It may finally be Spring, as heralded by the constant drizzle for several days.

We had an event trip, where I field-trialed my freeze dried foods. That went well. I got to eat REAL FOOD while traveling. So cool.

But my knee decided to act up, and made it difficult for me to take care of anyone. Household had to pitch in, because I couldn’t make it up the hill easily.

Then Thursday last week, my knee decided to give way as I moved the expensive Black Copper Marans eggs — on lockdown, due to hatch by Sunday — and eggs smashed.

I thought I killed them all.

Two hatched, although one really struggled.

They both appeared to be doing well, but this morning one wasn’t acting quite right. I treated it best as possible. I was actually going to take a picture of the pair for this post but … I went into that brooder and found the healthy baby cuddling the body of the other baby. 🙁

I have brought the smallest chick of the last hatch in from the outside brooder to give the BCM chick a friend. Poor thing.

It’s not been a good week. Several chicks died — mostly freaking mishap. I don’t know HOW, but they were killing themselves with a CHICK FEEDER. This has never been an issue before.

So I got a different style … and one chick STILL managed to get itself wedged into that. I managed to disentangle it without further damage, but it died about a day later.

It’s just been … Sigh.

Then, today, I go up to the “barn” to care for everyone. Discover the mix-breed doe, close to right after she was fed last, killed and half-ate one of her kits. Presumably the one that kept chasing her around the cage to nurse when I saw it mid-day Wednesday. If they were a bit older, I’d cull her now. I’ll wait until they’re old enough for freezer camp … unless she hurts another one.

Not a happy-go-lucky kinda day on the farmette. Or even week.