Thank you, everyone, for using the spoilers to cover potentially upsetting content. I really appreciate it.
Chickens and Chooks
- Thread starter Brigid Barry
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I am so glad to hear hopeful words about possibly-Delilah up and waddling! May her journey to healing continue!
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Hope your winged friends are doing okay.
I taught myself to crochet using this video and I can not follow a pattern for the life of me but I got good enough to make soft toys on demand. Magic circles are not as exciting as they sound. They are basically just slip knots. Sorry. It is a right-handed example but it does explain the "magic ring" concept very well.
I have no idea about weasels but you can apparently train feral cats to be caught. Most cat eradication programs work by turning the cats habit of cleaning by licking against it. Cat cannons use a camera to ID a cat and shoot strychnine at it, which the cat will then lick off. (Or you can plants grapes everywhere and if the cat walks over the fallen grapes and then licks its feet it will get kidney damage and die of renal failure, which is apparently how a pet died when I was little.)
Not sure how you will go getting a hat on a rooster. I have seen videos of them wearing pants but for a lot of birds pecking on the head / grooming another's head is how they interact socially so they are usually quite against having anything on their head.
Anyway, I'm going to use the poultry-themed thread again to say we got another button quail yesterday.
(I know they aren't chickens but if you squint they sort of look like chicks.)
My son called our new quail Irony. (As in Coppery, Goldy etc, and pronounced without the r.)
Right now they are in separate housing but next to each other so we shall see how it goes.
I have no idea if it is a boy or a girl - with button quails it is pretty much the male ones say "KO--W" and the female ones lay eggs. Also, despite being super tiny they can be incredibly violent and peck heads until they bleed. I wrote a sea shanty inspired by our old quails that was kind of a button quail "The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell." Though come to think of it, that would probably make more sense with raptors.
I'm hoping they do eventually get along without too much fighting otherwise I will have yet another cage of poop to clean.
I taught myself to crochet using this video and I can not follow a pattern for the life of me but I got good enough to make soft toys on demand. Magic circles are not as exciting as they sound. They are basically just slip knots. Sorry. It is a right-handed example but it does explain the "magic ring" concept very well.
I have no idea about weasels but you can apparently train feral cats to be caught. Most cat eradication programs work by turning the cats habit of cleaning by licking against it. Cat cannons use a camera to ID a cat and shoot strychnine at it, which the cat will then lick off. (Or you can plants grapes everywhere and if the cat walks over the fallen grapes and then licks its feet it will get kidney damage and die of renal failure, which is apparently how a pet died when I was little.)
Not sure how you will go getting a hat on a rooster. I have seen videos of them wearing pants but for a lot of birds pecking on the head / grooming another's head is how they interact socially so they are usually quite against having anything on their head.
Anyway, I'm going to use the poultry-themed thread again to say we got another button quail yesterday.
(I know they aren't chickens but if you squint they sort of look like chicks.)
My son called our new quail Irony. (As in Coppery, Goldy etc, and pronounced without the r.)
Right now they are in separate housing but next to each other so we shall see how it goes.
I have no idea if it is a boy or a girl - with button quails it is pretty much the male ones say "KO--W" and the female ones lay eggs. Also, despite being super tiny they can be incredibly violent and peck heads until they bleed. I wrote a sea shanty inspired by our old quails that was kind of a button quail "The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell." Though come to think of it, that would probably make more sense with raptors.
I'm hoping they do eventually get along without too much fighting otherwise I will have yet another cage of poop to clean.
Yeah...not trying to kill the cats. Up here they're useful rather than a nuisance.
Anyone have a good engineering brain to help me figure out how I can make my coop and run warmer without sacrificing ventilation? I have a heat lamp on in the run (not that any of them are smart enough to go under it rather than freeze. Two of them are melting. In November) and the radiant heater is on in the coop all night. Not sure if it's enough. I can only have so many birds in my house at once and the rooster crowing rattles the windows...
Anyone have a good engineering brain to help me figure out how I can make my coop and run warmer without sacrificing ventilation? I have a heat lamp on in the run (not that any of them are smart enough to go under it rather than freeze. Two of them are melting. In November) and the radiant heater is on in the coop all night. Not sure if it's enough. I can only have so many birds in my house at once and the rooster crowing rattles the windows...
Update: still not 100% sure if it's Delilah but she's much more alert and even showing some curiosity (she's currently in my bath tub). She's not really eating or drinking but she is having opinions, which is a very good sign. A goose without opinions is like a fish with no fins. She left the dog crate on her own, took a lap around the bathroom and got into the tub on her own.
Also having some thoughts on creating a smaller space within the run so the heat lamp can be more effective.
Eta: I don't know if her wings are injured or the muscles controlling them but she keeps wanting to spread her wings and flap (it's a bird stretch) and she only gets them half unfolded before she stops. A little bit of drinking and some half-hearted grooming happening.
Also having some thoughts on creating a smaller space within the run so the heat lamp can be more effective.
Eta: I don't know if her wings are injured or the muscles controlling them but she keeps wanting to spread her wings and flap (it's a bird stretch) and she only gets them half unfolded before she stops. A little bit of drinking and some half-hearted grooming happening.
So now 100% sure that it's Delilah. I came home from work yesterday and there were some shavings on the floor. From five feet away sweeping, she got upset. She's eating and drinking enough that she's pooping, and she's alert enough to be distressed by human activity. I opened doors to give her a pathway outside and she took it. The way the gander reacted, it was his wife and daughter that got taken out.
Delilah's wings won't spread all the way, but she's grooming and not shivering in the cold, so fingers crossed that she recovers.
Meanwhile, I had to put a heat lamp in the coop for Bucky because he was getting frostbite on his comb. I am going to use a pair of old socks to make him a little ski-mask with draw strings. He'll be pissed but maybe it will keep him warm.
Delilah's wings won't spread all the way, but she's grooming and not shivering in the cold, so fingers crossed that she recovers.
Meanwhile, I had to put a heat lamp in the coop for Bucky because he was getting frostbite on his comb. I am going to use a pair of old socks to make him a little ski-mask with draw strings. He'll be pissed but maybe it will keep him warm.
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Bird flu again in Nebraska.
My rooster's stupid head may not accommodate what I was hoping to do but I'm going to try anyway. I finally caved and put a heat lamp in the coop and also got a wireless thermometer so I can keep track of the temp and humidity in the coop from inside. Atm it's 48F/8C inside the coop while it's 32F/0C outside.
Watching the temperature drop and the humidity climb...oy. I really don't want to but I may have to tear both coops down next summer and rebuild.
@Little Anonymous Me I am planning on deliberately breeding my buff orpington hen this year (vs just grabbing a random collection of eggs from the box). She made a beautiful chick last year, unfortunately the weasel wanted it more than I did, unfortunately.
Also, chickens are terrifying. I've heard rumors that they are the closest living relative of the T-rex, and I choose to believe that to justify my irrational fear of their beady little eyes. My kids have no fear, but they creep me out sometimes.
Also, chickens are terrifying. I've heard rumors that they are the closest living relative of the T-rex, and I choose to believe that to justify my irrational fear of their beady little eyes. My kids have no fear, but they creep me out sometimes.
Pretty much every bird is the closest living relative to the T. rex lol. Chickens are probably more like velociraptors, [they're much closer in size to modern chickens than the T. rex]. [And if you stick a plunger on their butt, they walk like one, too!] But people always say "T. rex" because that's the "flashiest" dinosaur everyone knows
All birds are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are reptiles, so birds are reptiles
Also birds's closest living relatives (since the old-school dinos are all dead) are the crocodilians, actually! The whole group is the archosaurs.
Also
All birds are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are reptiles, so birds are reptiles
Also birds's closest living relatives (since the old-school dinos are all dead) are the crocodilians, actually! The whole group is the archosaurs.Also
Let me see how far I can shove my foot into my mouth. I didn't stretch first, I hope I don't tear something.
There's a question of whether or not dinosaurs were reptilian, or all of them were reptilian, because some of them lived in incredibly cold climates where you don't find reptiles because reptiles are mostly cold blooded. I think an argument has been made that they were warm-blooded, like birds, and birds are not reptiles because they're warm-blooded. Another argument was something to do with the pelvis, that looking at the pelvic structure made them avian rather than reptile. And apparently there are multiple ways of classifying things, so I think it's probably a useless endeavor to argue about unless it's legit your job to argue about it.
And one could argue "descended from", but, to be fair, if you go far back enough in the tree of life, we're all descended from bacteria, but that doesn't make us super closely related to strep. lol. According to Neil Degrasse Tyson, we share a common ancestor with mushrooms and that common ancestor came after green leafy things. It's all above my pay grade and doesn't usually affect my day to day life.
I actually do think velociraptor when I look at the chickens. *cringe* And when they all run across the yard it's like the scene in Jurassic Park where they herd is all running across the landscape and they have to hide behind the rock.
I see the dinosaurs when I look at them.
There's a question of whether or not dinosaurs were reptilian, or all of them were reptilian, because some of them lived in incredibly cold climates where you don't find reptiles because reptiles are mostly cold blooded. I think an argument has been made that they were warm-blooded, like birds, and birds are not reptiles because they're warm-blooded. Another argument was something to do with the pelvis, that looking at the pelvic structure made them avian rather than reptile. And apparently there are multiple ways of classifying things, so I think it's probably a useless endeavor to argue about unless it's legit your job to argue about it.
And one could argue "descended from", but, to be fair, if you go far back enough in the tree of life, we're all descended from bacteria, but that doesn't make us super closely related to strep. lol. According to Neil Degrasse Tyson, we share a common ancestor with mushrooms and that common ancestor came after green leafy things. It's all above my pay grade and doesn't usually affect my day to day life.
I actually do think velociraptor when I look at the chickens. *cringe* And when they all run across the yard it's like the scene in Jurassic Park where they herd is all running across the landscape and they have to hide behind the rock.
I see the dinosaurs when I look at them.
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You haven't seen some of my Orpington roosters!
You know who would take them on? A boy quail I once had. He raped everything in sight and then drowned himself in the watertub.
I was not sorry.
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I did a really fun thing with my students a few years ago where they had to guess if the skeleton was modern bird or dinosaurs. It was really hard!
I've always had a fear of chickens. The unpredictable thing where they flap a little and almost but not quite fly makes me want to head for the hills. My first grade teacher got so mad at me on a zoo field trip, because I petted the snake but wouldn't go near the chicken. But something about those lil fluffy butts that are worthy of r/meowsertrousers has made silkie chickens okay in my brain. Someone had one at a farmers market here, and it didn't have that icky feather feel when I petted it. Not sure if my dogs would ever let one live in peace though....
Drakes are monsters (I didn't know how rapey ducks are) and I would leave them out on purpose and was not sorry when they mysteriously vanished.
Thanks for the heads up about the quail, I thought waterfowl were alone in their reproductive habits.
My high school had open hallways. I'm not precisely sure why someone thought this was a good idea in a subtropical, bug-infested state, but hey. Anyway, a cicada held a good chunk of the school hostage one morning because the little jerk was zooming aggressively at everyone who had to go down G hall--which tragically included me. I ran away. The school resource officer thought I was skipping class and was marching me back, where we were both accosted by the not so little screecher.
They had to put out an announcement that some students might be late due to difficulties with the hall.
My high school had open hallways. I'm not precisely sure why someone thought this was a good idea in a subtropical, bug-infested state, but hey. Anyway, a cicada held a good chunk of the school hostage one morning because the little jerk was zooming aggressively at everyone who had to go down G hall--which tragically included me. I ran away. The school resource officer thought I was skipping class and was marching me back, where we were both accosted by the not so little screecher.
They had to put out an announcement that some students might be late due to difficulties with the hall.
</chuckle>
Where's a cicada munching chicken when you need one? It would have been the school hero.
My thought exactly. UNLEASH...THE CHICKENS!Where's a cicada munching chicken when you need one? It would have been the school hero.
This giant chicken went viral online a few years ago
It's a Brahma Giant chicken.
In comparison, the smallest velociraptor-y dinosaur is [the microraptor]. The page has a good diagram showing how tall they are...which is not at all lol. About a foot tall and 2 lbs in weight.
It's a Brahma Giant chicken.
In comparison, the smallest velociraptor-y dinosaur is [the microraptor]. The page has a good diagram showing how tall they are...which is not at all lol. About a foot tall and 2 lbs in weight.