The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Today, I opened the door to the Old Hens #2 pen with Georgie. Georgie stood up and hobbled out into the hallway, following her sisters. She then just stood there looking all droopy so I put her outside in the sun and she was picking at scratch that the last group left on the ground. Her right side is the weakest so maybe a mini-stroke? Her color is really good, but she just looks tired. She will eat a little and drink some, but loses her balance and the right side is just droopy. But, she is still with me and showing interest in life a little bit.

Sorry about the old girl. It's hard watching them start to fail. A day in the sun is always a good thing for a chicken.

 

[speckledhen]

My friend who keeps her horses here is gone for a few weeks. She pays an older couple to stay at her house, and they do the horse chores here during the week, and I feed on weekends. Well I went out to grain the horses and one of them - the one I would have expected it from least - suddenly ran past me, spun around and kicked me right in the gut. Knocked the wind right out of me, and I laid there flat for a few minutes with my pony standing over me trying to figure out what was wrong. When I was able to get up I chased her away from the group and threw the bucket at her until I'm pretty sure she will avoid me if she sees a bucket in my hand. I called the other folks and warned them to be careful with her, and not go in without a training stick in their hands.

That is why I tell people over and over that there is no such thing as a safe horse. A friend and horseman was kicked the same way once by the oldest, tamest horse he owned, and ended up in surgery with a ruptured spleen. If I had bent over and she caught me in the head they may have found me on Monday frozen, as the high temp right now is only 8, and it's going to fall into subzero overnight. She may have only been "horsing around", but so dangerous...

Large livestock is no joke! They outweigh us by hundreds of pounds and it doesn't take them being aggressive and intentionally trying to inflict injury to kill us. I'm glad you are okay, Mary! Oh, my gosh, that could have ended up way differently. Are you okay now? Bet you have quite a bruise!

Sorry about the old girl. It's hard watching them start to fail. A day in the sun is always a good thing for a chicken.

I think it perks them up to lay in the sunshine, too. Her days are numbered, but she's comfortable and still being 2nd in charge. No one is hurting her and I don't think anyone would dare. June would kick some butt. She rules those girls and she already has Wendy permanently on her blacklist.


I have to figure out what to do about Jane and Maddie. They are petrified of Hector. And it's bad when they are stuck inside, too, because the girls avoid him, stay up on the roost most of the time, don't eat right, etc. One of them flew straight up in the air because Hector was stalking her and I don't mean it appeared he was being flirtatious. He acted like he wanted to hand her her tail feathers. Not sure why he does that. Jane was so scared she flew from the nests straight across the room to the roost rather than risk getting on the floor and Hector chased her as she flew over his head. He's about a hair's breadth from me taking those two girls and putting them in with an old lady group or even with Atlas, which means I can't use them as breeders at all. I really don't need any chickens, of course, but I don't like not having the option to hatch from them.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Large livestock is no joke! They outweigh us by hundreds of pounds and it doesn't take them being aggressive and intentionally trying to inflict injury to kill us. I'm glad you are okay, Mary! Oh, my gosh, that could have ended up way differently. Are you okay now? Bet you have quite a bruise!



I think it perks them up to lay in the sunshine, too. Her days are numbered, but she's comfortable and still being 2nd in charge. No one is hurting her and I don't think anyone would dare. June would kick some butt. She rules those girls and she already has Wendy permanently on her blacklist.


I have to figure out what to do about Jane and Maddie. They are petrified of Hector. And it's bad when they are stuck inside, too, because the girls avoid him, stay up on the roost most of the time, don't eat right, etc. One of them flew straight up in the air because Hector was stalking her and I don't mean it appeared he was being flirtatious. He acted like he wanted to hand her her tail feathers. Not sure why he does that. Jane was so scared she flew from the nests straight across the room to the roost rather than risk getting on the floor and Hector chased her as she flew over his head. He's about a hair's breadth from me taking those two girls and putting them in with an old lady group or even with Atlas, which means I can't use them as breeders at all. I really don't need any chickens, of course, but I don't like not having the option to hatch from them.

Some roosters,,,,,,,,I suppose he's feeling his oats and is trying to be all cavemanly. He'd get put in jail here until I needed him that naughty boy. He knows he's so good looking.

 

[speckledhen]

Some roosters,,,,,,,,I suppose he's feeling his oats and is trying to be all cavemanly. He'd get put in jail here until I needed him that naughty boy. He knows he's so good looking.

Tom said to stick him in the hospital cage and let the girls have some peace. Hector is such a big doofus. He loves to get attention and he likes for me to talk to him. If I ignore him, he climbs higher and closer to my face so I can't, then I have to rub his chest and tell him what a good Hector he is. But, he's also gotten lectures on being mean to his girls and that I may just take them away from him, as if he knows what I'm telling him. He only hears me say how good he is, LOL. He needs outside time, but this weather is not cooperating. Going into the deep freeze Tuesday and some snow expected. The ground is still wet from the last stuff.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Tom said to stick him in the hospital cage and let the girls have some peace. Hector is such a big doofus. He loves to get attention and he likes for me to talk to him. If I ignore him, he climbs higher and closer to my face so I can't, then I have to rub his chest and tell him what a good Hector he is. But, he's also gotten lectures on being mean to his girls and that I may just take them away from him, as if he knows what I'm telling him. He only hears me say how good he is, LOL. He needs outside time, but this weather is not cooperating. Going into the deep freeze Tuesday and some snow expected. The ground is still wet from the last stuff.

Sounds like he's naughty so he gets attention from you? He may be smarter than we think he is.

 

[speckledhen]

Sounds like he's naughty so he gets attention from you? He may be smarter than we think he is.

Oh, probably. But, some days, I wish he'd turn down his "goober-headed-ness" a few notches and just be a normal, easygoing sweetie. Yeah, right, this is Hector we're talking about!

 

[1muttsfan]

Thanks guys. I was actually pretty anxious going to bed last night, Jimmy is down in Florida so there's no one else here, and I know that getting kicked like that can sometimes lead to a ruptured spleen. Especially if it's a small rupture, you just start getting weak and disoriented. I was a little concerned about actually waking up this morning, so I got myself up a few times during the night to check and make sure I was okay.

We are going to have to have a conversation about that horse staying here at the house. I absolutely will not keep a bad-tempered horse at my home. I feel it's more likely that she was just kicking up her heels, the same way horses do to each other. The problem is that means that she has lost her respect for being around people and unless she can get that reestablished she will be very dangerous to others as well.

 

[1muttsfan]

Ciyn as far as Hector goes, I often have felt that he would be happier if he had a big open space and a whole bunch of girls. Have you considered maybe keeping a son or two of his, and letting him go somewhere where he can be the King of the Hill? I'm sure that there are people out there who would be happy to have such a fine-looking rooster.

 

[speckledhen]

Thanks guys. I was actually pretty anxious going to bed last night, Jimmy is down in Florida so there's no one else here, and I know that getting kicked like that can sometimes lead to a ruptured spleen. Especially if it's a small rupture, you just start getting weak and disoriented. I was a little concerned about actually waking up this morning, so I got myself up a few times during the night to check and make sure I was okay.

We are going to have to have a conversation about that horse staying here at the house. I absolutely will not keep a bad-tempered horse at my home. I feel it's more likely that she was just kicking up her heels, the same way horses do to each other. The problem is that means that she has lost her respect for being around people and unless she can get that reestablished she will be very dangerous to others as well.

I'm glad you came out of that relatively unscathed. Yeah, that horse may need to go.

Ciyn as far as Hector goes, I often have felt that he would be happier if he had a big open space and a whole bunch of girls. Have you considered maybe keeping a son or two of his, and letting him go somewhere where he can be the King of the Hill? I'm sure that there are people out there who would be happy to have such a fine-looking rooster.

It has been hard here lately, with Tom's issues growing worse. I'm afraid that if I let Hector go, he wouldn't be replaced. What I'm thinking is that if I lose Bash, Hector would be put over Bash's girls, adding Hector's in with them (Crele Brahmas, anyone?), so he would have ten hens. I most likely won't keep a Bash son, much as I love those guys, because of the amount of feed that they eat. The Brahma girls would need a rooster on range and, even if Atlas passed, I can't give Atlas's hens to Hector. Three of them are too old and MaryJo may carry the dwarf gene, but I could put those four, if all four are left by then, into Hector's smaller pen and put Hector into Atlas's larger one so he has more room to groove.

 

[speckledhen]

Had some drama on my homestead channel yesterday, some troll put the same comment on several videos targeting me because I'm conservative and using nasty sexual garbage to insult me. Of course, delete and ban happened immediately, didn't even read the entire thing before I hit the ban button. Why my conservatism, political or religious views make any difference on a homestead/prepping/frugal living/chicken raising channel, I have no clue and I don't talk about that on my channel. If I ever made any comment about either, it was briefly in passing. But the troll was vanquished and I was prompted to make a video about my #1 channel rule, which is similar to how we run BYC here, really.

Then, I got lots of support from my usual folks and a fairly new viewer, Edward, who has been nothing but respectful, said he was a moderate liberal who wants to start his own channel when he retires and he watches my channel and others to learn about chickens, gardening and plants, gave me his email, told me to keep up the great videos, such a nice man. Most folks are very nice, the bulk of them, really, just like here on BYC. Then, you have your curmudgeons who think they know better than you about everything. And then, lower on the totem pole, just plain old trolls.

My answer to Ed was:

Thank you, Ed. Being prepared for hard times, gardening, raising chickens, none of those have party lines or religions, they go across all walks of life and all barriers. It's just common sense living for everyone. So, slurs targeting me because I am conservative are completely misplaced on this channel and I'm not really sure why they think it should matter here. If the sexual content had not been there, maybe I'd have just said, "Thanks, I resemble that remark!", LOL. As for equipment, I have a fairly inexpensive camcorder with a 32G SD card, plus a tripod my husband bought at a flea market for $5 and Video Pad Editor program. Appreciate your support and your positive outlook, Ed! You're a real peach.