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Iroh was in surgery yesterday. He had been gagging since Monday, trying to cough up a hairball that just wouldn't come out. Then on Wednesday, he managed to cough up a jumble the size of my finger, which included a hair tie, pieces of a toy and some sort of fiber. I thought he would be fine after that, but he continued gagging, only this time, nothing came up. He stopped eating and started acting sluggish, so I took him to the vet on Saturday. She recommended an xray, and when the results came back, she said that he had foreign matter in both his stomach and small intestine or colon.

Though the vet could perform the procedure, they weren't sure if they would be able to have enough coverage since the office was fully booked with appointments. Additionally, the surgery would be safer for Iroh in the hands of a specialist. So the vet referred us to a specialist who, after reviewing the xrays, recommended that the surgery be performed. We left him overnight and were excited to learn later in the evening that we could pick him up early this morning.

I'm glad to report that the doctors say he should make a full recovery and that they don't expect any complications. He's young and otherwise healthy, so he should bounce back quickly. The surgeon also said that this is typical kitten behavior, and he should outgrow it. I sincerely hope she's right, because I don't know if we can keep the house as meticulous as it needs to be.

We're just glad he's okay =)

In other news, today I let the chicks outside for the first time. Artemis freaked out at first and wouldn't stop chirping. I put her back in the box, thinking she wanted to be secure, but she chirped even louder and eventually flew out of the box. Persephone didn't want to jump off my arm when I took her out of the box, either. After a few minutes, they were digging around and pecking, but they didn't wander around very much. They went to the shade and pecked around there, looking a little hot.

Meanwhile, I was busy working on expanding their living space while they weren't in it. After maybe an hour outside, I was ready to put them back in their newly expanded brooder. So far as I can tell, they haven't spent much time on the other side of the brooder, but that could be because the temperature is cooler there; the heat lamp is on one side of it rather than in the middle. I planned this. Because the brooder is in the garage with the washer and dryer, the heat lamp isn't the only source of warmth. On warm days and when the dryer is running, the garage can get rather toasty. I wanted them to be able to get away from the heat without changing the height of the lamp.

According to my sources, I should have 10 square feet for my flock's brooder. I haven't measured the newly expanded space, but I believe it is at least that big. So this should be the last time I need to expand, but who knows. I thought they would last at least 2 weeks in the cage, and then at least another week in the original box they were in. But they will be 2 weeks old tomorrow, so my estimations were definitely off.

We took a break from coop building this weekend because DH has been sick all week. I'm grateful for the break, but I'm also anxious to complete the work. The girls will hopefully be moving into the coop 3 or 4 weeks from now, at the end of May. They are growing so fast, and it's really exciting!