Gloom, Despair & Agony on Me

[wegotchickens]

If it weren't for bad luck, I have no luck at all.

At 6:30am this morning DH called me to the porch so I could hear our blue splash silkie crow. Loudly. In a ghostly-wailing kind of way. I was so hoping he wouldn't learn. We promised the neighbors no roos. Now I have to find him a home before someone gets ticked off.

DH told his hiking buddies all about it, and I now have recipes for black-skinned chicken from them

Tonight while having chicken time one of our cats took a dump at the top of the stairs where we'd be SURE to find it. DH found it. He has already complained about them and their toilet habits and the hair floating around the house. Now he's mad enough that he told me I could have a goat if I'd get rid of the cats. He doesn't make idle promises, and I know he doesn't want a goat, so that told me how very much he's tired of the cats.

I love my cats. And I know the older cat was mad because we took away free-range play time for the cats. That was because she ran off and beat up the neighbor's cats. The younger cat behaved outside, but was getting beat up by the older cat if we her out and kept the older one in.

This is going to get a whole lot uglier before it gets better. Our friends with chickens don't want our roo. I don't want to get rid of him or the cats. But I know home life is going to be a little ugly until we find some solutions everyone can live with.

I'm not even going to go into the teenager's emotional snit fit over a BRUSH when I got home (hair obsessed). Or listening to the youngest learning to play the bells and drums. But neither is helping with anyone's patience....

And work was no fun today, neither.

Whew. OK. I've vented. I know I have a lot of blessings. I count them regularly. But today the blessings got lost in the fog.

Any suggestions on how to muzzle the roo and diaper the Jezebel

 

[lurky]

I would go and talk to the neighbors and bring the roo. Explain to them that you ordered all girls but one is actually a boy. Tell them you want to know if they might think about giving him a chance before evicting him from the neighborhood. Also that if they dont want him, would they allow you time to find a good home. a blue splash should not be too tough to place. I am hoping one of my 3 silkie chicks is a boy. If not i will be looking and that would be my #1 choice. I even have a cousin in TN who would drive him up. So dont worry. Things have a way of working out just the way they are supposed to.

 

[wegotchickens]

Good suggestion, Lurky. He is a pretty boy. And the neighbors that don't want a rooster next door are the ones with the dog that barks all night.... So maybe they'll relent on the rooster issue. Meeting him may make a difference.
And I love him and want to keep him!!!!!!!!!! He is soooo cute in his chenille bathrobe and fuzzy slippers!!!

The cats are mad at me now because they get no canned food or treat food for a while, and its now past 'dinner time'. They have all the dry food they want, just no good stuff. I'm hoping Jezebel doesn't retaliate in another stinky way. Poor Callie just looks bewildered. She's done nothing wrong, but I can't get to one without affecting the other.

Jezebel is definitely eating OK and drinking plenty of water. She had her head in the porcelain pond earlier, and begged to clean the ice cream bowls during dessert.


DH rolled his eyes when I mentioned taking the roo to meet the neighbors. He likes the re-homing idea <sigh>

 

[lurky]

Funny thing.....I am in the same situation as you and i actually called my neighbor and told him how i ended up with a roo by total accident as i paid extra to have all girls. Well......He said to me......"I dont know why you thought i would have a problem with this, i grew up on a farm with 200-300 chickens all my life. I have absolutely no problem with you doing what you are doing". So I have an EE roo and a bantam EE roo and i have 4 baby silkies that are 5 weeks old and i want to keep them all no matter what they are. So i actually called my realtor to put my house on the market a few weeks ago over all this and HE is the one who told ME to call the guy. Sometimes if something is important enough, we will do what we have to do to find a way. The real estate market is so bad here, that my RE guy told me "dont do it". So good luck with the neighborhood

 

[speckledhen]

I'm sorry about your problem, but dang it, after your topic heading, I'm going to have that darn HeeHaw song in my head all day long, LOL!

 

[schmoo]

Well that stinks. The advice given already sounds great. It's good you know you still have alot of blessings and chicken friends here

 

[wegotchickens]

It's a fun song to sing when you have the blues, though. Sometimes ya gotta wallow in it to get past it. Know what I mean?


DH calmed down, but if he catches Jezebel in the act of pooping in inappropriate places she becomes an outdoor cat. And that's not really a good option unless she eases up on the neighbor's cats. They do sit on our porch and taught her, though.

And although DH mocked the idea of taking Meester to meet the neighbors, my teenager thought it was a good idea. That amazed me, since she so rarely thinks any of my ideas are good

I kept the back door open so we could hear Meester this morning. First time the kids have heard him and we all had a good laugh. He so clearly doesn't really know what he's supposed to be doing! Happily, he does it under the cover of darkness, and stops when it's actually light out.

 

[SpottedCrow]

If the neighbour's dog yaps all day like the MinPin behind, me then doom on them...but my neighbours signed my petition to keep Slifer, because they know that I haven't complained about Jake and never have. But if he did bother me, I'd go to the neighbour and say something, not go straight to the Health Dept. un

I haven't had cats in forever, but if their litter box is "dirty" according to their fastidious needs, then they'll find elsewhere to go. Usually it's pee and not poop though.

I'd bring that little roo around and show him off to the neighbours...If worse comes to worse, you can tell the health dept that he's an imported bunny from Chernobyl.

 

[wegotchickens]

I keep the little box scoopered out regularly, to try and avoid these little episodes. The box was clean, so I feel like this was a "poo on you" statement from an intelligent and tempramental cat. This same cat knocked all of my figurines off a shelf at 1am after her last trip to the vet. She never gets on that shelf and never knocks anything down except after vet visits...

Yeah, the dog barks at bad times, sleeps in my garden beds, and poops all over the yard. So I'm hoping she'll be nice about the roo. But she was very frowny in our direction last time she saw us playing with them in our yard.

Good idea about the mutant bunny idea. I live less than an hour away from Oak Ridge and the nuclear plants, so he doesn't have to be from Chernobyl

 

[Agilityscots]

Wow...now that's a bad day!

How many litter boxes do you have? Every house with cats should have one box for each cat, plus one. So if you have two cats, you should have three boxes. Many times that alone can alleviate inappropriate elimination. As much as we humans would like to believe it, cats and dogs just aren't smart enough to "get back at us" by pooping and peeing on the floor. Instead, it's usually a very simple response to stress and/or change in the environment/routine.

You can also try experimenting with different types of litter, and not just the stuff you can buy at the grocery store. There are many kinds...corn cob litter, pine pellet litter, compressed newspaper pellet litter, etc. You can try it in one box and then judge its use by watching the daily traffic to it.

Some cats have what's known as a substrate preference, meaning they like to go on certain surfaces (bedding, carpet, etc.). Experimenting with litter can help a lot.

Finally, you can buy a product called Feliway. Run, don't walk, to the nearest pet store and get one! It's a plug-in, much like a Glade plug-in, that diffuses a synthetic cat-appeasing pheromone into the air. It helps reduce stress and inappropriate elimination like spraying, going outside the box, etc. As a dog trainer I use the dog version, Comfort Zone, all the time with my own dogs and with clients' dogs and it works like a charm for many stress-related issues. The cat version is even *better*. My sister used it for her stressed-out kitty who liked to spray the walls next to the box (ugh)....this stopped him cold. You refill it about once a month and it's well worth the money (usually about $40 for the first one and $20 for refills), especially if it means you get to keep kitty indoors.


Amy