So Many Babies!

There's so much going on at the farm right now regarding baby animals!

To start with, Dusty Miller's mama (Cinnamon) has been found! She was hiding under some ferns with seven other babies. We removed her from her outdoor nest, and placed her in an old rabbit cage filled with wood shavings. Then we placed Dusty Miller in with her. She accepted Dusty right off the bat, but it took a little while for the little guy to get the picture. Now, he is simply one his mama's brood. :)

Secondly (though I haven't had the chance to tell you), Some of Mo and Adelaide's eggs have hatched! Adelaide refused to go broody, but we had another hen (Ginger, Cinnamon's sister) who refused to go "un-broody". We placed a few of Adelaide's eggs under her, and 21 days later, three little peepers were born. One of these chicks was not Mo and Adelaide's, it was Ginger's biological chick. So far Ginger has been a great mama, and I just know that the chicks will turn out really well. 

There's more! Another one of my hens (Ella) hatched a single chick, which I have named Cleo. She's been a great mom so far.

Thought that was it, did you? (;
One of our ducks (Waddly) hatched a clutch of eggs, too. She had six ducklings, but weirdly abandoned them all. I cannot fathom why a bird that sat faithfully on a nest for twenty-eight days wouldn't want to raise her young. Either way, we took it upon ourselves to raise the six little ducklings and strangely, they have developed a bond with our young guinea.

There's more to come. Mama sebright (A.K.A. Merida) is sitting on a clutch of eggs as well.

As you can see, a lot of stuff has been going on at the farm, and I'm sure there will be more to come!

Tons of Tent Caterpillars!

It is sad, but our beloved "tadpole puddle" has dried up. Jasper and I went out to visit it, and found that it had been tilled in. There is a big tree that overhangs the spot where the puddle used to be, and when we looked up, we noticed that there were tons of cottony nests build snugly onto its branches. This could only mean one thing: Tent caterpillars.

Although they can do serious damage to flowers, I haven't seen a single nest on our property. (Thankfully!) Jasper and I decided to observe them, so we went back home and grabbed the camera, and old empty plastic fish tank, and an X-acto knife. We trekked back out to the tree, and began to take some pictures of the caterpillars and their cottony nests.

At the tree

A nest

A newer nest, with lots of caterpillars on it.

After snapping more than a few photos, we decided to collect some of the nests to take home for observation.

Some were too high to collect

And most we just decided to leave alone.

 After that, I took out my X-acto knife and decided to dissect a nest, for educational purposes of course.

The whitest stuff was not part of the nest, it was this cottony seed material.

I am not sure of the purpose of tent caterpillar's nests, as all I observed were two or three caterpillars inside. The majority reside on the outside of the nest.

Jasper and I took the nests we collected home, and set up a habitat for them. Here is a video of it:

Overall, I think that tent caterpillars are pretty cool, despite their ravenous appetite for foliage. They are, after all, just doing what they were born to do.