What did you do with your flock today?

[ValerieJ]

Ahhhh such cute helpers you have!!

Finally boxing up some bags! I could only send half of the ones I’ve saved but hope that it’s helpful :-D

I guess I don't understand what you are doing with the bags. What is their purpose? Do you mind explaining it to me? I'm sure at some point, long ago, in this thread you did.

 

[ValerieJ]

Your sweet words of understanding made me tear up, again. I am doing ok, just have moments when I am here with you all,, when I see the empty corner by the door, when I wonder if going away and leaving her with someone else caused her too much stress. You are so right when you say the impact of this is harder than sudden deaths. Now I am crying, but I know she is getting all the treats and running free, no longer suffering.
We will be ok, in time,, and then the 15 chicks arriving in 2 weeks will begin the cycle of life here again.

Big hugs!!! I'm just catching up after a couple of busy weeks. This is all so sad, but you did everything in your power to save her. I agree, she is running free today, without a thought of what she went through for so long.

New chicks!!! That is good medicine!!!

 

[ChicksnMore]

I guess I don't understand what you are doing with the bags. What is their purpose? Do you mind explaining it to me? I'm sure at some point, long ago, in this thread you did.

@TropicalBabies makes wonderful shopping bags out of woven feedbags. She also made fantastic stands to sell them from and has them scattered around her town. The proceeds all go to the humane society to help fund a feral kitty spay/neuter/vaccination/relocation program that she helps with in multiple ways. Some of us send her feed bags to help. Really cool work she's doing.

Think I got that right...I'm sure someone will correct me if my details aren't 100% accurate

 

[TropicalBabies]

Why not? Faux shua! If I reach in and a hen tries to peck me, I just grab their neck and do whatever I have to, or wear leather gloves. So much fun at your place!

Ya know, funny you mentioned. Last eve I led my egg collection with my basket again. Joy was roosting close by and heard and saw the hen get aggressive with me and the basket. She hopped off her roost and started pecking her, pretty relentlessly, made her submit. I would put money on she was defending me. Was super cool (kinda) as I always give Joy extra protein snacks as she is a super layer. Seems she appreciates it. This eve, when I collected eggs from that nest, the hen moved over and did not attack me. Joy kept a good eye on her and was poised to hop down.
Have you ever seen such a thing? Chickens are awesome!!!!!!!!!

 

[Shetland lover]

No further updates on Mojo. Not sure if I shared this....my last update he's got a buddy named Casper to hang out with. Casper is similar in looks and age to him. Ironwood only adopts out in pairs, so if he gets adopted he'll go with Casper. Casper on the left and Mojo on the right View attachment 3754484

Biscotti is doing wonderful! Definitely a she. What do you think of her eye color? I've never noticed that eye color on any of my chickens before. Gold, brown and black...but never a blue grey. It looks blue in some lights but mostly grey. I'm very curious if others have seen eyes like hers before.View attachment 3754494View attachment 3754495

Love the update on Mojo. It's fantastic he has a friend and that they'll be adopted together. Pigs are highly social and form strong bonds so it's lovely the rescue understands that and sticks by it, even though it may make it harder in the long term to secure a forever home. If the adopter doesn't understand that, pigs aren't the pet for them.

Biscotti looks beautiful!
I have seen chicks with that eye colour. About a week after we got Slyv, I noticed he had pale amethyst/grey eyes. My first thought was "how pretty!", swiftly followed by "oh my god! he's got Marek's!". Cue panic After a quick Google and a call to the BHWT helpline, I was reassured to find out the grey iris indicative of ocular Marek's is highly unlikely to show in a 7 week old chick and that his pretty eye colour was totally normal for some breeds and also for certain genes, including lavender (which he was).
His eyes eventually turned to a fiery orange.
Ferdy, Penelope and Stan all hatched with black button eyes but these also went various shades of blue/grey before eventually turning fiery orange too. It makes me wonder if it's akin to all mammal babies being born with blue eyes before changing to their 'adult' colour? I'm going to have to look at old photos of my babies, see if they had a blue eye phase too. Maybe its only birds that go on to have orange eyes?
Maybe Biscotti's eyes will change again too? Hopefully they'll fix at the colour they are now. That would be awesome!
Don't Ahloa chickens have bright blue eyes? I know Araucana and Ameraucana chickens quite often have blue or green eyes too.

 

[Shetland lover]

Ya know, funny you mentioned. Last eve I led my egg collection with my basket again. Joy was roosting close by and heard and saw the hen get aggressive with me and the basket. She hopped off her roost and started pecking her, pretty relentlessly, made her submit. I would put money on she was defending me. Was super cool (kinda) as I always give Joy extra protein snacks as she is a super layer. Seems she appreciates it. This eve, when I collected eggs from that nest, the hen moved over and did not attack me. Joy kept a good eye on her and was poised to hop down.
Have you ever seen such a thing? Chickens are awesome!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely are the best! I fully believe Joy was protecting you, Ferdy will do the same for me quite readily. Stan can be a bit free with his beak if I reach in the coop first thing. I fully understand he thinks he's protecting the girls that sleep with him but Ferdy clearly thinks this is unacceptable. He runs over and makes Stan submit then comes over to me, jumps on my shoulder and makes a satisfied noise. "Didn't I do well, mom?"

 

[TropicalBabies]

@TropicalBabies makes wonderful shopping bags out of woven feedbags. She also made fantastic stands to sell them from and has them scattered around her town. The proceeds all go to the humane society to help fund a feral kitty spay/neuter/vaccination/relocation program that she helps with in multiple ways. Some of us send her feed bags to help. Really cool work she's doing.

Think I got that right...I'm sure someone will correct me if my details aren't 100% accurate

My response is, lapse of judgment, temporary insanity, in over my head, no good deed goes unpunished, powerless over kitties, I sew used feed bags, have the best chickens friends ever ♡♡♡!! Life is good.

I'm def blowing bubbles today. Tally got treed by the eversovicious Lmno across the street. When I went to collect Tally from his evenings adventure of bug chasing last eve, in the rain, I could hear his weak response as I called to him. He was in a coconut palm -thank goodness a young/low one, or Samoan coconut- and he would not come down, and I could not leave him there, or just hope he would make his way to safety. Lmno is a killer and usually patrolling his yard 24/7. So, at 10:30 at night, in the rain,ioutside the fence of a killer dogs yard, I tried coaxing Tally down, and/or tried to coax him to catwalk across a palm frond. This went on for about 30 minilutes. Gilfriend was franticly pacing and crying in our yard till she slipped through our gate and ran into the neighbors yard. Forest was next to me (of curse ) outside the gate calling to Tally... what a scene. Welp, seemed like the killer dog was locked up so I quietly brought my ladder over and entered the neighbors yard. Ugh, sooo terrible. I was able to quickly get the nap of Tallys neck, secured him, and was in the process of quietly whisking him and the ladder away when the neighbor woke and yelled out the window. I was sooo embarrassed. I apologized of course. I don't know how they did not hear the crying cat choir or me constantly calling to try and coax Tally down and out of their yard for 30 minutes... but my gosh, what a mission.

I called Forest and Girlfriend home, toweled of the babies. Tally stayed right next to me purring for hours. He did not leave the house all day. Poor baby ♡♡♡ So glad the scary dog did not catch him... or me.

Today, cut, cleaned, sewed many more bags. Gunna do it again tomorrow. Then, catch up on my chores.

 

[ChicksnMore]

Love the update on Mojo. It's fantastic he has a friend and that they'll be adopted together. Pigs are highly social and form strong bonds so it's lovely the rescue understands that and sticks by it, even though it may make it harder in the long term to secure a forever home. If the adopter doesn't understand that, pigs aren't the pet for them.

Biscotti looks beautiful!
I have seen chicks with that eye colour. About a week after we got Slyv, I noticed he had pale amethyst/grey eyes. My first thought was "how pretty!", swiftly followed by "oh my god! he's got Marek's!". Cue panic After a quick Google and a call to the BHWT helpline, I was reassured to find out the grey iris indicative of ocular Marek's is highly unlikely to show in a 7 week old chick and that his pretty eye colour was totally normal for some breeds and also for certain genes, including lavender (which he was).
His eyes eventually turned to a fiery orange.
Ferdy, Penelope and Stan all hatched with black button eyes but these also went various shades of blue/grey before eventually turning fiery orange too. It makes me wonder if it's akin to all mammal babies being born with blue eyes before changing to their 'adult' colour? I'm going to have to look at old photos of my babies, see if they had a blue eye phase too. Maybe its only birds that go on to have orange eyes?
Maybe Biscotti's eyes will change again too? Hopefully they'll fix at the colour they are now. That would be awesome!
Don't Ahloa chickens have bright blue eyes? I know Araucana and Ameraucana chickens quite often have blue or green eyes too.

The alohas I had all had normal eye color through out but I did read a post of someone saying their alohas had blue eyes. It's such a beautiful color, I wish it was permanent I've been enjoying reading about pearl eyes and wondering if blue eyed chicks bred together could lead to anything in adult eyes...I'm sure someone somewhere has tried it...if I keep poking around the Internet I might get lucky and find out how it went. If not I'll have to sternly remind myself why I'm not the person to explore blue eyed baby breeding .

 

[ChicksnMore]

My response is, lapse of judgment, temporary insanity, in over my head, no good deed goes unpunished, powerless over kitties, I sew used feed bags, have the best chickens friends ever ♡♡♡!! Life is good.

I'm def blowing bubbles today. Tally got treed by the eversovicious Lmno across the street. When I went to collect Tally from his evenings adventure of bug chasing last eve, in the rain, I could hear his weak response as I called to him. He was in a coconut palm -thank goodness a young/low one, or Samoan coconut- and he would not come down, and I could not leave him there, or just hope he would make his way to safety. Lmno is a killer and usually patrolling his yard 24/7. So, at 10:30 at night, in the rain,ioutside the fence of a killer dogs yard, I tried coaxing Tally down, and/or tried to coax him to catwalk across a palm frond. This went on for about 30 minilutes. Gilfriend was franticly pacing and crying in our yard till she slipped through our gate and ran into the neighbors yard. Forest was next to me (of curse ) outside the gate calling to Tally... what a scene. Welp, seemed like the killer dog was locked up so I quietly brought my ladder over and entered the neighbors yard. Ugh, sooo terrible. I was able to quickly get the nap of Tallys neck, secured him, and was in the process of quietly whisking him and the ladder away when the neighbor woke and yelled out the window. I was sooo embarrassed. I apologized of course. I don't know how they did not hear the crying cat choir or me constantly calling to try and coax Tally down and out of their yard for 30 minutes... but my gosh, what a mission.

I called Forest and Girlfriend home, toweled of the babies. Tally stayed right next to me purring for hours. He did not leave the house all day. Poor baby ♡♡♡ So glad the scary dog did not catch him... or me.

Today, cut, cleaned, sewed many more bags. Gunna do it again tomorrow. Then, catch up on my chores.View attachment 3754980View attachment 3754981View attachment 3754982

Wow that must have been stressful! I'm so glad Tally made it home safely. I really hope he learned to avoid yards with strange dogs in them! What good friends Tally has... between you, Forest and Girlfriend he must have felt reassured and comforted after his ordeal .

Those are such good looking bags! I need to box up a bunch I have sitting here for you. With one thing and another I've been very slow about it !

 

[Shetland lover]

My response is, lapse of judgment, temporary insanity, in over my head, no good deed goes unpunished, powerless over kitties, I sew used feed bags, have the best chickens friends ever ♡♡♡!! Life is good.

I'm def blowing bubbles today. Tally got treed by the eversovicious Lmno across the street. When I went to collect Tally from his evenings adventure of bug chasing last eve, in the rain, I could hear his weak response as I called to him. He was in a coconut palm -thank goodness a young/low one, or Samoan coconut- and he would not come down, and I could not leave him there, or just hope he would make his way to safety. Lmno is a killer and usually patrolling his yard 24/7. So, at 10:30 at night, in the rain,ioutside the fence of a killer dogs yard, I tried coaxing Tally down, and/or tried to coax him to catwalk across a palm frond. This went on for about 30 minilutes. Gilfriend was franticly pacing and crying in our yard till she slipped through our gate and ran into the neighbors yard. Forest was next to me (of curse ) outside the gate calling to Tally... what a scene. Welp, seemed like the killer dog was locked up so I quietly brought my ladder over and entered the neighbors yard. Ugh, sooo terrible. I was able to quickly get the nap of Tallys neck, secured him, and was in the process of quietly whisking him and the ladder away when the neighbor woke and yelled out the window. I was sooo embarrassed. I apologized of course. I don't know how they did not hear the crying cat choir or me constantly calling to try and coax Tally down and out of their yard for 30 minutes... but my gosh, what a mission.

I called Forest and Girlfriend home, toweled of the babies. Tally stayed right next to me purring for hours. He did not leave the house all day. Poor baby ♡♡♡ So glad the scary dog did not catch him... or me.

Today, cut, cleaned, sewed many more bags. Gunna do it again tomorrow. Then, catch up on my chores.View attachment 3754980View attachment 3754981View attachment 3754982

Oh my! What an adventure you and the kitties had! Thank god you all survived!
Let's see if Tally's learnt his lesson?
My dear, departed George used to taunt the killer collie two neighbours up. He'd stroll nonchalantly along the top of the fence, driving the dog insane. Until the day he slipped... I can only imagine what happened next as I was at work but he managed to drag himself home, bitten to all hell and with a broken and dislocated hind leg. Fortunately, mom was at mine and was able to get him straight to our vet, who was almost certain he'd lose the leg. Vet Greg managed to save it though. I knew George would be fine just 3 weeks later, when he stole a coconut bar in the time it took me to answer the house phone
Your new bags look great! Love them all - the horse feed one especially