BYC Café

[Shadrach]

I'll let her back out and see how she does.

 

[ronott1]

It's hard to see the way she walks. She isn't staggering in this but walking squatted down.

They like it when you rub the pin feathers to make them pop out. She looks miserable! which in normal for molting

 

[DobieLover]

Tell me how you really feel, Shad.
She headed straight for the chicken bush with the cold wind blowing on her naked tushie. So much for foraging.

 

[Shadrach]

Fudge spent 8 days almost completely separated from her tribe. At times she looked like she had coccidiosis. She would take a mouthful of commercial feed in the morning and head off to the sheep shed while the others came down to the house. I would go and check on her and usually found her wandering around in the sheep field digging for something.
If she wasn't doing that, she would be on the shelf under the hay rack with her neck pulled in semi dozing. At night when she went to roost, she would go before the others by a good half an hour. I checked her crop for a few nights and if felt full and healthy.
She's been back with the tribe the last couple of days. It's just the primary feathers that show she's been moulting now.
Tackle is different. Her moult I would say is more sever than Fudge's. She's not a happy hen by any means. She spent a couple of full days with Fudge in the sheep field
and then hung around the outskirts with her tribe. She avoided Treacle like the plague. I assume Treacle had probably tried to mate with while she was away from Cillin; he's learning about moulting hens now. This info doesn't come pre programmed I don't think.
Gedit from tribe 3 is moulting but she's 7 years old and her moult is just a steady shedding and replacement of feathers. She's been a bit off her feed but as far as I've seen, she hasn't gone for the frantic search for roots and grubs.

 

[DobieLover]

Fudge spent 8 days almost completely separated from her tribe. At times she looked like she had coccidiosis. She would take a mouthful of commercial feed in the morning and head off to the sheep shed while the others came down to the house. I would go and check on her and usually found her wandering around in the sheep field digging for something.
If she wasn't doing that, she would be on the shelf under the hay rack with her neck pulled in semi dozing. At night when she went to roost, she would go before the others by a good half an hour. I checked her crop for a few nights and if felt full and healthy.
She's been back with the tribe the last couple of days. It's just the primary feathers that show she's been moulting now.
Tackle is different. Her moult I would say is more sever than Fudge's. She's not a happy hen by any means. She spent a couple of full days with Fudge in the sheep field
and then hung around the outskirts with her tribe. She avoided Treacle like the plague. I assume Treacle had probably tried to mate with while she was away from Cillin; he's learning about moulting hens now. This info doesn't come pre programmed I don't think.
Gedit from tribe 3 is moulting but she's 7 years old and her moult is just a steady shedding and replacement of feathers. She's been a bit off her feed but as far as I've seen, she hasn't gone for the frantic search for roots and grubs.

Draco has never taken to Fabio. He forces her into submission nearly every time. But I'll have to give him points now as he has left Draco entirely alone since she started really molting hard.
I don't think Captain is brave enough to make a go for her. I cringe to think what that would be like for Draco in her condition. She is absolutely covered in pin feathers. All of her tail is gone and the wing primaries are dropping now. She is one hot mess.

 

[pennyJo1960]

You should see my 7 year old Barred rock try to get a photo later she is flipping miserable looks awful feels awful cries to me when I in there

 

[Shadrach]

I've found it's easy to forget that chickens have to learn stuff just like humans. You cannot pre program for the experiences of life. It took me quite some time to become more patient with behavior I just didn't understand at all. As well as making one anxious they can make me certainly really pissed off!
I look at what some do and just mentally facepalm wondering what were they thinking.
Punch pisses me off nightly to the point of giving him a palm lift right off his feet. He's got this history with Notch. Notch runs away from Punch at the moment. Punch does this at roost time and of course that is exactly the time I want everyone calm, preferably eating and easy to count. With Notch being chased half way up the sheep field track by Punch I get something rather different.
Last night, I turned my back on Punch for a few seconds and he hammered past me after Notch. Knock and her chicks won't go into their coop unless Notch is there. I go and rescue Notch, ushering a recalcitrant Punch in front of me. When I get back to the coops Knock's two chicks (Not so small and very male) have gone up a tree.
It will all sort itself out if I'm not there. But there will be some up trees for the night.

Ruffles's chick is checking the trees out at roost time. This is rather interesting for me.
While Ruffles is gray with copper streaked hackle her Maran genes are very obvious.
The Marans here have not shown a lot of interest in tree climbing thankfully. But, it's something I would like them all to have a go at. If they choose the coop that's great, but going up a tree is one of those things all chickens should do as a matter of principle.
I won't let Ruffles's chick stay up there overnight and I will encourage her, like I have the other pro tree huggers, to use the coops. It might have been good to have some pure Marans hatch here but it didn't happen and Fat Bird is the last of the pure Marans. I would have liked to find out how many generations of pure marans it took before they showed more interest in the trees. I know Marans will tree roost, I know someone in France whose do.

 

[Shadrach]

You should see my 7 year old Barred rock try to get a photo later she is flipping miserable looks awful feels awful cries to me when I in there

Some do look horribly miserable.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Tell ya the one pullet from a bunch of cockerels is having a devil of a time roosting here she is not laying just yet my young cockerel Red has allowed her but she wants to go with the old ladies who want nothing to do with the interloper

 

[room onthebroom]

That's lovely and I want it.
It really is magnificent Cap.

x2!