Some chicken is screaming bloody murder. I race out there expecting to find a bird with missing body parts or some such disaster.
Not a feather bent.
Just sitting on her perch screaming.
Do chickens have nightmares too?
Two of my chickens were already crossing their legs when I came to feed at 6am.
They so urgently needed to get to the nest boxes and lay an egg that they did not even want to eat. So I had a fresh egg for breakfast.
Saving me from having to eat one of those old ones from yesterday.
Sometimes you just got to admit defeat. Counted the chickens on the roost last night. All accounted for. Did not count them on dismount this morning. Little did I know that one had performed a backward salto mortale behind the nest boxes.
So this evening I’m a chicken short. After combing a quarter acre of bush I had that sudden urge to look behind the nest boxes.
Too late.
It’s just as well.
I don’t want to catch stupid from eating her eggs.
A couple of weeks ago I got two new very nice roosters.
However, my old rooster is still going out of his way to make their lives miserable.
So in the general spirit of Peace on Earth he is now Christmas dinner at the neighbors’ house.
I need to get my eggs in. But my new male pigeon is having a girlfriend over. And they are trying out nest boxes. I don’t want to intrude! Need to sneak up carefully and maybe leave the eggs in the boxes near them for tomorrow or after dark.
Little Vine Snake sitting perfectly still in the bushes before me, figuring if she does not move, I don’t see her.
That strategy might have worked, little snake, if you had not just zipped between my feet to get to where you are.
Was wondering why all the pigeons are lined up on the roof staring over into the coop. There was a 6 foot black tailed Cribo eating my baby pigeons. And no, I did not kill it. But I also did not let her finish her meal.
I don’t want her to have fond memories of that place.
My chickens were making a blooming racket, and I went out there promising to wring necks unless there’s a 6′ Boa in the nest box.
Well, it was a 6′ Cribo.
So no necks were wrung.
I’m going to have one surprised pigeon when he discovers that the egg he’s so diligently sitting on was slipped in by a chicken.
Told my chickens I have Christmas orders to fill and some lame excuse about weather and such was not going to fly.
They did it!
All pre-orders are ready to go.
Hate it when someone shows up right at feeding time. By the time I did my head count it was dark. And I came up 2 hens short in the “old” coop. But I found them in with the younger ones. I hate to do butt count in there. You do it from below. And you never know what might drop your way.
Chickens pick the worst time to try new things.
I have one that decided to nest up under the roof. When does the first chick hatch? Today, when it rains in biblical quantities. I now have her in a cage on the ground with her load of eggs and little grey chick.
Here is one of life’s little lessons: Our strength is in numbers!
My not so benign ruler of the roost is no more. The two lower echelon roosters decided to put their differences aside and team up against numero uno. In the end I sent El Jefe off to tamale heaven rather than see him hacked to death.
I have agonized over whom to cull of my remaining roosters. Went back and forth between the two black ones. Finally made a decision.
Then I get around to turning my calendar to October and who is pictured but the one I just destined for Tamale Heaven.
Now I’m all conflicted again.
Well, buddy… Looks only get you so far.
As you discovered today.
You could have had the good life at my place but you just had to be that ultra-aggressive ba$#%^d rooster.
One round of tamales for the neighbors, on me!
You know a snake comes by way too often when the chickens don’t even tell me anymore.
They are all standing around, all nonchalant while the big a$$ Crebo is heading for the eggs.
I whacked her on the tail, and grabbed the eggs before she could.
So there!
I found a Cane Toad in one of the drinking tubs in my chicken yard. Next to it was sitting a rather ill looking young chicken. Half hour later it was dead. My conclusion is that Cane Toads are as toxic to chickens as they are to dogs.
Bye bye toady….
I go get eggs and am met by an ocean of pitch- black chicken s@#t. After a moment of panic, it comes to me – the rain has put out the burn pile before it all turned to ashes, and these guys have been eating charcoal.
I hate to say this but I just put a little snake through the heavy duty wash cycle. Must have slept in the machine.
For those of you wondering- it did not make it.
From the looks of my newest chicks, the father is not Charley, the big man around the yard. Looks like Mr. Second Fiddle, Pretty Boy Floyd is the dad.
Pigeon was watching me eat lunch with rapt attention.
I was having spaghetti.
Bird probably has never seen anybody eat a big pile of worms like that all in one sitting.
Let’s just say that rooster is not going to wake us up in the middle of the night with his crowing for a few days – quite possibly never again.
As I was walking into the chicken yard, he waltzed out the gate for a Meet & Greet with my 8 dogs on the other side.
After some speed chases Emma had him quite firmly by the rear.
But if you hold a dog’s nose shut, they have to let go eventually.
The rooster was last seen streaking off into the bush.
The day started kind of sh%##y.
I was marking a hen so she would not end up in the pot. Instead of being grateful that I am saving her fat a$$ – she s@#t all over my dress.
Not the way to start a day but ended up alright. For both of us.
Fresh chicken livers for dinner!
And I mean fresh!
They were still livering just a few hours ago.
Chicken Soup sort of a day.
Poppy, who has been renamed Mona, got some because she has lost 4 puppies in the last 12 hours.
My good neighbor got some because he has a dreadful cold.
I got some because I was hankering for it and had a fat chicken who went nuts and tried to peck my ankles.