My morning...

[Russell]

I had a long frustrating night of work, and they ran the shift late to try to get stuff out as we were backed up on a few orders. So I patiently (yeah right) waited for the machine operators to finish and put their numbers into the computer system so I could check what I got, against what they claim they did, against what the warehouse says they have. Oh goody... Almost forty five minutes after 4 am, finally clocking out. I tell myself, I don't want to come back...LOL!

Come home, the house is unusually clean, and thump thump thump, little feet descend down the stairs holding Mommy's hand. Apparently little one is up an hour early due to a bad dream we presume. Clean house with two year old? Not for long...he he he... I kiss little one and the wife and trudge up the stairs with a knee reminding me it doesn't like stairs...ouch...nasty case of tendonitis.

5 am I'm out cold... 10:11 the clock says when my eyes snap open. Darn, was hoping my body would SLEEP! But no, it's like I have an internal alarm clock that says, no, you need to get your butt up and do stuff. Argh! I drag myself out of bed and down the stairs. Funny how knee isn't bothered by going down, but going up...

No one's home, just me and the animals. Wife is at her mother's visiting. Ah, house to myself! I snatch up the paper and switch on the puter. I scan through all the crap, I mean, news. Then enjoy the comics as I eat breakfast and harass Chuck via messenger.

Saturday, rodent chores...the day I do a serious cleaning of the bird and rodent room. Change out all the tubs and give fresh bedding. Give the birds new cage paper liners.

So I start at 11 and get finished at 1. Always takes me about two hours. Only about half that time is spent on the rodents. The spring weather must have the rodents in overdrive. After pulling out all the weanlings into a tub. I realize that there is literally no walking room for them in that tub when I'm done! So I pull out another empty tub and take out about half. I now have THREE overstock tubs with mice in them. No wonder my snakes are fat... But that's alright, most of these will go into the freezer, and soon I will only be producing pinks for the freezer from the colony as I did last year. As soon as I have plenty of mice for the adult snakes in the freezer for the summer.

I find a colony with a TON of hoppers and a tiny group of skinny pinks. I pluck the six pinks out and go into the living room and look around at the various snakes. Ah! the one pair of Silver Queens are out, up front, and as I slide open the male's drawer he spins his head around and up and tries nabbing the pink as it falls through the air into his tub. His second strike doesn't miss. I plop in the other two pinks and smile at this guy's good appetite. His girlfriend in the tub next door is also eager for a big meal.

I finish up the mice and haul the bag of shavings to the back room of the house. Back again and I'm starting on the rats. I find a female with a large litter of 11 that has a runt and a couple smallish compared to the other pups. I pluck out these three and again off to see who I can feed today. I move my hand across in front of the tubs to be met by numerous snakes, some rushing forward with strikes, others just jumping forward in readiness. They are oh so well trained...LOL! I pop the pups, one each, into the pair of two year old Charlestons and the two year old female Okeetee. Many many other pairs of eyes follow me as I walk away.

Three tubs of weanling mice and old breeders is still going to be WAY more than I'll need for this weeks feeding. And these two year olds are supposed to be on a diet, and not fed till next week. Excepting those I fed today. They aren't showing signs of being fat.

I get down to the two breeder tubs and discover that I have two female rats that need their maternity tubs. So out they go to their own tubs. And I realize I only have one rat tub left for a pregger female. So I better wean off a bunch soon and I note a rat that had a small litter again and will knock her off once her five are weaned.

Rodents done I turn to the birds. The parakeets that raised babies all winter are trying to nest again for a third time! Their second round is finishing up weaning now. But the hen is already back in the nest box and I discover three eggs already! It's NOT good to let birds raise more than two batches a year if they raise babies themselves with no handfeeding of babies. Otherwise they get wore out and problems arise.

So I go to find my bird catching glove. Cause it seems mature female parakeets have jaws of steel, and it HURTS when they latch onto you! But unable to find it where I had left it....obviously the work of little two year old hands... I go back into the room and think about my options. I realize the hen is inside the nest box, so I sneakily move the box sideways so the box opening is against the bars of the cage so she can't slip back out into the cage. I then undo the cords of the nest box and slip my hands over the nest box opening and pray that she doesn't latch onto my fingers over the hole! I then swing the box over to the big flight where the nonbreeding flock lives and open a door, and in a moment the bright yellow female flies into the flight. Scattering parakeets in her wake. As, far as they are concerned, she's new again and not to be trusted just yet. Her mate will do a good job finishing the now weaning babies.

I just have to remember to make a phone call to a pet store in Fargo to sell off the babies. Funny how around here local I couldn't give them away for five dollars each, and the pet store sells them for twenty... I eye another pair that I hope will take to breeding. AFTER, I get rid of these two batches I have on hand. It doesn't pay to drive two hours just to rid yourself of nine baby parakeets at, what will probably be, five dollars each at the pet store. Well, I guess that many WILL pay for the gas at least and a meal out to eat, fast food...LOL! Told the wife the other day next weekend we will make the drive and she can shop, using up the gift cards we got from Christmas. She has been making her plans...oh I hope my budget holds up!

All three pairs of cockatiels that I have paired up have been sitting on eggs. Four eggs in each nest. Well, today I pulled out my egg candler. When I got this years ago I paid a pretty penny for it, though amount forgotten, it's been indispensable in letting me know what's going on in them there eggs. It lights up eggs like light bulbs when done at the right angle. I slip it into the youngest pairs nest. They are breeding for the first time. Earlier the male had been attacking his mate after the nesting started. So I clipped his wings up short and chewed him out. He was totally embarrassed without his ability to fly. So I was thinking it would also hinder his desire to mate and thus end up with infertile eggs. Well, lo and hehold, all four of their eggs are fertile and looking good!

Onto the second pair. This pair is now working on their second season. And are actually siblings to the younger pair. The males are brothers, and the females are sisters. Anyhow, I fully expected all four eggs to be good and not far from hatching. The egg candler tells the story as I push the button and show yellow glowing eggs. No veins, no emybryo...nothing. Argh! The whole clutch of this pair is no good. Now that's odd! Not what I had expected at all! So out come the eggs, and I mess up the shavings a bit. The idea is to make them think a little disaster struck and they must start over again. Hopefully they do better this next round. I really liked this pairs babies last year, and sure hope a whiteface pearl comes of it.

The third pair, my old timers, have a clutch of four fertile eggs as expected. I don't know how many years this pair has left. But as long as they want to, I'll let them attempt it till I have problems. And they are old stand bys to this game!

I walk out of the room with egg candler in hand, and think to myself, why not check my snake eggs? Funny I never bother usually! So off I go and pull out the bullsnake egg box. All seven show the tell tale red veins and the red splotch that is the developing embryo. I check the Northern Pine clutch of seven. And the first egg I check is the one that seemed a bit deflated from the start. Sure enough, nothing. Checking the remaining six finds all is fertile and well under way. Whoo hoo! This will be handy in eliminating eggs that would otherwise simply rot and make me go, why did it die? When it was likely never fertile in the first place.

So, I'm willing to bet that of the cockatiel eggs, I'll get six babies this first round. As one usually runs into some problem or other by the time you get the babies to the two week stage where they are pulled for handfeeding. So, not a big bunch, but that's good. I do best with small bunches of cockatiel babies as you are able to put more time into each baby than spread yourself thin over a larger group. And this is a good thing considering a good friend is getting a couple of these babies IF I get the colors she likes, or should I say, lack of color... LOL! But to get those odds, one needs numbers. So will have to likely let them all go for a second round of eggs. But I don't want to spend my whole summer handfeeding baby tiels while I'm also trying to tend to baby snakes. I also have to stick to a time line that should have me done before August so I can take my much needed vacation to Daytona.

I can just see the conversations going on at the tables now...

Seller :Why Russell, why are you only taking one pair? You really should take a couple pairs, and grow them up. I know from reading your personal forum that you have a TON of mice to feed off, so why not? You know you can afford to feed them...LOL!

Uh huh, that'll be the argument I'm sure. I will certainly be bellying up to Kathy Love's table to have a look at her selection of Okeetees that's for sure. I've got all these gorgeous daughters of Edmunds and now need to find an unrelated male with deep dark red saddles laced heavily in black throughout the body with an intense orange background. Well, yeah I know they don't start out like they end up, but still, you usually have an idea... For me, if they start out looking like anerys with loads of bright red orange spots in the background between the blotches dorsally. Chances are they will become screamers compared to the siblings that look orangy blotched already with little background color showing, aka normal babies.

But then Rob's got some stuff I know I'm going to want to look over. So doggone it, who's table to hit first? Ah, Kathy's will still get my first priority...I love my Okeetees and her line is in my opinion, the best.

So that's my chatter for the day, now off to work in a few hours, my last night of the week. Tommorow I shall check over the rest of the snakes and see who really does need to eat, versus those who could eat anyhow, versus those who do NOT need to eat cause they are too fat yet... He he he...

Congratulations...you've just read another installment of Russell's Ramblings...



I put stuff away and haul out the last garbage bag to the back room and wash my hands. Pull out a container of pasta dish made a couple days back, and toss it in the microwave. And harass Chuck some more...

[Joni Garcia]

Sounds like you've had quite and exciting day. Congrats on the Cockatiel eggs! I hope you'll post pictures later when they hatch.