Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[Fancychooklady]

I think you're definitely on to something with the suggestion of stress.  I separated him just last night and this morning so that he didn't have to worry about diealing with the other roosters before bed and before I let them out.  When I did let him out, his comb was genuinely back to normal for the first time in days.  I'm going to spend a bit of time today converting the shed so that I can use it as a time out place for chickens who might need a little quiet.

This is actually kind of convenient, as I need to work on the shed anyway.  The "shed" is a 100(ish) year old wash house which is laundry on one side and proper storage shed on the other but with no genuine wall between - a space of about 1m x 2m open between them.  I spent a good portion of yesterday chasing Grendel out of there who was sassing me and telling me that she was going to lay an egg in there whether I liked it or not, trying to walk right around me like I just wasn't going to see her or like I was just joking the previous 50 times I said, 'GET OUT, GRENDEL.'

She's probably mad at me for giving her a boy's name.  I hope not, or I may end up with Gandalf and Brian Blessed plotting against me.

Good to hear. Just keep an eye on the purple comb. If he's been panting the lack of oxygen in his blood stream will cause this, I lost king Henry the LS at 12 months of age . He was a magnificent bird, I had noticed a bit of purple on his comb and then he died of what I suspected was a heart attack.
We had a great day at the show yesterday. I spent a couple of hours in the animal nursery fielding questions from people about my 'fairy floss ' silkies. Most common question, ' will that colour harm the birds in any way ?', closely followed by ' do they lay rainbow coloured eggs?' The kids loved touching them and one little boy even licked little 'tink '. One severely disabled lady in a wheelchair even asked to have one rubbed on her face for a pic, of course I was happy to oblige.
The birds were very calm and well behaved, not bad being as they haven't had much handling, but they were glad to be home.

 

[Teila]

Hey Fancy kudos to you for doing that … you would have made people smile yesterday and for some, a very special day

 

[satay]

Good morning Friends 

Tee hee at your little one pecking at Carl appps
 
While it is not a book , I did write a piece on the My Chickens page and I am pretty stoked that it got chosen for Pic of the Week 

Well done. That's a great story and the pics are lovely.

 

[tandykins]

Good morning Friends

tandykins I am sorry to read that your rooster was a bit under the weather but it sounds like he has perked up this morning; hopefully it was just the after effects of the scuffle.

Tee hee .. love the mental picture “7 foot fox on a glittering unicycle” conjures up

and Grendel’s determination.

Many years ago I remember sitting down one morning with a cup of coffee and turned on the television to watch the news. Because my son was very young, the television was last on the cartoon network. So I was greeted by a cartoon of a young lady being mugged and next minute these humungous mice on motor bikes rocked up and rescued her from the muggers .. she is so relieved and thanking them …. Seriously? 6ft mice riding motor bikes?? “Thank You”??? Yeah, that is how you react to that .. you wouldn’t be running away with your arms waving in the air, screaming at the top of your lungs

Hahahaha, I occasionally watch my son's cartoons with him wondering what high quality hallucinogens the creators were on. Though if I started seeing 6 foot tall mice on motorbikes I'd probably assume that I accidentally made tea from the wrong plant in my yard.

I was doing some reading on the absurdity on which plants we're legally allowed to grow and which plants we aren't legally allowed to grow and found out that it's 100% legal to grow a large number of potent hallucinogenic plants in Australia. I'm the type of woman who likes to illustrate how ridiculous something like that is by having what I call my "pretty, pretty colours" garden (fenced off from children and animals). I can point to a plant and say, "Yeah that one flower is totes illegal but this has enough DMT in it to make you think you're a fairy princess from Narnia. That absolutely makes total logical sense." Why? Equal parts of "Because I can" and "THIS IS SILLY".

So 6 foot tall mice in my garden doesn't seem like a stretch for me so much as a gardening mistake. "Whoops, that was clearly not the lemon balm..." (That has never happened, I'm only joking. XD No I didn't just cross my fingers...you saw nothing....)

I found this out when I was attempting to buy Mugwort seeds. I had heard of its positive effects on anxiety and depression and wanted to give it a shot. Unfortunately, I ordered totally the wrong species of Artemesia and got Wormwood. Not just common wormwood - the variety actually psychoactive absinthe is made from. After I got over the, "No seriously, how was this legal?" of it, I did some digging and found out that a HUGE array of things like Wormwood are completely legal to grow. When I got done laughing at the absurdity of it, I had ordered everything from Ayahuasca cuttings to Mexican Dream Weed.

Because I'm that kind of subversive brat.

 

[ChristieB]

The link to my pullet or roo post.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1051923/lets-play-a-game-of-pullet-or-roo#post_16097895

Which has also become what breed are they really thread after I noticed one of them has grey legs. Only one comment so far so any opinions are welcome

Tv shows and drugs.. Yep, I do not allow Cartoon Network in my house, my big kids are 5 and 3 and I refuse to let them watch shows where the characters are obviously tripping, infact all Foxtel kids channels have gone down hill from when I was a kid, we stick to Disney junior. Shows are still stupid but atleast they are age appropriate.

 

[tandykins]

The link to my pullet or roo post.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1051923/lets-play-a-game-of-pullet-or-roo#post_16097895

Which has also become what breed are they really thread after I noticed one of them has grey legs. Only one comment so far so any opinions are welcome

Tv shows and drugs.. Yep, I do not allow Cartoon Network in my house, my big kids are 5 and 3 and I refuse to let them watch shows where the characters are obviously tripping, infact all Foxtel kids channels have gone down hill from when I was a kid, we stick to Disney junior. Shows are still stupid but atleast they are age appropriate.

XD I don't feel like I get to judge my kid on the whimsy of his cartoons when we practically hold whimsy up as a religion in our house. I worship the whimsical, silly, and absurd. I hear the "shows have gone way downhill" argument a lot - but I'm pretty sure that we just got old and turned into fuddy-duddies to be honest. When I look back at most of the shows I watched as a kid, I don't really see any notable difference in quality to what's available now - more that my perception has changed.

It doesn't hurt that the sheer variety kids have today is ridiculous. Generally if I'm not letting my son watch something, it's because I have to be in the room when it's on and I'd rather claw my own eyes out than watch Ben 10 "Seriously dude, can we watch Shaun The Sheep or Adventure Time or something? FFS." (If I'm completely honest, the Adventure Time fangirl in the house is me and it's really more that I make my son watch it. It doesn't get a lot sillier or twisted than Adventure Time. XD)

Then again, my 5yo also watches The Walking Dead supervised - so I may just be a special kind of mum. We watched the 45 minute behind-the-scenes making-of documentary yesterday. He loved it and asked me if we could get a tub of liquid latex to make zombie makeup. It was like my kid asked me if we could play my favourite game. Hell yes we can, kid! That sounds amazeballs!

You look pretty spot on with your guesses to me - but I'm not very experienced at sexing chicks. There are a couple you've deemed roosters which I reckon could just be early developing girls. Pipper looked like a boy almost right up until she laid an egg and Kissybum had a visible comb when she was a day old so I'd pegged her as a rooster. She still has a very large comb, spurs, and crows (but lays eggs). I came away from an -excellent- talk on Intersex people (people who cannot be easily identified as either male or female for a wide variety of reasons) and found myself wondering if chickens like Kissybum might be intersex (which we used to refer to as hermaphroditic). She displays a lot of characteristics typical of roosters but also characteristics typical of hens. She's about 30% larger than my other Ancona hens and has rooster-like saddle feathers (but not a rooster-like tail) and a comb at least twice the size of my hens but still a fair bit smaller than a rooster.

Man I love my whimsical feathery yard dinosaurs. So fascinating!

 

[tandykins]

Good to hear. Just keep an eye on the purple comb. If he's been panting the lack of oxygen in his blood stream will cause this, I lost king Henry the LS at 12 months of age . He was a magnificent bird, I had noticed a bit of purple on his comb and then he died of what I suspected was a heart attack.
We had a great day at the show yesterday. I spent a couple of hours in the animal nursery fielding questions from people about my 'fairy floss ' silkies. Most common question, ' will that colour harm the birds in any way ?', closely followed by ' do they lay rainbow coloured eggs?'

The kids loved touching them and one little boy even licked little 'tink '. One severely disabled lady in a wheelchair even asked to have one rubbed on her face for a pic, of course I was happy to oblige.
The birds were very calm and well behaved, not bad being as they haven't had much handling, but they were glad to be home.

If he is having circulation problems, is there anything that can be done about it? I tried looking things up yesterday and could find precious little by way of suggestions. :/

Rainbow coloured eggs. Man, that would be a chicken breed in high demand. XD Then again...I can barely get people to eat my green eggs. XD

 

[appps]

Went up,to let the chooks out for a wander and found one of the little chicks on the wrong side of the wire in with the big girls and desperately trying to get back in with its friend. Not sure how long it had been in there but as far as I could tell the big girls had been ignoring it totally so decided to bite the bullet and remove the barriers between them. Have a section at either end only the babies can fit into and some upside down bread crates here and there for them to nick under and hide if needed.

So far the big girls are all hanging in the coop and the kids are hanging in the area at the other end and I'm hanging round waiting for them to actually get together. Going to be a long day.

 

[Fancychooklady]

If he is having circulation problems, is there anything that can be done about it?  I tried looking things up yesterday and could find precious little by way of suggestions. :/

Rainbow coloured eggs.  Man, that would be a chicken breed in high demand. XD Then again...I can barely get people to eat my green eggs. XD

Hehe, I did tell one man that I wish they did, he just laughed.
Not a great deal can be done about it but the panting and stress will more than likely be the cause. Try a sprinkle of cayenne pepper or paprika on the feed . Chooks have no heat receptors in their beak so they don't mind spicy stuff and it is said to help with circulatory issues.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Went up,to let the chooks out for a wander and found one of the little chicks on the wrong side of the wire in with the big girls and desperately trying to get back in with its friend. Not sure how long it had been in there but as far as I could tell the big girls had been ignoring it totally so decided to bite the bullet and remove the barriers between them. Have a section at either end only the babies can fit into and some upside down bread crates here and there for them to nick under and hide if needed.

So far the big girls are all hanging in the coop and the kids are hanging in the area at the other end and I'm hanging round waiting for them to actually get together. Going to be a long day.

Pull up a chair and make yourself a coffee.