What did you do with your flock today?

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Slowlyyy but surely

You need some good PPE (personal protective equipment) for times like these. What a grumpy girl!

someones in the healthcare field! (The ppe) reference)

 

[TropicalBabies]

Called my friend Pete to see if he was ready for his geese and found out he passed away. Think that's the worst part of aging...loosing people.

I'm so sorry. I hope his life was wonderful and full. Glad he knew you

 

[kurby22]

Busy busy busy lately. Just one of those spells where it feels like everyone and their uncle wants a bit of my time. But, this evening everyone got a flake of alfalfa to munch and scratch around...my go to alternative to grass in our green challenged area. They'll all get a few days of fun out of it.
My dwarfs are laying like crazy and no one's gone broody yet! Feels like a miracle and I better go knock on wood now!
Called my friend Pete to see if he was ready for his geese and found out he passed away. Think that's the worst part of aging...loosing people.

I'm soo sorry that you lost your friend and had to find out that way. He was lucky to know you and call you a friend.

 

[kurby22]

I think Ferdy must have had an exhausting day yesterday...View attachment 3656909
He was like that from 15mins after we settled down until I took him to bed at 10pm.

Ferdy reminds me a lot of Wilhelm Just loves snuggle time and shedding feather sheaths all over in the process haha. What a sweet boy!

 

[ValerieJ]

I learned a new word recently. And experienced it today. Parasthesia. Tingling or pin prick or bug bite feeling on skin for no outward reason.
Today as I was on poo patrol, I opened the coop door to clean and saw a strange bunch of red specks. I dragged my metal tongs over them and they popped red. Oh, no! Mites! I had found their sleeping/hiding area between the door and the frame it closed against, and it seemed like they were all congregated there. After spraying the heck out of the door, cracks, etc. with Dawn soap water, I inspected one of the girls, and no evidence on her of any bugs. My scalp and neck had parasthesia after that. Does this happen to anyone else if you hear the word lice or mites?
I am hating the possibility of having to wash down their coop, as it may not dry very quickly with our cooler, wetter weather. Any suggestions?

I read a long time ago that there is a type of mite that only comes out and bites the chickens at night, then goes back into hiding for the day. This guy had a video of actually eliminating them by capturing and destroying them. In his case, they were on the underside of the roosting bars. He put a piece of cardboard around the bar and left it until the next morning then took it off and there were all the mites on the cardboard. He did that a few times until mites didn't show up. He ran his finger along the bottom side of the roosting bar to see if there were mites there to begin with and they showed up on his finger.

So sorry you are having to deal with this. I am so fortunate to have not had an infestation in my 8 years of chickens. Not sure why. Every other bug lives here. lol But very grateful.

 

[kurby22]

So, realized at 10:30 tonight that I had forgotten to close the coop and check for eggs. It had been sunny when I had let them out this afternoon, but mostly rainy today. Just drizzle, so I took my lazy self out there, and to my surprise, watched Pikake lay a soft shell egg. Her roost mate Cinnamon was eyeing that treat on the ground. I quickly moved so it was dark again. No doubt they will have that for breakfast tomorrow. They are all on layer feed, just sometimes they eat other things when they are outside. I do have o.s. available. She is one difficult chicken to catch, so think I'll let her work that out by not letting them out for a couple rainy days.
@kurby22 so sorry to hear about Opal. @LTAY1946 Any loss is still a loss, hugs to you both.

Sounds like those become feral dogs. So sad how irresponsible pet owners dump their unwanted pets out in rural areas, thinking that they'll get adopted by some kind person. Yes, some do, but many also suffer starvation or predation, or get hit by vehicles. Makes me

There is really nothing to heal. The physical therapist said that no amount of physical therapy will reattach it to the muscle. I'll just live with this weird toe, and have slightly less balance on the left. Now if I was a serious athlete, she said surgery may be an option. Nope, don't think I'll get there. I also have had many knock downs by my dog, and kids as well. We have a rope swing near our driveway, and as I was coming back from the mailbox, one of my boys had just taken off in my direction from around the curve, so we didn't see each other. Knocked me backwards. I found later that I had a fracture on my elbow, which had already calcified by the time I went to the doctor.

Animals can be so dangerous! They love you so much they accidentally try to injure you in the process! My best friend has a forever damaged pinky finger (always looks like she's drinking high tea like a fancy pants) thanks to her dog chasing after a squirrel...she yanked hard on the leash and her pinky was caught in the leash and went sideways and she's had two different surgeries, but they can't fix it...her fingers are too thin and fragile. The things we do sometimes haha.

I'm so bummed about Opal and now Oliver keeps escaping somehow! I closed off the hole in the bird netting and he was still getting out. It does seem to have created a budding friendship though…

Koda really wants a friend now that his dog sisters have passed on. I got some super cute video of them too, but this picture is just so cute. Koda would sit like this tail wagging, then dance around as Oliver danced around and then Koda would tear off in a zoomie circle around the whole yard and then come back and they’d do it again Eventually Oliver tired of the game and went back to foraging so Koda laid down and watched him. It was super cute . I may have figured out how he’s been escaping too, so fingers crossed I don’t see Oliver in the yard unsupervised today! I heard a big Great Horned Owl a couple nights ago and saw him in a redwood tree last night—sooo I now have two sneaky dawn/dusk predators to worry about! It was tough to get a good picture of him but he looked big even at this distance! Crazy thing is I heard him a bunch Tuesday night but learned my husband may be deaf to sounds in that register cuz he couldn’t hear it at all! Kids and I were incredulous that he couldn’t hear him

 

[Maddcatter]

Hopefully kitty will be in and out with a course of antibiotics (for all?) and then done ♡

Unfortunately, The kitty was put down yesterday. Turns out that when a 13 year old cat has fluid around his lungs, it's fun stuff like cancer or heart failure. ... Like 80% of the time. 15% of the time it's kitty Corona (FIP), which is basically always fatal when they're that old. I figured I was probably in trouble when the Vet started telling me about experimental treatments....

Unfortunately, his problems had progressed enough that he has some serious problems being able to breathe.... so he couldn't eat much, sleep well, or even purr with comfort.

Happy birthday!

Thank you! I'm NGL, I'm a little surprised to have made it this far!

Happy Birthday! Hoping your cat will be well. Never thought grass could be so dangerous.

Thank you! As previously mentioned, my kitty didn't have something treatable.

I also never thought grass could be dangerous.

Now, I know this is a chicken forum, but let me hijack it for a minute to tell you about His Imperial Fatness, Ruler of the food bowl, The Fat One (AKA Fatty)

Fatty came to my house as a last chance at getting my other cat a friend. I had tried to find my other cat (Stupid) a friend a few times and had failed. Either The new cat and Stupid didn't have the ability to be friends, or the new cat and my husband didn't have the ability to co-exist. I found Fatty at the ASPCA. He was not the cat I had gone looking for, but He reached out his little paw at me, and tried to play through the bars on his cage... and my heart melted... His little face had most of his whiskers broken due to wanting to play through the cage and I decided that anything that was that committed to being adorable would probably do ok in my house.

That was about 12 years ago now. Fatty was dubbed Jack to begin with, he earned the name Fatty because when the kitten-ness wore off, his personality was mainly about food. (Word of advice-
Don't leave your cats at home with your cat-hating Hubs. They might start answering to names you have to explain to the vet.)

The Fat One was not a social cat, if you didn't live with him. He disappeared when the front door opened (regardless of why it was opening). He mostly hid in a cabinet when people came over. He did put up with me dragging him out to met my friends when they started wondering if I really had 2 cats. He weighed about 20 lbs for most of his life, and when I carried him, you couldn't see my torso. (He had a lot of fur. I'm pretty sure he was part Mainecoon).

If you lived with him, he loved you... almost as much as he loved food. He would happily sit and be pet for hours. He occasionally wrapped his paws around my arm so I would keep petting his belly... turns out 20lbs cats are kind of strong. He was a brother to Stupid, and did make sure I no longer got woken up at 4am to the call of my first cat being lonely. He also purred basically all the time, and was great at putting me to sleep when I did not plan on taking a nap.

He was a very good friend, and I am lucky to have had him.

Ok, back to your regularly scheduled Chickens now...

 

[LTAY1946]

I turned out all the layers and the White Giants and Dark Cornish to be just chickens today. All have finally learned where they sleep if they want feed and water and no water baths from a garden hose getting them off the log pile in the evening.

 

[ChicksnMore]

My girls and boys constantly back chat me! No respect!
Gladys, my oldest hen is very chatty with me in general, she makes lovely little enquiring noises whenever we spend time together.
Penelope is incredibly talkative and it often sounds like she is asking me questions then replying to my responses. I enjoy our little 'conversations'.
Connie, my ex-battery hen (now sadly passed - l miss her every day) used to talk to me all the time. She was very expressive and was good at making appropriate noises in response to certain situations. For example, she was house-trained but would very occasionally have an 'accident'. She would look over her shoulder at her poop and make a noise that for all the world sounded like "Oh No!"

So, yes, they do talk to me. Either that, or I'm totally insane '

If reincarnations real...I want to come back as a chicken at your house

 

[ChicksnMore]

I don't know if anyone remembers me saying way back how Penelope was a serial biter until she went broody for the first tome at 5 months old? Well, yesterday she bit me 6 times for the first time in 19 months!
She's in a foul mood (no pun intended) as she's started a hard moult and is still recovering from her respiratory infection.
She's not eating enough so I've been bringing her in to 'target' feed. She was on my shoulder and decided she would eat some broccoli and pecans. Evidently, i am not quick enough feeding them to her as every tiny floret was followed by a sharp peck to the back of the neck!
She then pecked my face and drew blood, I think that one was just for good measure

You're definitely too slow! Glad she's eating well that way though!