duck flock so that I could meet the demand for duck eggs. After raising 9 ducklings and  finding homes for 4 drakes I have ended up with a total of 8 ducks. Three of them are my original girls that I got last year and the other five are new and about 3 months old. Starting about 10 days ago my young ducks started getting sick one at a time. The first time, I had stuck my head out the door to check up on everyone which always brings them running. One of my Rouen ducks was missing and he was never separated from the flock so I went looking. I found him floating on the pond barely able to move and just minutes from drowning. He was unable to lift his head out of the water and he was paddling feebly with one foot. I quickly grabbed a leaf rake and placing it under him pulled him to the edge of the pond where I could lift him out. (I was ready to go in after him if it had been necessary.)  Since I had already been through this last year  I was pretty sure I knew what was wrong with him. So into the house grabbing the "pet" towels as I went, I placed him on the kitchen island and started giving him Epsom salts water with an eye dropper. (2 Tbs. dissolved in a cup of water). You wont use all of it but this is a good amount to make. By early next morning he was recovered and ready to go out with his friends.

Now about this time you are probably wondering how I have so much time to baby sit my birds. I probably wouldn't have noticed this ducks absence if it hadn't been for an incident a few days earlier. A coyote had crept onto our property and after attempting to snatch one chicken and getting only a mouthful of feathers it successfully snagged another one on its way out. Lucy the WBG

Lucy,WBG (like Phd. for dogs)

(wanna be guardian) dog was in the house and barking like crazy and since it was one of those rare times that I decided to attempt taking a power nap it took me about 30 seconds to get up and see what she was going nuts about.  By the time I made it out the door all we found were two piles of two different colored feathers, a slightly injured and terrified chicken hiding in a bush and a dying flapping chicken at the edge of the woods where the coyote had dropped it. I didn't see the coyote but a predatory bird does not try to snatch two chickens at the same time. I am really glad Lucy wasn't outside.  I really didn't need her tangling with a wild dog. But then again maybe it wouldn't have happened if she had been there. So yes, when I found the duck I was being especially attentive to what was going on in my yard.

Botulism poisoning seems to be fast acting. Especially if you don't recognize the early signs. Often by the time you notice something is amiss it is too late to save them and if your duck or goose happens to be swimming when symptoms begin they will drown. The earlier you get to them the better your chances of saving them. That said here is a list of symptoms listed in order.

The bird starts moving slower and starts separating itself from the rest of the flock. You will question weather or not you are seeing something off in your bird.
They seem to not be able to see you when you approach them.
They will take a few steps then sit down.
They become unable to walk or walk like they are drunk.
When they sit you will notice their head starting to waver around like they are drunk. This gets much more pronounced as symptoms progress.
Eventually they are unable to raise their head progressing to laying flat with legs out behind.
Twitching and convulsing.
Inability to swallow.
Death.

Convulsing duck throws its head around. 

I have become quite expert at seeing the early symptoms because in the last week I have had 5 ducks affected and lost one. The last time I had two ducks showing symptoms at the same time and it is because I was working out in the yard that I noticed something just a little off. The sooner you get to them the faster they recover and it is much easier to get them to take the Epsom salts water. In fact they seem to actually want it and will drink out of a bowl if you find them at the very early stage. However you will need to direct their bills into the water because they don't seem to be able to see it. My last two ducks took two hours for the one that was only showing signs of blindness to 8 hours for the other one that
was beginning to stagger.

 

Paralyzed  flat duck

I have no idea what it is in my yard that is causing this but for now my ducks are going to stay locked up in their pasture with only an occasional supervised walk to go play in the pond. Botulism poisoning is usually caused by ingesting rotting or spoiled things such as dead animals or produce. I don't have either on my property but I have noticed an abundance of mushrooms and toadstools lately. Probably brought on by the rain we are having. The duck that got sick last year got sick at the same time almost to the day as these and it only seems to be the young ducks that are affected. Maybe they don't know enough to not eat the mushrooms. So far this week we have had no sick ducks for about 4 days and counting. Either they have learned not to eat the bad stuff or locking them in is keeping them safe. It is sad to watch them stand at the fence gazing longingly at the pond. Especially since the geese and the older ducks get to go play in it. I will let them out again when I feel comfortable doing so. I will also be watching them like a hawk.

Remember Me?

Hard to believe that these are the cute little ducks hatched less than two months ago. Fully feathered but no drake feathers to let me know which may be boys. I suspect the one at the top of this picture is a boy. He is the biggest.  These not so little ducks are so friendly that I have to be extremely careful to not step on them. They are constantly under foot looking for a hand out. They follow me every where and love to walk down to the pond with me but rarely go by themselves. Guess they are still just babies even though they look grown up. They pretty much just hang out with the chickens. I can't tell which one is the one that almost didn't make it. They are all very healthy duckys. Good job silky moma!

The Ultimate Prepping Tool

The man surprised me with this. He has surprised me with little gifts before. Flowers, candy, the usual stuff. I was never that excited about flowers that were going to die and candy that would make me fat but I always appreciated them. I think he has finally figured out that I get excited about weird stuff like this. YA! buy me a new bird or a pressure cooker, or a great book or take me for a ride on the Harley. THAT I can relate to. Now I know his idea of the ultimate prepping tool is a motor home but that is a lot more money than a cooker and now that the kids are older we don't use that as often. So we sold ours. We will probably buy another smaller one for our selves since we like to go and we will be able to use it on what ever property we end up with after selling this one. But that will be after the girls leave for college.

I was going to can chicken soup this weekend but the directions are so confusing that I think I will look for a cook book that is a little more helpful than the manual that came with it. Braeburn apples are on deep discount at the store this week and my kids will only eat home made chunky apple sauce so I will probably start with that. Maybe even make some pie filling. What I really wanted it for was to can salmon. I have salmon in the freezer that we haven't eaten and I would like to get it out of there. It is an All American pressure cooker/canner (made and manufactured in the US) so anyone with any tips, please leave me a comment.

Speaking of new birds here is an update on the geese. The second batch of eggs were also not fertile. As I suspected both the duck boy and the goose boys are done for the year. Although the duck will occasionally perform. So both my girl geese are still trying to sit on the nest. I have done everything I can think of to discourage them but as soon as I open their gate at night they go right back and they spend the day walking around the fence line trying to figure out how to get back in to the non-existent eggs. Being the chump I am I felt sorry for them so the other day after the man had gone to work I crept down to the feed store knowing they were getting a new shipment of ducks that morning. I thought I would get some Black Cayugas because I really loved the one I had years ago. The hatchery had only sent one in their order and she was tiny. My intent was to put them under the geese but she was so small I was afraid she would get hurt or worse. So I got two Rouen because they were bigger and two more Khaki Campbell (because they are exceptional egg layers) and took them home. I tried putting them under the girls. The ladies were willing but those little ducks kept popping out from under and would have none of it. I tried until the little bugs got cold and finally decided I was going to have to raise them.

Rouen are stripped 

click to enlarge

So meet Lola and the crew. She is absolutely ADORABLE! The rest are just cute. For those who don't know what a Rouen is it is a mallard derivative and looks a lot like a mallard. I don't know what I am going to do with them yet but will probably sell them or just find them good homes since they will be pets.

I will be teaching a class at the end of the month for an organization that is putting together classes on old fashion life skills for people that want to be more self sufficient so I am teaching "Basic bread and cheese making." Because I have been asked for another recipe from a reader I will include the recipe in my next blog.  Here is the picture.

Happy Easter.....Eggs and Nesting Goose Update.

I finally got access to the goose nest and was able to candle those eggs. No babies inside. So I took the eggs into the house. This didn't set well with the geese. The girls went out yelling at the boys and they all walked around for awhile being very noisy talking about it. The girls eventually went back in looking for their eggs. Although I had pulled all the nesting material out of  the dog crate they were using (there were two) one of them went back inside, sat down and started pulling all the stuff back in. After sitting on the empty nest for a day  I decided I better go empty the nesting material out of the dog crate they were using and remove it. That didn't stop them. It just upset them. This morning and for the last two days they have been sitting in the nesting material together out in the open where the chickens can see them. They are determined.......and I feel bad for them. Although I haven't seen the ducks doing the tango lately I went ahead and placed two fresh duck eggs in front of the geese which they promptly tucked under their downy breast. Guess I will candle them in a couple days.

In the mean time in the house I scrubbed the goose eggs using soap and a plastic kitchen scrubby. They were so stained that they wouldn't come clean so I used a little vinegar with the scrubby and that took it off. My plan was to blow out the eggs, rinse them and then dye them with natural dyes made from stuff in the kitchen. I was afraid they would be stinky so I took precautions to empty the eggs into a zip lock back for disposal. To my surprise they weren't. So here is how I did it.

Cleaned and scrubbed eggs

Using a straw colored with ink I marked
a circle on both ends of the egg.

Using a dremmel I gently
drilled a hole in both ends the
same size as the straw. 

I used a bamboo skewer to break up
the yolk inside then using the straw
I blew out the insides into the bag.

Once the eggs were empty, rinsed and dried I started to color them. My favorite was the boiled onion skins which made a lovely orange. I also used curry and mustard mixed with water for yellow (I didn't have any turmeric but mustard has that in it) sweet cherry juice for a purple/blue, and beet juice for a pink. All mixed with water and a little white vinegar.










This morning my youngest (16)  informed me that she was expecting an Easter basket. I thought my girls were past that. Hmmmmm....but apparently not. She got down the Easter decorations and pulled out these eggs made some years ago when I lived on Lummi Island. They are made with tissue paper and a mixture of Elmer's glue and water. Kind of like paper mache' only on real eggs that were blown out.

Easy and fun project for the kids

I will keep you posted on the geese and their quest for a family. In the mean time have a great Easter!

Another Example of "It Takes A Village"

So call me crazy. Call me anthropomorphic. Maybe I am just reading too much into this but....

Bella, one of the female Sebastapol geese decided to set on eggs. Up to this point I have been collecting the eggs as they were laid because I read that if you got goslings the first year just count yourself as lucky since the boys are usually not up to the job. It just doesn't usually happen. It's not that they don't try. They're just not fertile yet which is probably true because I had two under a broody hen for 5 days and nothing was happening with them.  But Bella had two eggs and I had one that had not been refrigerated yet so I put that one in the nest too.

The two big ganders are standing guard just outside the gate when it's open and inside the run when they are locked up. Nothing too unusual about that other than the fact that they are working together to "kill" anything that comes near. The weird thing is that the other female, Mimi, seems to be helping Bella set on the eggs. She gets in the nest and sits then Bella gets off to go eat and walk around a bit. Sometimes for up to an hour. Then she goes back and Mimi gets off the nest and hangs with the boys or takes a bath in the pond.

This evening I went out to put the birds away for the night and feed them their usual rations. Normally they hog down the whole thing in 15 minutes. I tried to get Bella to come out and eat too but she would have non of that nonsense. About an hour later I happened to go out there and there was still food in the dishes. This alarmed me because to have food left usually means someone doesn't feel well. Then I looked in the nest. Mimi was on the nest again and Bella was eating while the boys watched. It was as if they saved it for her. Now, I know that geese have strong family ties and wild ones will cooperate when migrating by switching off flying the lead. A couple of geese will even leave a migrating flock to keep a sick or exhausted goose company until it either recovers or dies before migrating on and catching up with the pack. But this is really weird. Like I said call me crazy but this has been going on for two days so far. I don't think the eggs are viable and I would like to get in there to candle them but I will have to get past at least one of them (mom) to do that and although I have no doubt that I could but I would hate to disturb her and have her desert the nest if she had any good eggs. Guess I will just see if I get up the nerve. It would also help if it would quit raining so I didn't have to kneel in the mud!

(two days later)....
Yesterday Bella didn't leave the nest all day so when it was time to feed the geese I moved the feed dishes and water over to within about 5 feet of the nest to try and get her to come out and eat. The others ate but she stayed on the nest. She did stand up to check her eggs giving me the opportunity to see what was in there. She has 6 or 7 eggs that I can see!

I went back in to the house to continue making dinner and about 10 minutes later noticed that Bella was walking around the pen. So I went out to see where Mimi was and as I suspected she was on the nest. Ten minutes or so later Bella went back to the nest and Mimi was out with the boys again. I swear they are all doing the tag team parenting thing. This morning I noticed Mimi has made herself a sitting area just outside the nest box and is sitting with Bella. Gotta kinda wonder if she has eggs under there. I'll keep ya posted. Who knows maybe we will end up with baby Sebastapols!

Update on the baby ducks. They are growing so fast. Mother hen still fusses with them and bosses them around but they are at least as big as she is now. She finally gave up trying to get them to perch and she just perches next to the box where they spend the night. Because it is still pretty cold here I have been bringing the ducklings into the house for swimming lessons. (Alright, someone has to do it) They seem to take to it like a duck to water. Oh ya.....they are ducks. I gave my oldest the job of making sure they were good and dry before taking them back out to the coop.

Lucy was very interested in the bathing ducks

                                     

Duck and Remodel Update

The sun peaked in and out all day yesterday and I took the opportunity to put the babies and mom outside just long enough to change the bed and water in their brooder box. One of the ducklings was shivering right away and I have to admit it was chilly but I thought they would get under mom. She was more interested in getting some scratch time in so babies just followed her around picking at the grass too. They were only out for about 5 minutes though because the sun disappeared as fast as it had come out. It was working up to a wind storm with another cold front coming in. So we got blustery weather during the night with some little power outages here and there. The three older babies will be a week old late tomorrow. Sure goes fast.
                                                                                                                 

I am thinking about temporarily reducing the size of my chicken flock and re-homing some of them. I found a home for one yesterday through craigslist. Someone was looking for a companion for her hen. The reason is I have come to the conclusion that I could do a better job of getting a productive flock that would fit in better with my preparedness goals. I love the different breeds but some of them are just resource suckers. Meaning eat more produce less. More on this subject in another blog.

The bathroom is coming along and I am happy with the progress. The man isn't. He wants it done now. He only gets two days off a week (and they aren't consecutive). He also has a real problem not having his bathroom. We have a powder room that would temporarily suffice for doing things like brushing teeth and drying hair but the only other showers are upstairs in the girls bath (and he doesn't want to go there) and up in the apartment over the garage which means going outside in his bathrobe. He doesn't want to do that either. So I think I need to get the shower ordered and ready to install and the pocket door too. The idea is for him to take a couple days off sandwiched around his normal days off. With four days off he should be able to get the door installed and the sheet rock installed over it and the shower with the doors installed over that and hopefully have the tile guy in to tile the two walls in the shower. He may have to use the girls shower a couple days but it wont kill him. Especially since they are usually gone by the time he needs it.

                     

 We do have another girl moving in this Thursday though. One of the kids has a friend that wants to stay with us until she and the oldest move out this fall. We will call her Em for this purpose. We love Em. She has been a friend for a long time and she is a great kid. Always helping out and jumping in to do things voluntarily. She went to a private college this year. It was her first year and she found out it was just too expensive.  She attended two quarters and is already 10 grand in debt because she had to take out a student loan to pay for her dorm, a requirement for first year students. Our oldest attended running start during her senior year of high school, attended the same junior college and lived at home her sophomore year and has a significant amount saved for this fall when she moves out. If she is accepted she will be attending the University of Washington her junior year and so far no debt. Em realizes that this is a better idea or she is going to have a killer student loan debt when she gets out of school. However she is already in debt and kind of behind the eight ball already. But living here over the next few months she can get some prerequisites out of the way and work somewhere so she can save up a little for next fall. Working and going to school full time is really hard.

So not only will the man need to use that shower but he has to do it with another girl living here. The problem is all in his head but we will just work around that. In the mean time I will be stripping the paint from the claw foot tub and looking for the shower.

100% Hatch Ratio!

That's a lot easier to do when you are only trying to hatch 4 eggs. However we had to work at it this morning. My youngest went out to check on the last egg before I took her to school. We were expecting to find our fourth and last little duck all hatched out and playing with her siblings but my daughter came in and told me the egg was still in one piece and the same little tiny crack was exactly the same as the day before. She also said the baby inside was still alive. She could feel her moving and pecking but the movements were weaker than yesterday. I took her to school and came back prepared to do something about the last duck if necessary. And it was. The egg was exactly like it had been for the last day and a half. One tiny barely perceptible little crack and it was obvious the creature inside was fading. Now I know you
are suppose to leave them alone when they are piping. Mother nature knows best but I had already screwed around with mother nature by putting those eggs under that Silkie in the first place and I'm not one to stand around doing nothing. When ducks make a nest they place the eggs in contact with the ground so that the humidity is just right for hatching. These little guys were in a nice dry nest in a coop with bedding chips and under a bird that wouldn't go into the water on her own if her life depended on it. I had been putting drops of water on the eggs at least twice a day for the last week or so and I had a small piece of towel under the chips to absorb the moisture and release it back to the eggs when mom warmed it up enough. So in spite of all my efforts I was pretty sure that little one was still in that egg because I had screwed up. I took the egg up to the house gave it a light rinse with warm water and with the tip of a clean steak knife I started tapping on that egg right where the crack was. I just kept working across the egg like I thought a baby would do making sure none of the chips fell into the egg. As luck would have it her little beak was right where I thought it would be. I just kept chipping until I had almost half that egg off. It looked as if the inner membrane was dry and maybe stuck to the duckling so a few more drops of warm water helped with that.

You can see her beak in this picture. When she started stretching  and moving I figured that was enough "help" from me and I had better put her back under her mom to finish the job so I took her back out to the coop and put her with the rest of the ducklings that were huddled under warm wings and went back to the house to get ready to take the cat to a vet appointment. Did I mention it was also 29 degrees this morning?  Any way since I had a few minutes before I had to leave I decided to go back out to the coop to see how things were coming along. That poor baby was not under mom. I don't know if the other ducklings kicked her out or what but she was out of her shell, icy cold, and not moving at all when I picked her up. I was pretty sure

This is how I found her

she was a dead duck. So I took her up to the house. I just stood in the kitchen looking at her laying in my hand and kicking myself for taking her back to the mom in the first place. Her tummy was still open were the yolk of the egg is supposed to be absorbed and I thought that too was my fault for screwing with that egg.  Then I saw it. Just barely her eye opened and she was looking at me. My first thought was she had died but then her eye moved. Quickly I turned on the water in the kitchen sick and got it warm then put her on her back, nose and tummy up and let the warm water run into my hand but not enough to get on her tummy or her beak. I just warmed her up with the water until she started moving. I yelled at the man to go get me the lamp out of the garage. He set it up while I tried keeping her warm in my hands. Not wanting to put her down on cold paper towels I just put my hand under the light. The more she warmed up the more she moved but I was still

pretty sure she wasn't going to make it. When she dried off a bit and the box and paper towels had warmed up to  87 degrees we put her under the light along with a rolled bolster of paper towels to keep off drafts. Little by little that little fighter came back.

By noon she was walking around and trying to get out of the little box I had her in. I had to tape the flaps up to make the box taller. When the oldest got home she immediately started to spoil that little duck rotten.  Putting her on her lap and letting her walk on her computer while she did homework. When the youngest got home it got worse and soon that little duck didn't want to stay in the box and would just scream her head off.

Now it doesn't take long for a baby bird to imprint on people and this one had wasted no time doing so. I went to the coop and got one of the other babies and brought it up to keep this one company and to let it know it was a duck. They stayed in the house all night so that I could make sure the weaker one was going to make it. Buy morning she was eating and drinking and so far so good. After the girls went to school I went down to check on mom and the other two babies. Mom needed a poo break so I put her on the floor while I changed the wet papers in the brooder box. What a difference in babies. The two that spent the night with mom thought I was a monster. Guess the kids will be doing some bird socializing. It's so much easier to fix a bird in trouble if they are use to human handlers.

All four babies are now with mom so I will be keeping an eye on things to make sure the littlest doesn't get bossed around. I will end with photos of mom and babies. To see larger images just click on the photos.