I brought Toggles back into house to keep him out of rain.
Look at check marks on tail feathers from when he was down with coccidiocis.
There are no similar marks on his wing feathers I can see.
He is getting extremely buddy buddy with me where he perches on my shoulder to preen and sleep...
Gate to a pen left open. Owl knocked game camera over by perching on it. Owl is likely a young one since I hear it calling a lot. The owl is calm enough to visit during day even though area is relatively open. American Crows and Red-tailed Hawks that typically harass such owls during the day are...
Great-horned Owl came in when my son forgot to close pen door. Owl got a pullet and consumed head and neck leaving carcass in front of game camera shown in second image. It was a windy night blowing things around and we had lots of lightening too.
Remaining birds (22) scattered themselves about...
Keeping chickens, especially when you have containment issues with the birds and guardians puts the burden of additional cost on you. If the cost of keeping your LSG contained to your property, regardless of what is going on across the property boundary is too high, then the cost of keeping...
Toggle was released to hang with his mother after a two week separation. They still recognized each other by voice. The got into three short fights where she one each time. Then she held here head down to listen to him talk like a rooster bonding to young chicks. Toggles and his mom are now...
I had to a test determining if Toggle would consume the substantially larger adult Dubia roaches. I assumed he would dismember first like he does for larger praying mantises and Differential Grasshoppers. He consumed the roach intact, which I did not expect.
Today, I got 6 of these critters for Toggles to eat. I will take him through a sequence of feed types / sizes to show how it impacts his approach and vocalizations when feeding. First, we will do regular meal worms, then medium sized Dubia Roaches and finally adult Dubia Roaches as shown below...
Toggle has found something good he can do in the home. Eating brown recluse spiders. We have a bunch in some boxes, and he got down to business. Not enough fill his crop to even a measurable degree, yet he saved me trouble of using the vacuum cleaner on them.
My younger chickens in particular will peck at our toes in an exploratory fashion. Unfortunately, my son went through a phase where he applied feed when the chickens pecked at his feet. It stopped the chickens from pecking his feet for a short while. The problem was the chickens learned that...
Bug hunt. We walked doorways around lights looking for insect drift attracted by night lights that settled low to ground as sun came up. Most of what Toggles found were moths, mayflies, and crickets although we did find an adult green phase female Carolina Mantid. She proved tasty. Toggles did...