Swift Half update - 1st December 2010

• I simply cannot believe how cold the weather is at present, still, with a vicious wind and temperatures below freezing all day and WELL below all night. I think Wales broke a few records yesterday with an actual temperature of -18c - which felt a lot colder with the wind chill added on!
• The chickens water is freezing solid as soon as I put it out each day (luckily Mr.T is kind enough to come 'round at lunch to thaw it out).
• Conker ate a whole foot-long strand of shredded newspaper last night - sucked it up like spaghetti so she did, the daft apeth.
• Two eggs today - one from Couven (paper thin shell and broken - possibly laid under stress, I'll find out at the weekend when I get to watch in-coop live on our kitchen tv) and one from Trouble.
• Trouble (and Conker?) have re-arranged the coop and put ALL the newspaper in one nest box - leaving the other with just "cozy coop" (fine recycled wood pulp) in it. These two new birds don't seem to be bothered about sleeping in a "nest" as Couven and Cutlery ever were - very refreshing. I would now, ALWAYS advise prospective chook owners to get POL pullets that are at LEAST twenty weeks old and reared outside (unlike Couvs and Cutlery who were 13 weeks old and reared in a barn).
• Talking of Cutlery - I would put her health at a zero Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday gone. Tuesday (yesterday) I'd give her a health score of ONE - she at least stood up - and today, I'd raise that to TWO. She does appear a little perkier and seems to be eating pretty well. Not out of the woods by a long shot yet, but improving slightly?
• More problems with pets though I'm afraid. Yala, our female tabby, was very under the weather last night - sad and limping - and I located a lump and cut near her rear left hip (but underneath her belly).
• Anna took her to the vets tonight and she goes under the knife tomorrow, to have a large abscess removed. This will cost us £500, which we hope to get back through our pet insurance (please gawd!) and will mean she, yet again, will have to be locked inside with a bald, stitched tummy and Elizabethan ruff collar for a couple of weeks. Poor Yala.
• Pets eh? Who needs 'em?! Anna and I do, thats who!