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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Tiny Critters

My Moms button quail hatched out these cute little chicks. They are the size of a bumble bee when they pop out of their shell. The quail weren't taking care of them when they hatched, so my Mom put all the eggs in the incubator. Every time she opened it, they were like popcorn bouncing around.
The camera must add 10 grams to a chick, as they sure look a lot bigger in the picture in my hand, than in person. The picture of the chicks next to the wide mouth jar lid full of food is a better size comparison.





My Peruvian guinea pig popped out two adorable little boys. When I went out to feed in the evening she already had them all cleaned up and dry. She's quite the happy little Mamma.


Since our garden hasn't been doing well, I haven't taken very many pictures. So I thought I'd show you all some some strange things around our place.
This bug was dragging a big fat spider down into a hole it dug in our backyard. It drug that spider a long ways to that little hole, and kept running back, and digging more dirt out of the hole. 

It didn't look like it would fit.


But it eventually made it fit. Food for its young I guess.

Now these things used to entertain my Brother and I as kids. Heck, they still entertain us. If you've never seen them before they are called Doodlebugs or Antlions. Just catch an ant, toss it in the sandy hole, and watch the little claws pop up out of the sand, grab the ant, and drag it under. Here is a link that has a video, down towards the bottom of the page, of them catching and eating ants.

Kimberly

4 comments:

Kelly said...

Cute chicks and guinea pigs!!!! My girl is due tomorrow :))))

An At Home Daughter said...

Hi Kelly,
Those little chicks sure grow fast. They are already getting wing feathers.
Wow you know exactly when your guinea pigs due! I have a really hard time pin pointing them. They seem to have a really large time frame, so I just wait and wait : )
Kimberly

Harry Flashman said...

When I was a child in 1950's Florida, my grandpa had a garage shed with a sand floor. It was full of Ant Lions. Haven't seen them since then.

Peruvians eat Guinea Pigs, so your Guinea Pig is very lucky to be living with you.

What do you do with Quail when they are grown up?

An At Home Daughter said...

Harry,
You want me to send you some doodlebugs?

Our neighbor across the road is Peruvian, he used to raise them for meat when I was a little kid. I don't remember any of it, but my parents went to one of there parties and they were served guinea pig without there knowing. As she was eating it she got to wondering what it was, and said something to one of the other neighbors. His response was "I don't know, but I've got the head", and he held up a guinea pig head. I guess they all though it tasted pretty good. My (Peruvian) neighbor is always telling me "man they taste good!"

The quail are decorative. A lot of people use them for cleaning up the floors of their aviaries. My Mom plans to sell all the babies that she raises.
Kimberly