I heard screaming...

[LavendarFeather]

...while I was in the shower. It was BAD, and I couldn't make sense of it--my runs are pretty safe, but still a work in progress. But in my (limited experience), the birds get real quiet if a predator arrives. I have some chicks down in the basement. Wondered if the dogs had gotten in there somehow. Couldn't tell exactly where the sound was coming from, but it was loud and tortured.

Threw on robe, ran out. Dogs were all lying around, doing their own thing. Weird, because door to deck was open, and they could run out and see the chickens from there if something was going on. Basement door was closed and locked. Went out to the coops, birds were calm and strolling around... then I heard that screaming again. Now coming from in the house. Maybe my disabled Pomeranian was injured? Ran back inside.

OMG. I had given the dogs a new toy this morning from the clearance bin at Pets Mart. No wonder it was on sale. Has the most awful, amplified squeak range I have ever heard on a dog toy....and there was my largest dog, lying on his bed and coaxing a concert out of it... Ah well, it's Monday. Better to feel like a fool than to have actually lost birds...

 

[CayleeMarie03]

Good thing it wasn't a chicken

 

[BeulahBreezes]

OMG......glad there is a 'funny' ending to your screaming problem!

 

[LavendarFeather]

Yes, thanks, and it gets better--they have now destroyed the toy and I don't have to listen to that anymore!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Several years ago my kids were given some sort of talking toy. A Furby I think it was. I'm not fond of talking toys to begin with but this one soon moved to the top of the list of disliked toys. If it wasn't fully turned off it had a habit of self-activating and saying things in a soft tone almost like someone whispering. Naturally the kids would forget to shut it off properly and it would "wake up" at odd times. Such as three in the morning. In my kids room. Which would bring me wide awake every danged time until I finally gave it a permanent battery-ectomy.

Noisy toys? Bah!

 

[canesisters]

battery-ectomy

 

[zazouse]

 

[LavendarFeather]

LOL--Battery-ectomy is an excellent term for a wise procedure. And now you reminded me of a Furby story. I had a friend who collected those (and Beanie Babies, and whatever). Anyway, she thought they would increase in value, so she had a LOT of them. And I guess if they are disturbed in anyway, they start talking, and if one talks, the other answers... They were put away in a credenza, but she had a pair of resourceful kittens who opened that in the middle of the night and started a Furby convention--like thirty of them all chattering away, plus the kittens having a field day with the situation and trying to kill them. My friend lived alone, and I think it gave her a bit of a scare! Next day there were quite few Furbies listed on eBay...

 

[the outdoorsman44]

 

[hippychickster]

...while I was in the shower. It was BAD, and I couldn't make sense of it--my runs are pretty safe, but still a work in progress. But in my (limited experience), the birds get real quiet if a predator arrives. I have some chicks down in the basement. Wondered if the dogs had gotten in there somehow. Couldn't tell exactly where the sound was coming from, but it was loud and tortured.

Threw on robe, ran out. Dogs were all lying around, doing their own thing. Weird, because door to deck was open, and they could run out and see the chickens from there if something was going on. Basement door was closed and locked. Went out to the coops, birds were calm and strolling around... then I heard that screaming again. Now coming from in the house. Maybe my disabled Pomeranian was injured? Ran back inside.

OMG. I had given the dogs a new toy this morning from the clearance bin at Pets Mart. No wonder it was on sale. Has the most awful, amplified squeak range I have ever heard on a dog toy....and there was my largest dog, lying on his bed and coaxing a concert out of it... Ah well, it's Monday. Better to feel like a fool than to have actually lost birds...

OMG that is actually funny in the end. It reminds me of when I gave my friend's kids some toys for Christmas. It was some type of battle guys roaming in a car and came with a remote. Well my friend and her husband woke up to some male voices in the middle of the night. Petrified she woke up her husband who also hears "hup hup, get em" and so he grabs his bat, she goes to call the police. He creeps in the living room and hears the noise again and then eureka!! He notices the toy lighting up in the middle of the floor with the little army guy repeating that phrase!! LOL Scared her to death. I can only imagine! She called me the next day and told me the story. I still laugh to this day!! I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time but it is now.