Cedar Creek Chooks

[MTKitty]

Bet you guys didn’t know I’m magical. Yup, sure am.

According to the flock, I have the ability to go into the coop, wave my magic pitchfork, and turn the floor of the coop into hot lava. I do. Really.

At least that seems to be what they think every time they peek over the people-door or stand at the edge of their access door. If any one feels brave enough to step into the coop, it takes about three steps and 2.7 seconds for them to go flying out the nearest exit.

What’s the real story? I removed just over half the straw and replaced it with pine shavings. The PDZ and straw combo wasn’t handling the smell and poops like I wanted. Plus, when I ran a cost comparison between the two, pine came out cheaper per cubic foot.

Right now, they are hanging out under their sage bush or running circles around the coop (trying to counter my spell, no doubt). The real fun will be watching to see who will be first to sacrifice themselves to the volcano at bedtime.

 

[Sally PB]

Whenever I put in a new bale of shavings, I put the whole thing on the floor and cut the wrapping away.

Presto, chango! The floor is haunted, possessed, and evil!

Then, Brave Little Bird jumps up in the doorway! She fixes that evil floor with a beady eye, flaps her strong black wings, and s-l-o-w-l-y, the dark spirits lift and dissipate like ammonia fumes on a cold winter day!

Once again, the coop is safe and all is well. The bale of shavings is torn to shreds and strewn all over the coop.

And they all live happily ever after.

 

[MTKitty]

Whenever I put in a new bale of shavings, I put the whole thing on the floor and cut the wrapping away.

Presto, chango! The floor is haunted, possessed, and evil!

Then, Brave Little Bird jumps up in the doorway! She fixes that evil floor with a beady eye, flaps her strong black wings, and s-l-o-w-l-y, the dark spirits lift and dissipate like ammonia fumes on a cold winter day!

Once again, the coop is safe and all is well. The bale of shavings is torn to shreds and strewn all over the coop.

And they all live happily ever after.

Maybe I should try that as a bedtime story to encourage them.

 

[MTKitty]

Well, ick. Snow to the west of me. But I’m getting sleet with a nice (soon to be) freezing fog on the side. My porch is slick already. Tomorrow morning’s chores will be fun.

I love cold weather. I love my snowy winters. I could so easily live without this nasty wet, icy, cold junk. Give me dry and cold every day and twice on Sundays.

On the up-side, when I went out to close up the hen house, two of them had abandoned the cuddle-puddle in the corner and were roosting like proper chickens. There were three more arranged on the kick-plate I have in front of the door to keep the deep bedding inside the house. I don’t count that as proper chicken roosting, though.

Still happy with my two. Maybe tomorrow, there will be three up there.

 

[MTKitty]

This morning, I am thankful for a solid chicken coop. At 0300, I woke to a chorus of yips and howls that sounded like it was right outside the house. It seems the local coyote pack is making the rounds of their territory. I haven’t seen or heard them in a while; and I actually missed their eerie voices.

 

[MTKitty]

Today, I learned the best way to encourage the featherheads to try new foods is to chop them fairly finely.

This week, one of my three roosters has endeared himself to me. He’s not the most alert guardian (that would be the Big Guy). His tail doesn’t stand up tall, so I suppose he’ll not be top of the heap as long as there’s another roo in the yard. But he always hangs out near me and checks out the zippers and buttons. He makes eye contact. He eats from my hand. He does /not/ like being touched. But small steps.

Goofy roo.

 

[MTKitty]

The last few evenings, as I go out to close up the coop, I’ve been hearing two owls across the way from me. Today, after coming in, I searched for audio to identify them. In my little valley, we apparently have a pair of Great Horned owls. The different calls are between the male and female, so I’m guessing a mated pair because this is the second year I’ve heard these calls.

 

[MTKitty]

Well, that’s annoying.

I keep my house fairly cool for baking purposes, so I thought I’d replace a burned out bulb and use the advice I’ve seen to proof my dough with the oven light.

The whole, stupid glass globe came right off the metal end. So, there I am looking between this fat glass globe in my hand and the lightbulb guts hanging from the screw-on part still in the socket. Crap.

Oh, potato!! Use a potato. I retrieve a potato, jam it in the remnant, and finish breaking off the light bulb guts. Fine.

Pull the guts off the potato and jam it in the socket, again. Twenty minutes later, I now have potato guts smeared all over the socket and bulb end, but it is still as firmly wedged as ever. The metal collar part of the bulb is aluminum, so grabbing it with pliers only bends and squishes it.

I refuse to call a repair person to change the bulb in my oven. And, I still managed a small nick on my thumb.

I give in gracefully, after a bit of snarling and swearing at the houseplants. Yes, I know they aren’t responsible, but it hurts the dog’s feelings when I yell at him for no reason.

Then, I spy the desk lamp next to my living room chair. The one I rarely use because it throws off so much heat. Heat. From a light bulb. Nice. Problem solved and I’ll leave the stupid oven light end in the stupid socket until when, and if, I ever have the oven serviced for something important.

 

[MTKitty]

Errands in town today. I splurged on a giant bag of meal worms and other larvae for chicken treats. When I got home tonight, I offered a handful to the group that followed me into the henhouse.

They were skeptical, regardless of my tutting and chooking to them. I do draw the line at sampling to show stuff is edible. I mean, really. Larvae?

Once the first few were grabbed, things were okay until I put the treat ration in their feeder, on top of the crumble. Apparently, that changes /everything/ about those tasty yet disgusting morsels. So, I did what any self-respecting CareMonkey would do. I rolled my eyes and walked out.

The handful of featherheads still hanging out under the sagebrush - they remind me of the tough kids in school who stood at the edges and smoked - decided to check out what I had. I went to a clearish space of dirt and tossed a little of the stuff out.

One grabbed a ... something, and took off like she’d won a prize. She had no clue what it was, but by-golly she had it! The rest of the gang inspected the treat like they expected zombie worms to rise and infect their brains. Until someone emerged from the coop and charged over to see. Recognizing the treat, she started horking them down as fast as she could.

That was all it took for the rest of them to decide mealworms and larvae are good. I almost lost a foot trying to get out of the way as the land-piranhas moved in.

 

[MTKitty]

Last week, I witnessed a head grabbing incident by my biggest cockerel Big Boy (now evolving into Mr Man). It’s all chronicled in another post in the Behavior forum. Many recommendations for butchering, but I’m not currently set up for that. I needed to gather some equipment.

I dragged my feet on this task, thinking and rethinking about this opportunity to reconfigure my flock. But I decided to figure out why making the decision and moving on it was so hard. In the meantime, I watched more interactions in the flock.

The more I watch, the more I think that incident was less about aggression and more about a combination of hormones and being startled and reacting poorly as a result. I haven’t witnessed any more head grabbing episodes.

What I have seen are typical “teenager” behaviors. This morning Mr Man and Drupe (my favorite) were out with a few girls, checking for stuff under the shrubs. The boys happened to turn into each other at the same time. They both startled back a bit, raised their hackles at each other as if to say, “wth, Dude. Watch where you’re goin’.” Two seconds and it was over.

Less than a minute later, they both tear off together and dive into the coop like the Hounds of Hell are after them. Buds, again.

So, observations will continue until I am certain there’s even a problem.