2018 Newbie Chat!

[Anna Ranieri]

Well the tennis ball thing would have been nice to know yesterday...lol

Yeah, I get that, just thought might be useful in the future perhaps. Incidentally - do you ever sleep, just I've noticed by your times of posting you seem to be up all hours

 

[llombardo]

Yeah, I get that, just thought might be useful in the future perhaps. Incidentally - do you ever sleep, just I've noticed by your times of posting you seem to be up all hours

I do not require a lot of sleep. I'm more of a night person, but having a day time job can make that difficult. Sometimes I get 3-4 hours a night and I'm good to go. I like to stay busy

Today I'm looking for recipes that uses eggs. I got to get rid of the eggs..

 

[llombardo]

I found some rubber tubs that may be easier to deal with in the cold.

 

[llombardo]

You guys should have saw me digging for the duck egg today. I had put a small amount or what I thought was a small amount of straw in the duck house for some added warmth. I didn't take it apart-I put 3 squares from the bale in there. I thought let them arrange it, but didn't think they would completely take the straw apart-they were busy last night. It took me about five minutes of digging to find it. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw what they did, followed by a DUH what did I expect moment...

 

[Cbarr00]

I do not require a lot of sleep. I'm more of a night person, but having a day time job can make that difficult. Sometimes I get 3-4 hours a night and I'm good to go. I like to stay busy

Today I'm looking for recipes that uses eggs. I got to get rid of the eggs..

I'm in the same boat. Gave away 2 dozen eggs this week and have 3 dz on my counter. I decided I'm making deviled eggs today.

 

[CannedMonster]

My chick is now 13 weeks, things have calmed down a lot but we still have days where they pick on her relentlessly - they seem to feel the need to remind her not to get too big for her boots. One thing I found puzzling is that the previous lowest of the flock is the most vicious - I'd of thought she would have been less aggressive havibg experienced what its like at the bottom

You’re thinking like a human lol.
The bird lowest in the pecking order is usually always the worst one.
Emily can be terrible.
It’s because they want the new bird(s) to be the lowest instead of them.
They don’t want the new bird to rise higher than them.

I’ve discovered who my lower ranking teenagers are because they relentlessly follow my dog, Charlie, and get in his face quite a bit.
Charlotte & Elsie are the worst.
Charlotte was even attacked because she pecked him but he didn’t hurt her.
I’ve noticed she doesn’t bother him anymore lol.
He is allowed to protect himself because I know they could take an eye out.

I have to keep Charlie in the house when I give treats to the birds that I know he would like.
Recently I gave them a bunch of lettuce which Charlie has never shown an interest in.
He was trying to sniff it and possibly eating the tiny bits of cabbage that was in it when I heard him snarling and saw Red going after him.
She doesn’t play.
She will fight the dog.
She has no problem with it.
He was retreating from her but I told him to go in the house because I didn’t want Angus getting involved in the dispute.
The problem is that body language is different between dogs and chickens.
When Charlie practices what in dog behavior terminology is called “avoidance” (turning away to protect his face) the chickens perceive it as him giving way to them as the dominant one.
This is a problem.

An interesting thing happened in the last couple of days.
Yesterday I put on my warm winter coat for the first time.
When I let the chickens out Oliver stopped in the doorway and just stared at me.
He kept looking at the coat.
I know chickens see color (it’s a pretty purple) so I figured he wasn’t sure if it was me.
He would look back and forth between the coat and my face.
I kept talking to him so he could hear my familiar voice and he finally came out.
This morning I put a hat on.
Angus was the only one that approached me.
He kept looking up at my head.
He began to pretend to peck the ground.
I figured that wasn’t a good direction for the encounter to go in so I bent down so he could see my face better and I kept talking to him like Oliver.
I watched his eyes go back and forth between my face and the hat on my head.
I kept talking to him.
After about a minute or two he decided it was me and walked away.
Chickens are so smart and interesting.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

You’re thinking like a human lol.
The bird lowest in the pecking order is usually always the worst one.
Emily can be terrible.
It’s because they want the new bird(s) to be the lowest instead of them.
They don’t want the new bird to rise higher than them.

I’ve discovered who my lower ranking teenagers are because they relentlessly follow my dog, Charlie, and get in his face quite a bit.
Charlotte & Elsie are the worst.
Charlotte was even attacked because she pecked him but he didn’t hurt her.
I’ve noticed she doesn’t bother him anymore lol.
He is allowed to protect himself because I know they could take an eye out.

I have to keep Charlie in the house when I give treats to the birds that I know he would like.
Recently I gave them a bunch of lettuce which Charlie has never shown an interest in.
He was trying to sniff it and possibly eating the tiny bits of cabbage that was in it when I heard him snarling and saw Red going after him.
She doesn’t play.
She will fight the dog.
She has no problem with it.
He was retreating from her but I told him to go in the house because I didn’t want Angus getting involved in the dispute.
The problem is that body language is different between dogs and chickens.
When Charlie practices what in dog behavior terminology is called “avoidance” (turning away to protect his face) the chickens perceive it as him giving way to them as the dominant one.
This is a problem.

An interesting thing happened in the last couple of days.
Yesterday I put on my warm winter coat for the first time.
When I let the chickens out Oliver stopped in the doorway and just stared at me.
He kept looking at the coat.
I know chickens see color (it’s a pretty purple) so I figured he wasn’t sure if it was me.
He would look back and forth between the coat and my face.
I kept talking to him so he could hear my familiar voice and he finally came out.
This morning I put a hat on.
Angus was the only one that approached me.
He kept looking up at my head.
He began to pretend to peck the ground.
I figured that wasn’t a good direction for the encounter to go in so I bent down so he could see my face better and I kept talking to him like Oliver.
I watched his eyes go back and forth between my face and the hat on my head.
I kept talking to him.
After about a minute or two he decided it was me and walked away.
Chickens are so smart and interesting.

My chicks were hatched late August. By the time they got outside in the coop, I was mainly wearing jeans whenever I went out. One day it got warm so I put shorts on. What I do a lot is bring this little sit-on rolling gardening seat in the coop and sit on it, stretching my legs out so they can climb up. I did that and they all stood back eyeing me. One slowly came up to my leg and gently pecked it. She jumped up on my leg and then the rest were ok with it.
Speaking of jeans, my chicks love to peck at them, they even will scratch the ground when they do. Sometimes I think I should just hang an old pair up in there and they'd be entertained for hours, lol.
Oh, they made it through that really cold windy night ok. Three of them were kind of huddled on the roost. It looked like Pearl was standing but then I saw Jade tuck her head farther underneath Pearl. And realized that Diamond was in there too, half way underneath Pearl. She wasn't standing, she was sitting on them, lol. We put some plastic up the next day, it was in the 20s but sunny and no wind so it was nice. We put it up on the west side of the run. Our winter winds come predominately from the northwest. We're going to add some on the north, that's a part of the run that's underneath the coop so shouldn't take much time. We had bought a new mattress last year and my husband saved the huge plastic bag that it was covered with. It's nice thick plastic so we cut it up and used that.

 

[llombardo]

I'm in the same boat. Gave away 2 dozen eggs this week and have 3 dz on my counter. I decided I'm making deviled eggs today.

I'm making 2 quiche today. Never have done that or ate that, but they say it freezes well. Then I am making egg salad and French toast.

I wonder if duck eggs would be better for quiche?

 

[Anna Ranieri]

I do not require a lot of sleep. I'm more of a night person, but having a day time job can make that difficult. Sometimes I get 3-4 hours a night and I'm good to go. I like to stay busy

Today I'm looking for recipes that uses eggs. I got to get rid of the eggs..

Wow oly 3-4 hours sleep, thats impressive - I need 6-7 hours otherwise I get very grumpy

 

[llombardo]

My quiche