Ribh's D'Coopage

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Yesterday morning.
We left early for the mainland.

I had bits cut out of sensitive parts of my face so I was pretty much a write off for the rest of the day.
Chook food, building stuff & some yarn for me.

The girls spent their 1st full day together & I wasn't round to supervise.
Everyone survived. Mhari & Medh were both eating from my hand yesterday & they both roosted together on the top bar last night. Interesting social dynamics starting to emerge.
View attachment 2035625​

Hope you are feeling less ouchy soon Ribh. I'm glad you have some yarn to distract yourself with. I can just picture you sitting out in the run crocheting. Ah! Chickens and craftiness! Bliss!

 

[Ribh]

Hope you are feeling less ouchy soon Ribh. I'm glad you have some yarn to distract yourself with. I can just picture you sitting out in the run crocheting. Ah! Chickens and craftiness! Bliss!

lol It's been known to happen! The chickens are fascinated.

 

[Ribh]

Dogs are really scary. They kill for fun and will kill as many hens as they can. That's one of the reasons I love my big fence.

Yes. I'm not much of a dog fan. My first memories of chickens include a dog taking out a flock of about 30 black hens. Feathers & bodies everywhere.

 

[Ribh]

The more I look at these pictures the more I think a feral flock should be living there.

If I could I would but they would not stay on our property & there are laws about that sort of thing.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I had a *Yikes!* moment yesterday ~ mostly because it was so unexpected. We don't have a lot of predators because there isn't a lot of ground dwelling prey around for them so when we got home yesterday I let my big girls out for the couple of hours before feed time. Normally I would leave them out in the run for the 1/2 hour or so while we duck out to do our mailing & pick up our bread & milk & they would be perfectly safe. Yesterday we spotted what looked like a boxer/pit bull X casing out our property from the paddock across the road! I don't know who owns him, where he comes from or why he was loose but I wasn't happy. Nor were my girls! I rounded them all up & tidied them away in the coop again until I got home but now I will have to keep a sharp eye out. When it comes to predation other people's dogs are the worst! And that sort never considers other people might see chickens as friends & pets, not just egg laying machines. Hopefully they will move on soon & take their horrible dog with them!

Probably not. The street behind has a lot of rentals & a high turnover rate. All those have fences so the dog may be an escape artist on top of everything else.

I had a lovely Pit Bull for a few years. She was a big sook and great with people but had a high prey drive. That's one of the things they were bred for, hunting and killing. It's a game for them like herding sheep is fun for a border collie. Of course for us now, one is more acceptable than the the other.

You are right to be wary. Is there a dog catcher on the island? My girls was a brilliant escape artist. She could jump and climb like a cat and squeeze through any gap the size of her head and she was very strong. We had her confined to a dog run on a concrete slab and she still managed to twist the gate open just enough to force her way through.

 

[Shadrach]

Good morning folks

Jeannie, just wow. dogs are bad. I have an LGD who will take care of such problems, but it's something that needs a watchful eye.

Shad, your friend doing the feed thing is amazing to me. I've gotten pretty good at it, but so much more to learn and the herbalist. Just wow. so much knowledge there.

It was rather funny partly due to the language problems and partly due to my ignorance. While I was trying to find out what at least some of the herbs were I mentioned my surprise at not seeing any recognizable grains in the feed. His response "Gallinas no menjar el grano".
That's a mixture of Spanish and Catalan which is common here.
It translates to, chickens don't eat grains.
Well, it's difficult to fault this. While most chickens will eat just about anything, jungle fowl do not eat grains as a rule, mainly because they don't grow in the jungle. They eat seeds and roosts and flowers and insects and various bugs but grains, definitely not.
If one talks to the guys that keep game fowl here, they don't feed their birds grains either.
My Finnish freind who is involved in preserving a number of landrace breeds doesn't feed grains either.
There are many ways to make combinations that will provide the 7 essential amino acids for a chicken. The idea here seems to be to supply as many types of amino acids as possible and let the chickens metabolism decide which combinations to use.

 

[Shadrach]

I have wondered though; in this day and age whether we can make ourselves better understood with translation apps on our phones. Although it’s also good fun learning a new language, just considerably slower!

Part of my problem is I don't get to hear or practice enough to improve much. Given I may only speak 50 words a week to a human, that's hardly surprising.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Part of my problem is I don't get to hear or practice enough to improve much. Given I may only speak 50 words a week to a human, that's hardly surprising.

You will just have to start talking to your chooks in Spanish!

 

[Ribh]

The pecking order is in disarray. I saw Ha'penny face off to Hepzibah this afternoon. Soooo funny. She did the hackles up & the long neck & when that didn't work she hopped up on a stump & did it some more. Hepzibah gave her the mum eye & Ha'penny thought better of her shenanigans!

Meanwhile the afternoon feeding session is the only time I see a lot of pecking going on, not only from Big girls to newbies but amongst the newbies themselves. We have an interesting set up amongst the new girls. Morrigu, who is a hen & was quite bossy in the little coop, is fairly low ranking even though she is laying regularly. Medh & Mhari Have floated to the top. Both have decided I'm ok, will take food from my hand & have hopped up on my knee ~ Mhari as the quickest route out of Suyin's vicinity but Mhari because she thought Lottie might share. She was wrong. Beatha co~opted my free hand this afternoon & the other Campines are good @ hit & runs. The Wyandottes, unsurprisingly, are last to eat being bottom but both will approach me until someone hustles them away. Mhari is on the top roost again tonight.

Feed time is the hardest hour. Everyone is is the coop. Space is restricted with so many feed tubs down & everyone is hungry. I change the water once Lottie & Ha'penny are done. & once the big girls settle everything calms right down.

 

[rjohns39]

Good evening folks

Jeannie, that sounds quite entertaining.

Shad, you make a good point, I know early american settlers never fed grain to their birds. I wonder how our factory approach to breeding has impacted their digestive systems as well as their desire to forage?