Chickens, kittens and Jack

I'll start with the chickens(and Audrey). We have several big friendly chickens in the garden, that are generally no bother to the dogs and the dogs are no bother to them, until now. The poor old chickens have acquired some new house mates- mites. Obviously we had to deal with this, so I ordered some stuff to treat the house. This arrived and we gave the chicken house a very thorough clean and sprayed the birds with frontline. The infested chippings were carefully bagged awaiting a bonfire to destroy them later that evening. When I looked out of the kitchen window and saw Audrey pulling all the contents of the bag over the garden. I called her in and set about clearing up her mess, and gave the matter no more thought.
That night we settled all the dogs as usual but Audrey became very agitated, barking and howling (something she has never done, even as a tiny pup), so after checking her we decided to ignore the behaviour as we didn't want to reward it by letting her out, so we went to bed. This continued on and off until after midnight and by then Graham decided he better let her out incase she needed the toilet, she didn't but he called me down as she was constantly scratching. Then the penny dropped- she was crawling with mites!! I immediately sprayed her with frontline and gave her some piriton. This had little or no effect and she continued creating a fuss until at 3am I ended up having to bath and dry her which I am pleased to say worked very well. Needless to say if we ever have the same problem with the chickens again i shall make sure that the dogs have NO access to the contaminated shavings.

Jack, Cinders pup has found a lovely home and will no doubt soon be spoiled rotten by his new mum and her two children. He will be ready to go in a fortnight. He was out and about in the garden today so have added a couple of photos.

Sybil and Manuel have 1 very handsome cream and white Devon boy looking for a home, he will be ready at the beginning of July and having been brought up alongside all the dogs and handled by my 5 year old daughter and her friends he will hopefully be like his mum, a very sociable cat.