The Old Folks Home

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote:
Fear not...above was Cynthia on December 3. This is her a couple days ago. She's on this end with the blue...lol.
She was already fully feathered back in January.



Maybe your neighbours are like me.

I'd love to have a rooster next door if I was in an urban setting.
I actually have one, maybe two roosters who have a muted type crow. Funnier than heck! Quieter than a hen cackling. I have no idea why they're muted.
Yep...definite fertility.(how did you know?) Those young fall cockerels in the back are ready. My one purebred Ameraucauna pullet snuck into the back with me without me noticing and her eggs are fertile.

I had 5 broodies...now that I've taken the golf balls away and have been lifting them out of the nest every so often, the one Silkie and the one OEGB are on the fence. Tonight I kenneled the 3 determined Silkies so they won't be on the nests tomorrow when I'm away. Talk about temptation with fertile eggs and broody hens.

And yes, she lays a true blue egg too.

I've moved a few of the less aggressive cockerels across to the rooster building. I hope to move the rest on Sunday.

I have some eggs with the olive spots and one looks like a camouflage egg...and the paint comes off when I wash them. I have eggs that should be blue but the hen/pullet is only painting them halfway down...stripey eggs...lol!

The one olive egg I get has so far stayed olive.

Still don't know who lays it.


I remember you were really happy to get an olive egg! That's interesting it's lightened. Maybe that'll change back again.

 

[microchick]

You showed him!

May I ask what happens when the spur comes off? On You tube it looks like a blood covered projection that's soft.

Like you, I wish I could get closer but the same...I don't want to cause things to bleed. I've got one guy who has the true spikes and I'll have to catch him. Most of the older guys have grown a bit but are no where sharp. I normally work my way up the spur until I'm feel I've got close enough.

Here's Cynthia. She's a favorite of the roosters for some reason. This is as bad I've had as far as baring the back. But I had all the roosters out for a few weeks.


if she hadn't been bared on her back, I wouldn't have discovered that she's an EE who's part Silkie...

I was surprised because the spur actually snapped off clean at his leg. No bloody stump at all, just a shallow crater that oozed blood for awhile and then stopped. I expected the spur to grow back but it never did. Maybe the spur was already weakened when it broke. I dunno. It is the first and only time that it has happened so far.

I have a young Welsummer hen that is the favorite of the boys for some reason also. Possibly because the prissy Buff Orpington hens have their feet glued to the roosts presently. I put a little hen apron on her to protect her back and she has figured out how to get out of it. With a rooster's help of course.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Interesting morning here, so far. Got up around 6, and started the chores. Got the bread started. Got the last birds out of the house, then managed to refill the wild bird feeders since it's been warm and we've had about 3 feet of snow melt.

Came back inside, sat down and started to have a cup of tea and relax a bit. I hear a racket outside. Guineas, ducks, chickens and toms are going crazy. The ducks are looking east, so I go to those windows. I see nothing. I come back to the kitchen just in time to see a round, small, brown-butt running down into the chicken yard from the top gate.

I say something similar to "what is that?" but with much more colorful language. At that point BF comes running into the kitchen and announces "it just ran under the coop."

CRAP.

I grab the Walther P22 from atop the fridge, which is exactly where we keep it, loaded and chambered (but on safety) because occasions like this are not uncommon.

I go out the front door (those hours of shoveling last week when I wanted to give up certainly were worth it) and slip/slide/squish my way to the top run gate. The brown something comes back out from under the coop, goes around the composter and just stares at me. It's a beautiful shot. All clear behind it. The brown something has stopped, waiting for me to get the safety off, aim and fire. I do.

Nothing happens.

The gun isn't chambered. I pull the slide back. Nothing.

At this point I realize someone has removed the magazine from the gun.

Seriously. WHO DOES THAT? This gun is always loaded and chambered for this reason.

The brown something runs off. BF comes out now, with a rifle. The thing is gone. We don't know where.

I go back inside and get more appropriately dressed and go out to the coop to see if anyone is injured. I go around the north side of the coop and find brown something's baby, dead, probably killed by poultry.


There's fresh blood in the snow outside the duck house. I have no idea where it came from. It isn't a lot of blood, like something e sanguinated there, but it's enough for concern. I can't see that it came from one of my animals, but honestly I probably wouldn't notice if one was missing at this point, unless it was a favorite.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

And I thought it was a mink/marten/fisher... minks are supposed to be white in the winter (to blend with the snow). Nothing is supposed to be having babies this time of year, and that baby isn't a babybaby, because it has fur.

I have no idea what is going on but I do not like it.

 

[Bunnylady]

Some member of the weasel clan, anyway. And while some members of the weasel family change color during the winter, the mink isn't one of them. And apparently, of the species that do have winter camouflage, those living in the more southern parts of the natural range where it doesn't snow that often may not change color at all, or only do a partial change.

But the "field marks" on the dead baby don't quite add up to anything, near as I can tell. The animals that have white feet are supposed to have a white belly, too? What remains looks like a pretty long tail for a weasel, so maybe that's what it is - a Long Tailed Weasel?

Hope you find that all of your flock are healthy and accounted for.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Thanks for the info and you're right... minks don't change colors, weasels do.

I sent the photo to a game warden, it just seems so out of the ordinary. They're not supposed to be mating this time of year and gestation is about 50 days, so this is definitely not right.

Hopefully it doesn't come back, but I'm loaded and chambered, this time.

 

[perchie.girl]

I just read up on the Walther P22 I like all of its safety features especially for accidental discharge.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I can assure you it doesn't even intentionally discharge, sometimes.

 

[perchie.girl]

I can assure you it doesn't even intentionally discharge, sometimes.

LOL. Its a nice looking Tool... Gun.... I have to think of them as tools because Guns scare the crap out of me. and Yep I own a sixteen Twelve gauge Shotgun

never been fired....

 

[superchemicalgirl]

You should take it out and get comfortable with it. It will have a heck of a recoil.

If you're afraid of guns you might just want to get a .22 - it will dispatch many predators up to about a fox size without much recoil. Comes in both handgun and long gun types, whichever you'd prefer. One of my .22 rifles even has a swap out barrel for a .410 (a smaller version of the 12 gauge) but I don't use the .410 often. I've got the Walther handgun that has a regular magazine, and one with a revolver (1870s Cattleman replica, 12 shot). The .22 caliber is far and away my favorite. If something is happening, it's the .22 I go to, despite owning pretty much every caliber made in multiple types of guns. It's cheap to buy ammo for, and the Walther is really light with almost no recoil.

Unless I have a bear or a giraffe in my run, I'd grab the .22