Autumn morning

Posted by louisa on Thursday 20 October 2011 in chickens | 2 comments

It was so lovely this morning that I rewarded myself for finalising my accounts (October mini-goal, tick!) with some garden play time with my furred and feathered friends. The cats were sunbathing on the top of the wood store, the chickens were digging through fallen leaves, the dog was making sure everything smelled ok in the garden & the field next door and I started cutting up some logs for the stove.

It wasn’t long though before I had visitors in the woodstore. Fluffy bummed visitors.

Saw horse, I HAVE CONQUERED YOU.

But as soon as she’d surveyed one level, she craved more exploration….

That part of the woodstore doesn’t have a roof and it’s under a thick holly tree, so I had visions of her jumping up and scampering through the branches — and me getting very scratched trying to get her back out again. So I lured her & the others to the other side of the patio, to do a little weeding for me while I got on with cutting some kindling.

I left them under the watchful eye of Carla-cat (who had relocated from the woodstore to another equally sunny spot away from the noise/dust) …

But they didn’t respect her authoritah and were soon off exploring again. Blue didn’t think much to John’s coop – too few perches, not enough nest boxes – but did poo on the window sill to leave her mark.

They also explored the greenhouse and were rather excited to find a few dropped tomatoes:

I do hope we get a few more of these sunny and fresh mornings before muggy winter kicks in :)

An expensive week at the vets

Posted by louisa on Friday 12 November 2010 in frugal | 1 comment

We’ve had an expensive week at the vets this week.

Our old cat Boron has always been more prone to dental problems than the others: he had to have his top fangs (amongst others) out a few years ago, giving him a wonderful gurning grin, then on Monday, he had to have pretty much the rest of his teeth out. He’s now just got one left, a molar or premolar I forget which.

At £240, it was an expensive day out for the little chap but he should be happier now – I suspect his gums were hurting a lot before.

But there’s more. As part of the pre-op blood tests, they found he had slightly higher than normal T4, which means he’s got hyperthyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is apparently an increasingly common condition in older cats – although according to some sources, it’s probably not actually increasing in frequency, it probably just increasing in diagnosis. Just about every very old (14+) cat I’ve ever known has been a bit too skinny and not as rigorous about keeping their fur as immaculate as they used to be – I always assumed that was an old cat thing but it seems like it’s probably hyperthyroidism.

There are apparently three ways to treat hyperthyroidism – an operation, radiotherapy (which gives them radioactive poo for 3-5 weeks!) or ongoing medication every day for the rest of their lives. The radiotherapy thing isn’t an option – it costs over £1500 and the cat has to live in a special cattery for it’s glowing poop period – and our vet kinda glossed over the operation option (telling me about how they’re reluctant to operate on hyperthyroid cats because the common hyperthyroidism symptoms – such as increased heart rate, high blood pressure or damage to other organs – make it a danger to operate — but Boron had an operation on Monday…). So it’s pills every day for the rest of his life.

If we buy them monthly from the vet, it’ll cost £28 a month (93p a day). If we buy a full tub from the vet – 100 tablets – it’ll be £71 (71p a day). I can get them cheaper online – £41 for the 100 tablets, although I’ll need a prescription from the vets for £10 – but still 51p a day in total. There will also be ongoing monitoring blood tests (one after a month, then hopefully just every six months) which are about £40 a pop.

Boron’s a marvellous, loving cat and in the ten years we’ve been together, he’s never been an expensive high maintenance cat so he’s worth it. Knowing about it now, there is no way we can not treat it but it’s another thing to add into the budget…