Well, Puppy, one of my Naked neck pullets, manages to easily fly herself over a 6 foot floppy deer netting paddock fence that can't be perched on. I find her wandering in the yard on a regular basis. (Fortunately, she is true to her name, and walks right up to me to be picked up.) She started a nest once, which I found and brought to a stop. I suspect she is trying again, but I haven't found it yet. I don't want to clip her, as I want her to be able to get away from anything that goes after her. (Which she clearly can...) Entire yard is well fenced, so it's daytime hawks that are the true risk, and I head count at night. But I reserve the right to change my mind...
Sometimes, I just get out a pad of paper and an old fashioned fountain pen and make notes as I catch up...
I resemble these remarks!!!!!
(I should just sign over my paycheck to Lowes and Home Depot every month...)
Benny, you do realize I'm not going to sleep tonight, right?!!!!!!
I love hearing about stories like this. Between the nature of chickens even in the wild (ratios of males to females) and the realities of humans keeping flocks (including noise levels), it's just a fact of life that many males don't end up having very long lives, even if they aren't intended for the freezer (like with a meat flock or dual purpose birds). I have about 7 Cream Legbar teen boys right now that are all destined to be soup, for instance. But I got my CL flock leader, Dumbledore, at about age 14 weeks from a BYC friend in the area - he had a crooked comb and didn't make the cut, and was about to be soup. He's been so, so wonderful, solicitous, and protective. And he's a superhero, having protected everyone from a dog attack. One of my favorites.
You are my HERO!!!!
My Cream Legbar boys in the last batch started crowing at 3 weeks, and by 6 weeks, some were trying to mount the pullets. Alas, they were already auto sexing, so I didn't get a lot of help out of the fact - just a yard full of little kazoos...
Not discouraging vaccination, but my Cream Legbar pullets were vaccinated against Marek's at the hatchery. One died of it, and one has ocular Mareks. The final third one has no signs so far (and has other good features), and I am using her for future pure breed babies - it was all her babies that were in my Easter HAL group. So.... vaccination is no guarantee - at best, in a vulnerable breed, plus/minus local strain virulence, you might get a modified form of the disease. I'm stuck with breeding for resistance in my yard.
So sorry. The yearly influenza epidemic has been strange this year. Usually cases begin to increase around Thanksgiving/Christmas, and things taper off in Feb/March or so. This year, NOTHING all winter. (This doesn't make us happy - it makes us NERVOUS.) Sure enough, we're now in a spring peak of influenza, at least here in Texas, not unheard of, but atypical/late. (So far, most of the serious cases that are ending up hospitalized are folks that didn't get vaccinated.)
Spring peaks of flu epidemics make me nervous - they often precede REALLY nasty awful flu seasons the subsequent year.
The only time I got influenza it was one of the years when the vaccine strain was not an exact match. My whole family got it (meaning my parents and brothers and me), and I spent a week on the sofa barely able to move (I lived alone at the time) - we didn't have a Christmas family holiday that year. Vaccinations are still partly protective (including ones that don't match exactly, or even memory form previous flu vaccinations) - I seriously suspect that if I had not been vaccinated I would have ended up much, much sicker and maybe in the hospital.
Soooooooo...
EVERYONE WASH YOUR HANDS A LOT - FLU SEASON IS STILL HERE!!!!!
- Ant Farm
