Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[galanie]

...This morning I went down and she is perky, no more blood, eating, drinking and wanting OUT with the rest of the birds. The one eye I thought she was surely blinded in is wide open and obviously seeing things, and she is clucking and purring to her posse, who sits gathered around her as if to say 'tell us again how you kicked that hawks azz, Beatrice!' ...

...So, looks like my queen bee will get to reign a bit longer after all. No heroic efforts to save her, but by giving her a chance I found I do indeed have a gal worth breeding - she ran when she was surprised, she fought that hawk for all she was worth, and she has survived the attack and you would hardly know it happened today - my kind of gal!..

That's my kind of gal too! SO glad you were there in time !

 

[HiddenChicken]

"I kept repeating the mantra 'she's a chicken; we DON'T "save" chickens!' as I walked up to the house picturing BEE shaking a finger at me."


Ok...that made me laugh... ...keep thinking I should hang a sign on my coop that says:
What Would Bee Do?

The OT mantras are sticking in our brains!

 

[Kansas Prairie]

MAVEN,
Thank you for sharing!!
We have hawk problems also. They are over populated here & it's illegal to shoot them.

 

[just me]

MSVEN,

I, too want to thank you for sharing. I hope your BO gets along okay.

 

[Beekissed]

Hey, Hey, now! I'm not that dictatorial, am I?

Yeah, I'd have probably done the same thing. Did the same thing to a couple of meaties a couple of years back. I didn't put them in a cage away from the flock but I slapped some NuStock on them and wished them the best. They were fine as frog hair the next day....especially after the dog gave them a good licking. You couldn't hardly tell who had been injured..and they were pretty deep injuries.

I'm not against treating an injury if it is salvagable but one has to be able to determine what is worth trying to fix and what is involved in that fixing. Keeping a bird in isolation for a month while one tries to splint and heal a broken leg or after a bird has been hit on the road~not recommended by Bee. A skin flap or flesh wound? Clean it, slap some ointment on it and let nature happen....this Bee would do.

 

[Gargoyle]

Ok...that made me laugh...

...keep thinking I should hang a sign on my coop that says:
What Would Bee Do?

Just don't over do it, or you might be subject to the Bee Sting!

 

[HiddenChicken]

Just don't over do it, or you might be subject to the Bee Sting!

LOL! Hubby says since I've never been stung by a bee (nor a Bee), I don't have the proper respect for them. Not true...I'm just nice to them & pretend I don't fear them! So far, so good!

 

[HiddenChicken]

"I slapped some NuStock on them and wished them the best."

Cracks me up... I can imagine a kick in the butt, too, kinda like a referee putting her back into play. "Git in there! Good luck!"

OTs just remind me of my grandparents...& it makes me smile...& lol a lot. GrParents lived on the family farm in Iowa until they passed (cousin has it now), and my dad was born and raised there. I used to spend my summers there...months on end. Parents would leave me and my brother in Iowa to absorb farm life and values. Must've worked...I'm now in the 'burbs, but I still have a garden and chickens, and put up food for the winter. The farm finds you when it's in your blood...or is it that you find the farm wherever you are? Dunno. :/

Anywho...I just love "listening" to this thread! Listening, I say, rather than reading...because I can hear my grandparents in my head when I read here. Guess that's why I was posting earlier to keep this thread alive...I love "hearing from" my own OTs again... Good times...

 

[Beekissed]

LOL! Hubby says since I've never been stung by a bee (nor a Bee), I don't have the proper respect for them. Not true...I'm just nice to them & pretend I don't fear them!

So far, so good!

NEVER????

Never ran barefoot as a child? You are the second adult within two weeks that I've read had never been stung by a bee! Not even a sweat bee? Did yo' mama keep you in a bubble whilst you were growin' upwards?

Seriously, is that common in this generation? No bee stings?

 

[Maven]

Thanks, everyone! She is doing marvelously well this afternoon. I'm just so happy - you KNOW how hard it can be to get a good looking hatchery bird that has the possibility of truly amounting to something, ya know? She is big and beautiful and shows a lot of promise - she'll never make show birds, but I think with this roo she can make some darn nice dual purpose birds!

Bee, she is right in with the flock in a way - it is a small wire cage on the ground - they can all walk right up to her and 'talk' to her - they just can't pick at her. When I let the rest of the flock out to free-range this morning, I remembered what you and the other OTs said about how a bird can be greatly stressed when isolated from the rest of the flock and that it can make things worse instead of better. So I took the cage right on out with the rest of them and put her in their favorite sunny spot out of the wind and that is where she has held court all day.