Happy Easter!

He is risen! Hallelujah!

I am up, but the FH has had a bad night with the CPAP machine. I just leapt out of bed and said, "Come on, we'll be late for church," to which he replied that his chest hurts and he feels full of air from the machine, and he's going nowhere. I know he had to take it off at about 5am, so I think I'll have to phone the ward at the hospital and get some advice today.

Anyway, I am hoping to get myself and the girls to church by 9.30am, so I had better go and start on the morning chores. Have already turned the eggs in the incubators, and the chick looks fine, I'm pleased to report. It was very vocal last night, so we gave it a small soft-toy duck for company!

Welcome home

The FH is home, and very tired!!

A night in a hospital bed is never a very restful one, and sharing a room with two other men didn't help either. He seems to have spent a lot of time chatting with a farmer, and being disturbed by the third man's monitors' alarms going off. The FH and the farmer were only in there for the CPAP machine initiation, whereas the third man was seriously ill, and apparently turned blue in the night and had to have quite some suction to his airways on several occasions.

We will have to try the machine tonight at home and hopefully we will get used to it. The doctor has told the FH that he MUST persevere with it, whatever the difficulties, because his problem is so bad.

The second chick is beginning to show normal chick behaviours now, which is reassuring. It is pecking at the food, drinking from the water bowl and preening a little too. It will probably survive now. There are now 24 Gold-laced Orpington eggs in the two incubators.

Weather report - not as bad as was forecast! Some sun, so I am heading out now to pootle in the greenhouse for a while. The FH is watching the Oxford/Cambridge boat race on the Thames. We're rooting for Cambridge!

RIP chick

Yes, the weaker little chick died about half an hour ago. The other is still struggling on, but all we can do is watch and hope for it to survive. I'm not over the moon about having another "only" chick again, though.

The FH is at the hospital - we dropped him off and came home. UJ has come to tea and enjoyed fish and chips (HM of course) with the girls, I had chicken and chips. He is now watching the TV and I am about to join him, with a cuppa. Good night, all!

Wobbles in the hatchery

These chicks are both very weak this morning. The second, unphotographed chick has still not made it onto its feet, and indeed, its toes have not splayed out so that it can stand on them. We are beginning to wonder about the viability of this chick and whether it is deformed. Sad but real, I'm afraid.

The second chick is moving around, but not showing much of the normal chick behaviours yet, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for that one. I have given them both water this morning from a pipette and I have dipped their beaks into the water bowl in the box, so that might encourage them a little.

Apart from that, the FH is having a bath and getting his bag packed for the hospital. I have telephoned as instructed, to make sure that there is a bed available for him, so it is all systems go on that front.

Meet a chick

I'm not sure whether this is a Mack or a Mabel, but it is cute anyway. I've cropped the picture as the other chick was on its back in a rather undignified position, so I thought I'd preserve its dignity a little and just show you all this one.

Hospitals and things

The FH has been suffering from excessive tiredness for some time now, months, indeed. I have engineered him to get a referral from the GP to a sleep clinic, as I suspected he was stopping breathing when he slept. I was right: he went to Papworth Sleep Clinic on Tuesday to fetch an oxygen monitor which he had to have clipped to his finger all night. We went to Papworth to see the doctor yesterday, and the print out from the monitor revealed that his breathing is stopping up to FORTY TIMES AN HOUR! Oh, my word! That was a bit of a shock - I thought it was maybe once or twice each night, nowhere near as bad as that. So, he has to go tomorrow overnight to be supplied with a CPAP machine which, I think, will supply a fixed pressure of air into his windpipe whilst he sleeps so that it can't collapse and stop him breathing. The first night is done under supervision in the hospital, and we were very lucky that they let him go in this week - the receptionist said it would be any time in the next six weeks, but then I said we would accept a cancellation spot and wanted it done asap, and she said, "Well, is this Friday too soon?" to which I replied that it most certainly was not! He is not allowed to drive until the treatment starts to work, so we have to inform the DVLA, which I should do tomorrow. I have to take him back to the hospital tomorrow for 1.30pm and then pick him up again on Saturday morning, with his machine. I'm looking forward to having a more alert husband back soon!

Today has been a whirlwind - I took the EFG to a different hospital to see a pediatrician about some growth issues, then called in on my sister to pick up her Easter gifts for the girls, dropped off a leotard to another friend in the town, headed off north to the other town to a menswear shop to buy the FH some PJs for his hospital stay and then picked up the YFG from school before finally making it home at about 3.10pm. It was a long day in the car!

When we got home, the two chicks hadn't made it out of the eggshells properly, so we gave them a little helping hand and they are both OK now. One has made it onto its feet, but the other is still rolling around on its back as its legs haven't really gained their strength yet. Both have loud cheeps, and we are hearing them all over the house. I am going to sort out the box and the light for them before I go to bed and maybe move them over later on, but I might leave it until the morning, depending on how they seem at about 10pm.

So Excited!

Got up a little while ago to find that the Sebright eggs (2) are beginning to hatch. I sat here at the computer last night and was sure I heard a cheep but looked at the eggs and decided that no, they weren't "due" until Friday so I must have been imagining things! This morning as I sat here, I heard it again, and rushed to look - one egg is moving a little and the other has a big hole in it where I can see a chick's foot and that chick is the one cheeping!! Hatch one day early......more news later.