Dumbest Things People Have Said About Your Chickens/Eggs/Meat

[kikithebird]

Hmm..... I have heard kangaroos and wallabies described as being "marsupial deer" regarding their environmental niche. Cougars are happy to eat Bambis, so I suspect they would be interested in eating marsupial Bambis....

Of course, they also eat joggers and bicyclists.

no no cougers

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I have a number of native plants in the California front yard: California fuchsia (which isn't really fuchsia); black sage; purple sage; white sage; western redbud; wild grape; shadberry; assorted manzanitas and mahonias; and others. So I have lots of hummingbirds with the attendant hummingbird wars. These tiny birds are so aggressive in protecting their food sources (which include the native Oregon crabapple blossoms - malus fusca- in the backyard) that even crows and jays give them a wide berth. The chickens, though, seem to view them as the largest, juiciest bug they have ever seen, and run along and follow them, ever hopeful. Good thing they've never caught one.

 

[jaseyboy1986]

I keep getting: "Do they taste different?" with blue eggs. Occasionally, the person will pull a face and put a "ewww" in there somewhere lol

Also had:

"How do you know it's a hen?" "Well, she lays eggs."

When I was hatching our first 4 eggs: "We're hoping to get at least 2 hens."   "What's wrong with cockerels?"   "They don't lay eggs."  <-- That was a major facepalm moment for the poor lady LOL

This thread is hilarious, I'm new to chickens myself but these people... man, they're something else!

 

[Mah1Mah1]

ionly get red watylebirds magpie larks australian ravens rainbow lorikeets musk lorikeets and some times little corellas

I have a wattlebird that hangs around me

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I have a wattlebird that hangs around me

I just looked up wattlebirds, and they appear to be nectar feeders, like our hummingbirds. How large are they? I know they aren't related below the level of the family Aves, but it looks like they have some convergent evolution for filling very similar niches. In fact, the Wikipedia article even mentions convergent evolution, which is a rather rare thing for them to do.

Can they hover at flowers and fly backwards like our hummingbirds seem to do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird#Superficially_similar_birds

The fierceness with which hummingbirds defend their territories may be why the Aztec War Deity is sometimes represented as a hummingbird; as well a why so much Aztec violence imagery is centered around the poor birdies.

Hummings have the highest metabolic rate of any endothermic organism - and they can still live a decade or more, which is unusual for animals with very high metabolisms.

Hummingbirds are capable of slowing their metabolism at night or any time food is not readily available, entering a hibernation-like, deep sleep state known as torpor needed to prevent energy reserves from falling to a critical level. During nighttime torpor, body temperature falls from 40oC to 18oC,[21] with heart and breathing rates both slowed dramatically (heart rate to roughly 50 to 180 beats per minute from its daytime rate of higher than 1000).[22]

During torpor, to prevent dehydration, the kidney glomerular filtration rate ceases, preserving needed compounds like glucose as a source of fuel, water and nutrients.[19] Further, body mass declines throughout nocturnal torpor at a rate of 0.04 g per hour, amounting to about 10% of weight loss each night.[19] The circulating hormone, corticosterone, is one signal that arouses a hummingbird from torpor.[23]
Use and duration of torpor vary among hummingbird species and are affected by whether a dominant bird defends territory, with non-territorial subordinate birds having longer periods of torpor.[24]

 

[tntchix]

I think my brother is starting to become one of us. He had been pretty dismissive of the whole chicken project here, didn't really help me out much other than when I really needed a third hand to hold something. Anyways, tonight when I got home from work he was telling me about how he was out looking at the girls and the white one with the blue paint on her was following him around while he was walking around the tractor, looking at him like he should give her a treat. He has tossed in stuffed before and watched them go full Velociraptor on the item. So he said he went in and got some hot dog buns and fed them out to them.

He likes Chicken TV!!!

It's addicting, for sure.

 

[Mah1Mah1]

I just looked up wattlebirds, and they appear to be nectar feeders, like our hummingbirds. How large are they? I know they aren't related below the level of the family Aves, but it looks like they have some convergent evolution for filling very similar niches. In fact, the Wikipedia article even mentions convergent evolution, which is a rather rare thing for them to do.

Can they hover at flowers and fly backwards like our hummingbirds seem to do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird#Superficially_similar_birds

The fierceness with which hummingbirds defend their territories may be why the Aztec War Deity is sometimes represented as a hummingbird; as well a why so much Aztec violence imagery is centered around the poor birdies.

Hummings have the highest metabolic rate of any endothermic organism - and they can still live a decade or more, which is unusual for animals with very high metabolisms.

Hummingbirds are capable of slowing their metabolism at night or any time food is not readily available, entering a hibernation-like, deep sleep state known as torpor needed to prevent energy reserves from falling to a critical level. During nighttime torpor, body temperature falls from 40oC to 18oC,[21] with heart and breathing rates both slowed dramatically (heart rate to roughly 50 to 180 beats per minute from its daytime rate of higher than 1000).[22]

During torpor, to prevent dehydration, the kidney glomerular filtration rate ceases, preserving needed compounds like glucose as a source of fuel, water and nutrients.[19] Further, body mass declines throughout nocturnal torpor at a rate of 0.04 g per hour, amounting to about 10% of weight loss each night.[19] The circulating hormone, corticosterone, is one signal that arouses a hummingbird from torpor.[23]
Use and duration of torpor vary among hummingbird species and are affected by whether a dominant bird defends territory, with non-territorial subordinate birds having longer periods of torpor.[24]

Wattlebirds are not that big. About the size of a lean pigeon. They have to land to feed though.

 

[AshleyRae]

Chicken TV! I love it! Now I have a name for it.

 

[Double Kindness]

Chicken TV is awesome! Now a days, I rarely even have my tv on, which is a good thing I think.

People look at me in disbelief that blue and blue green eggs are ok, and I have a waiting list of people willing to pay $5 a dozen of my chicken's eggs (ee's, leghorn, polish, ameracuana) and now I added a semi quieted rooster from another BYC member to keep my ladies in line (10 chickens total) and he's a salmon favorelle x wellsummer x light brahma. He seems to find my white splash polish particularly to his liking for mating, and she's not even laying yet.

He's been semi-quieted, and is quite vocal, but our neighbors like us and our chickens a lot, and it seems like we're lucky to be n a nice neighborhood that we know most everyone and get along well, and as long as it's not a nuisance, I can have as many chickens as I want.. next are silkies and ayum cemani.. now that I have the 411 on a local vet that does rooster de-crowing surgery, which is where I got my Lenny from, now there's no stopping the chicken math from taking over!!

In the spring I'm thinking of trying my hand at meat chickens, as I have my egg laying flock almost finished (I also want french marans to add even more color to my egg basket), as well as the ornamental (polish and I want silkies so badly it's not even funny!), and my bf of 8.5 years is also quite digging on having chickens etc. He chicken whispers all the time to them and holds them like they are babies.

 

[Crickett]

I just looked up wattlebirds, and they appear to be nectar feeders, like our hummingbirds. How large are they? I know they aren't related below the level of the family Aves, but it looks like they have some convergent evolution for filling very similar niches. In fact, the Wikipedia article even mentions convergent evolution, which is a rather rare thing for them to do.

Can they hover at flowers and fly backwards like our hummingbirds seem to do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird#Superficially_similar_birds

The fierceness with which hummingbirds defend their territories may be why the Aztec War Deity is sometimes represented as a hummingbird; as well a why so much Aztec violence imagery is centered around the poor birdies.

Hummings have the highest metabolic rate of any endothermic organism - and they can still live a decade or more, which is unusual for animals with very high metabolisms.

Hummingbirds are capable of slowing their metabolism at night or any time food is not readily available, entering a [COLOR=0066CC]hibernation[/COLOR]-like, deep sleep state known as [COLOR=0066CC]torpor[/COLOR] needed to prevent energy reserves from falling to a critical level. During nighttime torpor, [COLOR=0066CC]body temperature[/COLOR] falls from 40[SUP]o[/SUP]C to 18[SUP]o[/SUP]C,[SUP][COLOR=0066CC][21][/COLOR][/SUP] with [COLOR=0066CC]heart[/COLOR] and [COLOR=0066CC]breathing rates[/COLOR] both slowed dramatically (heart rate to roughly 50 to 180 beats per minute from its daytime rate of higher than 1000).[SUP][COLOR=0066CC][22][/COLOR][/SUP]

During torpor, to prevent [COLOR=0066CC]dehydration[/COLOR], the [COLOR=0066CC]kidney[/COLOR] glomerular filtration rate ceases, preserving needed compounds like glucose as a source of fuel, water and nutrients.[SUP][COLOR=0066CC][19][/COLOR][/SUP] Further, body mass declines throughout nocturnal torpor at a rate of 0.04 g per hour, amounting to about 10% of weight loss each night.[SUP][COLOR=0066CC][19][/COLOR][/SUP] The circulating [COLOR=0066CC]hormone[/COLOR], [COLOR=0066CC]corticosterone[/COLOR], is one signal that arouses a hummingbird from torpor.[SUP][COLOR=0066CC][23][/COLOR][/SUP]
Use and duration of torpor vary among hummingbird species and are affected by whether a dominant bird defends territory, with non-territorial subordinate birds having longer periods of torpor.[SUP][COLOR=0066CC][24][/COLOR][/SUP]

It's amazing what you can learn on this thread!