What did you do with your flock today?

[Shetland lover]

I went outside to do my normal rounds and found my puppy Goose had stolen two goose eggs...guess he figured goose eggs belong to Goose . Went and checked their nest and found there's still 3 eggs in it and the call ducks have decided to nest with the geese. I'm not sure how that will go...but they seem happy and they're not trying to steal each other's eggs. I'm going to leave them be and see how it goes for now.

We've had days of rain here but the runs are dry and the birds are all happy. Rain means clouds so it keeps it a little warmer overnight which is nice.

I have two hens brooding...ones brooding a single ceramic egg , and the other was sneaky and hid her nest. I'm just leaving them be for now and will worry about broody breaking when times more plentiful.

OMG! That's all so funny,
Years ago, my friend had a cat who was well known in the neighbourhood for stealing eggs. He'd bring them home to eat in comfort.
Penelope once tried to brood a grape. Silly girl!

 

[Shetland lover]

Always looking for more fun "run clutter" things to entertain the girls, especially when the weather's been so very wet & gloomy lately and they've been sheltering under the tarp-covered area and under the coop a lot. We finally had a break in the relentless rainstorms and the girls were out & about in the open run.

Fortunately the cheap plastic "shower mirror" I'd ordered for them arrived this morning and I wired it to the fence at chicken height, then stood back to watch the show.

The 8 girls all came swarming over to check out the new weird thing, but most lost interest pretty fast as they couldn't get close enough for a good look. Flock Queen Pauline the Buff and her beta/enforcer Jill the Delaware were hogging the mirror, staring at and pecking their reflections as if warding off new interlopers, giving the reflections "stinkeye" and looking annoyed that the newbies didn't run off. Pauline started peering around the mirror as if looking for the rest of "that hussy Buff Orp" she was pecking at, but only seeing the empty yard beyond the fence. Jill eventually left her to it, having decided there was no threat she needed to deal with, but Pauline obsessed over the stubborn newcomer several more minutes before giving it up to go preen herself on a stump in a rare beam of sunshine.

It'll be fun to watch when the others get a chance to meet their reflections! Chickens are way better than TV any day...

Chickens and mirrors - best entertainment ever!

 

[ChicksnMore]

OMG! That's all so funny,
Years ago, my friend had a cat who was well known in the neighbourhood for stealing eggs. He'd bring them home to eat in comfort.
Penelope once tried to brood a grape. Silly girl!

O the grape brooder is funny! The funniest one I've had was a girl that kept trying to brood a rock. I kept finding a decent sized rock in the nest...I'd toss it out and find it back the next day. I finally removed it and just watched. Sure enough, the one hen would go get it and lovingly roll it back in

 

[ValerieJ]

Today was a bit of a rollercoaster…I went out to let the new puppy play and try going potty and decided to give out some treats since the sun was shining. As I went to each run I discovered that my one bobtail girl that I’ve been fighting with to quit brooding, is not well and has lost a bunch of weight :-( Then I noticed Willy, Aria’s favorite Bobtail rooster is limping and won’t use one foot. Then I found a huge cache of eggs that my kids had not collected even though they claim to be checking each day The “nest” was right next to the door so I know they didn’t even look at all. Then I sat down with my breeding cage birds and realized the boy I was looking at was the wrong boy. I had sold my favorite young dAnver cockerel, Fennel, by accident. So that was the straw…and I just started sobbing. We lost Alfredo too, our one black Watermaal rooster on Sunday…found him head first in his feeder like he’d fallen dead right off the roost bar. And yesterday we also learned my husbands cousin lost her battle with cancer and passed away. It’s been a rough few days emotionally and the dam finally broke. So I sat there and felt sorry for awhile…vented to a chicken friend for a bit, and then started dealing with all the issues. Just to add to the fun, when I checked everything at bedtime, I found a door wasn’t closed because it was blocked by wet muddy shavings, another one wasn’t closed because a bird was blocking the door, Parmesan was just out sitting on a fence top instead of inside her coop, Oliver was wandering around the yard, and the Watermaal coop door won’t close all the way and leaves a rat sized gap at the bottom. BLAH.

So I chopped up organic greens, scrambled some eggs with mashed up egg shells, poultry cell and flax seeds and fed the broody girl, I cleaned out the clogged doors and put away naughty chickens, and then contacted the person I sold Fennel to and she agreed to swap him this weekend for the one she was supposed to get.

Then I sat down and a friend texted me in a panic because she’s chicken sitting for her neighbor and came out to THREE bobcats feasting on a couple of the chickens, some injured ones laying in the yard, and a bunch more missing or in the trees So I spent the next hour helping her treat the injured ones via phone. These bobcats look super healthy too! Zoom in and you can see a couple of them.

View attachment 3732496

I’m feeling emotional and drained and sad tonight…chickening is hard sometimes.

So sorry to hear about your tough days. Seems like everything happened all at once, and that's just too much. Today will be a better day.

 

[ChicksnMore]

Tubby little babies

Turtle tailed Boo

Late arrival Tink

 

[Shetland lover]

O the grape brooder is funny! The funniest one I've had was a girl that kept trying to brood a rock. I kept finding a decent sized rock in the nest...I'd toss it out and find it back the next day. I finally removed it and just watched. Sure enough, the one hen would go get it and lovingly roll it back in

Oh, that's so funny!
I can indeed confirm Penelope has brooded a pebble too. And a plastic bottle cap... And a wine cork... She's desperate to be a mom.

 

[Shetland lover]

Tubby little babies

Turtle tailed BooView attachment 3733204
Late arrival Tink
View attachment 3733202

You'd never know Tink was ever behind developmentally, she's looking as good as Boo now
Boo reminds me of my friend's cat. Her mom chewed off her tail just after birth (the cat's, as far as I'm aware my friend didn't have a tail ) and now she just has a little stub. It's soo cute.

 

[Shetland lover]

Just got one chicken back outside and now it's Ferdy's turn to be in!
He fell off one of our raised beds onto paving slabs and has sprained his left leg quite badly.
At first, I honestly thought he might have broken it as when he first got up, he was squealing, hopping and not allowing his foot to touch the floor.
I scooped him up and examined him in the kitchen, where he was able to stand levelly and take a few steps. I couldn't feel any obvious breaks. I kept him in for observatio, gave him a bit of pain relief and iced it to reduce swelling. He ended up being in all day and overnight. We had a bit of a tantrum at bedtime when I left him downstairs with the cats but - as usual - he behaved impeccably.
He seems much improved this morning and is limping less. I'm going to keep him in again today as he's a bit of a lunatic outdoors, always jumping off and on things too high for a little chicken.
I've resigned myself to working with him on my shoulder all day, instead of just for a few hours tonight.

 

[Smokerbill]

I refilled the chickens' feeder today with most of a new bag of feed. The last 50# bag kept the seven chickens fed for 31 days, an average of 0.23 pounds of pellets per bird per day.

 

[kurby22]

O the grape brooder is funny! The funniest one I've had was a girl that kept trying to brood a rock. I kept finding a decent sized rock in the nest...I'd toss it out and find it back the next day. I finally removed it and just watched. Sure enough, the one hen would go get it and lovingly roll it back in

That’s so adorable