Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[MaryJanet]

sadly capitalism doesn't work that way. It's nearing breaking point I fear.

I fear so too.

 

[ManueB]

It's nearing breaking point I fear.

If only..it's our national day, 14th of July, commemorating the storming of the Bastille, and we're rolling out the red carpet for the indian prime minister, apparently not exactly a very recommandable type and human right advocate, as he just bought us 26 rafale combat aircrafts. Well, 15 years ago we were doing the same with Bachar Al Assad and how wonderful that turned out. Oh, and in many cities celebrations are cancelled because they are still fearing riots and all the cops are mobilised in Paris. Such a sad thing that human specie sometimes!

Anyway, back to the chickens des Sauches. Temperatures have gone back to season's normal, 30/86, which feels a lot more bearable. I tried again to get the chicks on the roost yesterday but again they all squished back in their nests, though it's almost an impossible feat. During the day they now spend a lot of time in the wood shed which they have completed adopted as their safe cool place, and they sometimes share with Cannelle. They are now all bigger than Chipie, our smallest bantam, and some are the same size as Piou-piou.

Today I saw some interesting interaction between Gaston and one of the undetermined black chick. Gaston was taking that immobile posture as if showing something on the ground. The chick knelt and then completely lied down, making some gentle peeps. I wish I could understand what they were saying, it looked pretty gentle.

Cannelle perked up this morning for a little while. She got up, drank, ate a bit of an egg, some chicken ham, a tiny bit of grain, and slowly climbed to the manure pile where Kara was scratching to tell her off and start scratching in her place. That was it, however, she fell asleep on the manure pile. Later she also climbed in the dustbathing barrel, but then she also went unconscious. But I think she may hang in there a few more days, whereas yesterday I really thought it was the end.

Blanche is also not doing well. It has been the case for a long time, ever since the hawk attack at Christmas. Yesterday night she was being so scared of Théo who kept trying to mate her and hurting her that I carried her back to the coop and I realized her crop was almost empty. Usually she is a very good eater even if she is always skinny. So I'm getting her some extras again, she's obviously not eating enough.

I picked my first greens today! Unlike most people I love picking greens if it's early enough to be still in the shade. It takes a lot of time and patience to find them all and it's very soothing and meditative . In summer we very often eat a salad with new potatoes, tomatoes, fresh garlic, greens, and sometimes we add sardines (not from the garden!).

White cockerel made his first adult warning sound today, he was scared of Grochatila hiding in the Jerusalem artichokes!

Nieva and Nougat.

Gaston finally made peace with Chipie. Luckily he almost never tries to mate her seeing the size difference.

Cannelle ate and drank.

I don't know how we are going to give up Pied Beau. He has become a lap cockerel.

Cannelle fells asleep trying to dustbathe.

She woke up a bit to scratch on the manure pile .

Lily is one of the hens that is still nice with Théo.

Blanche dustbathing.

 

[MaryJanet]

Sorry it took so long to reply - I was halfway through when my phone's battery ran out and then I fell asleep.

Thanks for sharing too. Yes, you should be proud of what you've achieved, and I think your path sets an example to others.

If so, it's something we have in common

It seems like your dad was a remarkable person. Maybe you got some of his persistence and strong will ?

He was like everyone: unusually inspiring in some ways, and unusually dense in others. But he was a genuine trier and a defender of others.

In my case, I think my childhood made me resilient, but it doesn't always work out that way. My brother is more vulnerable than I am although he's gradually becoming stronger.

And I'm glad you seem to love your work, which must feel rewarding.

It's very satisfying. I enjoy both teaching and research. Although I'm often terse on byc, I love writing and could do it all day long without budging! I sometimes speak out when it would more political to remain quiet, but that's who I'd rather be, so it's ok.

I agree with you that lived experience makes you understand things differently. Theoretical expertise can be totally disconnected (which is useful in a sense).

So true. Reading about something isn't as revealing or transformative as living it, even in very perceptive and well-intentioned readers.

Two things my parents taught me is that social status is completely unrelated to personal worth- as you say, it's your actions that count, and that academic intelligence and education doesn't always prevent people from being narrow minded

In the academic world I'm a part of, there's a lot of competition for very little funding. That leads to all sorts of toxic behaviour, from narrow mindedness to outright nastiness.

Your thoughts on social status and personal worth have reminded me of a podcast I was listening to yesterday which suggested wealthier people are more invested in spending money on beauty because of what being fastidiously groomed says about them, eg, expensive teeth, expensive eyebrows, nails, etc. On the other hand, they said people without the money to spend are necessarily scruffier and therefore poor people are easy to identify. I was surprised because the speakers are usually very adept social analysts, but in this case I thought they were making very weak generalisations and that preferences for grooming are not robustly tied to money. I've always thought a strong commitment to investing in beauty says something about someone's insecurity and often the people wearing the oldest, comfiest clothes and that same old hairstyle (that suits them) are often very comfy in life and disengaged from thinking about their beauty, but maybe I've got it back to front. What do you think?

 

[ManueB]

I was surprised because the speakers are usually very adept social analysts, but in this case I thought they were making very weak generalisations and that preferences for grooming are not robustly tied to money. I've always thought a strong commitment to investing in beauty says something about someone's insecurity and often the people wearing the oldest, comfiest clothes and that same old hairstyle (that suits them) are often very comfy in life and disengaged from thinking about their beauty, but maybe I've got it back to front. What do you think?

I had to really think about it, because it's not something I already have a definite opinion about . So my answer is long, and not very exciting ! My first reaction would be that when people take care of their outward appearance, it's to show their belonging to a group- that can include social status but it's much wider. It's about culture, age, attitudes and preferences... Nice's Uni has several campuses in the city and it was really fun to guess when students or teachers turned up at the library to which campus they belonged : suits for the law campus, sandals, hawaiian shirts and bermudas for science, flower power clothes for literature and humanities...
I don't really know if being careful about appearance is related to personal insecurities. I suppose it can be, in the sense that if you're very confident, you care less about what other people think of you. And that if you're unsure of yourself you may find reassurance in looking "good", whatever that means. But I think it doesn't always work like this and I've met some very well groomed people that were also very confident.
If I look at myself, I was much more confident before 35, and I also took much better care of my appearance then. Now I feel more like I fail at everything I try (probably because I try a lot of things that I'm not naturally good at ) and I don't give a damn about looks. And that happened before we came to a place where most days only my chickens see me !

So I would say it's probably much more complicated than just personal insecurity, or the need to feel some kind of social belonging, and maybe it depends also what message your family gave you as a child about your physical appearance, and if you evolve in circles where it's seen as something important or not, and certainly some other factors as well. But maybe the simplifications made by your podcast may have been more true historically, before almost everyone had a bit of free leisure time whatever their income.

 

[RoyalChick]

Sorry it took so long to reply - I was halfway through when my phone's battery ran out and then I fell asleep.



If so, it's something we have in common



He was like everyone: unusually inspiring in some ways, and unusually dense in others. But he was a genuine trier and a defender of others.

In my case, I think my childhood made me resilient, but it doesn't always work out that way. My brother is more vulnerable than I am although he's gradually becoming stronger.



It's very satisfying. I enjoy both teaching and research. Although I'm often terse on byc, I love writing and could do it all day long without budging! I sometimes speak out when it would more political to remain quiet, but that's who I'd rather be, so it's ok.



So true. Reading about something isn't as revealing or transformative as living it, even in very perceptive and well-intentioned readers.



In the academic world I'm a part of, there's a lot of competition for very little funding. That leads to all sorts of toxic behaviour, from narrow mindedness to outright nastiness.

Your thoughts on social status and personal worth have reminded me of a podcast I was listening to yesterday which suggested wealthier people are more invested in spending money on beauty because of what being fastidiously groomed says about them, eg, expensive teeth, expensive eyebrows, nails, etc. On the other hand, they said people without the money to spend are necessarily scruffier and therefore poor people are easy to identify. I was surprised because the speakers are usually very adept social analysts, but in this case I thought they were making very weak generalisations and that preferences for grooming are not robustly tied to money. I've always thought a strong commitment to investing in beauty says something about someone's insecurity and often the people wearing the oldest, comfiest clothes and that same old hairstyle (that suits them) are often very comfy in life and disengaged from thinking about their beauty, but maybe I've got it back to front. What do you think?

Hmmm. Not sure about that.
I remember reading some statistics on how small beauty luxuries - lipstick, manicures etc. are quite recession proof because people want to treat themselves to beauty products even when times are tough.
That would seem to go against their theory.
Personally I still have the lipstick I bought when I was 15 or whenever that stuff seemed important. I didn’t use it much then, nor since, and I think it is the only one I have ever owned!
I suspect it is hard to generalize.

 

[ManueB]

Cannelle is definitely doing better ! Not out of the wood yet, but I think she's now more likely to survive (this round) than die. She ate grains, she drank, she dustbathed, she scratches, she pecks my ankles, and although now it's very hot she still looks very ill, on the whole she has taken a good turn. I'm still not sure what she has and I don't really expect that she will "heal" if she pulls through, but I know she will make the best use of any time she gains. Now she even wants to go back inside the chicken yard with the big chickens, but I want to keep her separated from the roosters still.

Léa is broody, I had to take her off the nest yesterday night twice and carry her in the coop and I'm blocking her nest today . She weaned the chicks just the 26, I don't know if it's quite normal that she should be broody again so soon? She has done a small molt, she has new feathers already.

And Chipie laid again today for the first time since she sat on air, and in fact for the first time in..months !

Chipie and broody Léa..Chipie isn't scared anymore!

Not a good photo but it has both roosters in it and no chasing ensued...for this time.

Pretty chick but looks more and more like a boy.

Chipie's egg compared to Kara and Alba (who lay small eggs).

Cannelle succeeded in dustbathing today.

Chicks

They discovered my partner had made this being the wood shed. He intended an outside shower but they saw a chick's lounge.

Piou-piou and Cannelle had a bit of garden time together this morning before it became really hot again.

Léa is broody, obviously.

Blanche and Cannelle spent an hour in the nest box of the second coop this morning but of course neither laid.

 

[Perris]

so glad to read that the roos are settling at last and Theo has accepted his new place. It presumably makes your life a little bit easier

 

[ManueB]

Personally I still have the lipstick I bought when I was 15 or whenever that stuff seemed important. I didn’t use it much then, nor since,

At this stage, I think it would be better not to try to use it ever again .

so glad to read that the roos are settling at last and Theo has accepted his new place. It presumably makes your life a little bit easier

I am much less worried ever since Théo stopped fighting back, because he's so much smaller and he was really aggressive, so I kept worrying he would get hurt.
Now I just check that they don't run too much in the heat. I still have to be there at roost time, because most of the evenings Théo doesn't dare come in again if he's been thrown out a few times.

Yesterday Léa was broody and she didn't want to go roost in the coop. When she finally agreed to, Théo got off his roost and chased her away ! Then he got chased by Gaston who also jumped down from the main roost, some of the hens came down as well, and they had to start all over .

Cannelle is as she was yesterday. She was very active this morning but it's getting very hot again and now she's lying down mostly. Yesterday she went to roost by herself, with a crop that felt not very full but not bloated or squishy, and her poop are much less worrying. So I'm pretty sure she will make it for this time .

Updating on the poop I was worried about : there has been some improvement in the sense that most of the older chickens now have normal or mostly normal poop. But the chicks, one of the white pullets, and one of the black pullets (hard to tell which as they sleep cuddled one on another) still have both blood and yellow liquid poops. So it could be a light coccidiosis strain that the adults are overcoming by themselves, or some other bacteria or disease that for the same reason the younger chickens have trouble getting over. Since they are not showing other worrying symptoms I will try to reschedule the vet appointment as Wednesday will be the hottest day ( we have again four days heat warning). In the valley they have four or five Celsius degree above us ; if we reach 34/93, our max, they have between 38 to 40/100 to 104. They are predicting storms after Wednesday which would make the temps go down a bit.

Cannelle had an adventure following the chicks early morning.

I went on a run to see the lone old horse. My feet still hurt so I can't run more than once a week. I've got an appointment with the local foot doctor in ten days that I had to wait two months for ! It's still green in the mountains but now all the fields have been mowed for hay it will turn yellow quickly.

@MaryJanet Pied beau is making me think about how temperament can vary between siblings. He's a lap /shoulder chick even if we have done nothing to encourage him, and none of the other chicks are !

Finally managed to catch Kara's and Lea's beautiful color on picture. Usually they just show black.

Chipie acting master of the universe.

My partner spent a lot of time trying to teach the chickens to drink from these, with no success. He ended up giving up and now two weeks later they are all drinking . Wonder who was the first to try!

 

[Perris]

can we have some of your heat please? After an unusually dry Feb, unusually wet March, April and May, unusually very hot and very dry June, we're now half way through an unusually cold and wet July. I would be very glad of some normal weather...

 

[MaryJanet]

Hmmm. Not sure about that.
I remember reading some statistics on how small beauty luxuries - lipstick, manicures etc. are quite recession proof because people want to treat themselves to beauty products even when times are tough.
That would seem to go against their theory.
Personally I still have the lipstick I bought when I was 15 or whenever that stuff seemed important. I didn’t use it much then, nor since, and I think it is the only one I have ever owned!
I suspect it is hard to generalize.

Then there are those who groom and dress to demonstrate respect for others. I like this way of thinking about it.