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Fluffy Bunnies posted:well, danger is still hanging on. Hellion, the head roo, escaped when I opened the door this morning. He flew wildly up in a tree. Came down a couple hours later into the waiting mouths of the dogs. I occasionally house sit for some friends with a bit of acreage and they have about 20 laying hens and a single rooster. Who's spurs are about an inch and a half long. I kinda just give him an upnod and throw the feed out. The ladies don't bother me except when I steal the eggs when they're broody, but thats just a peck that doesn't really hurt. Sometimes I have some left over cucumbers or zucchini, holy poo poo they devoured the whole thing in a day!!
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Dec 3, 2019 14:36
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Kharnifex posted:That's good, you'll have a swarm in no time it just makes me so happy to know felafel was hatched and raised in a high school agriculture classroom, he's basically been an object of worship his whole life and he knows it
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Dec 3, 2019 16:11
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fauna posted:i'm happy to keep my flock under single digits w...do you have negative quail? nega-quail? anti-matter quail? also please rename yourself Ceremonial Quail.
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Dec 3, 2019 16:23
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:w...do you have negative quail? nega-quail? anti-matter quail? the ceremonial quail flies itself into the blazing altar and is taken to heaven, blessed stupid thing
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Dec 3, 2019 16:29
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i don't know what changed between yesterday and today, but felafel has finally accepted the chicks as birds, not weird fluffy beetles. he no longer tries to eat them and in fact i caught him feeding qimmy, with whom he seems to have bonded
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Dec 4, 2019 10:21
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:also please rename yourself Ceremonial Quail.
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Dec 4, 2019 11:22
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fauna posted:i don't know what changed between yesterday and today, but felafel has finally accepted the chicks as birds, not weird fluffy beetles. he no longer tries to eat them and in fact i caught him feeding qimmy, with whom he seems to have bonded let's be honest: they're a little bit of both tho
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Dec 4, 2019 14:41
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Presenting The Gang: Left to right: Gray Lady, Chester, Courage, Blizzard, Snowy, Buttercup, Tina Not pictured / obscured by log in lower right: Slate
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Dec 5, 2019 21:53
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They're all so beautiful! 
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Dec 5, 2019 22:39
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Mozi posted:Presenting The Gang: the chix are having their first day outside. i put hot chip in the second hutch with them, hoping she wouldn't kill them; the opposite has happened and a friendship seems to be forming    
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Dec 6, 2019 04:22
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fauna posted:the chix are having their first day outside. i put hot chip in the second hutch with them, hoping she wouldn't kill them; the opposite has happened and a friendship seems to be forming So adorable! Mozi posted:Presenting The Gang:
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Dec 6, 2019 10:09
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fauna posted:i love them I wouldn't call that a friendship. I'd call that a plot. A plotting of quails.
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Dec 6, 2019 21:50
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:I wouldn't call that a friendship. I'd call that a plot.   
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Dec 7, 2019 02:12
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     you see what i have to put up with
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Dec 9, 2019 06:29
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Oh my God, they're all laying about like lazy little potatoes. I adore them!
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Dec 9, 2019 08:52
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Their legs look exactly like the long green noodles that grow out of potatoes when you leave them in a warm stuffy apartment for too long too.
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Dec 9, 2019 10:15
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they are completely unreasonable i have to keep a close eye on them when they're out of the hutch, they're only just past two weeks old but they are a menace. the hot chiplets can already fly, quetzacoatl did an incredible ascent today with the clear intention of getting over the fence but luckily she is still small with small wings so she could only rise slowly into the air and i easily caught her at ~1.5 metres they just had their first night outside with hot chip and survived, tonight is slightly colder but i think they'll be fine. they all sleep snuggled together, she doesn't let them get right underneath her but she's very tolerant otherwise. i've caught them standing on her back for extended periods and using her as a springboard to get at moths on the hutch wall. she hasn't adopted them like a broody hen adopts chicks, she doesn't forage for them or actively defend them from predators (the ravens), but she has definitely taken on a non-maternal nurturing role of a kind i've never seen happen with chickens or guineas fauna fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Dec 9, 2019 |
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Dec 9, 2019 11:37
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fauna posted:luckily she is still small with small wings so she could only rise slowly into the air
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Dec 9, 2019 11:39
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Mozi posted:Presenting The Gang: How often you give food to the hens and say, "Tina you fat lard! Eat the food!"
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Dec 10, 2019 00:05
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Today we said goodbye to Piper. She has been with us since the British Hen Welfare Trust's rehoming day on the 30th of December 2011, so that's 2903 days of being a retired garden hen doing whatever she wanted. She had been slowing down over the summer, snoozing more but still finding time to dig, dust bathe, chase bugs and make sure the other hens didn't step out of line. While Queen Pip the Glorious has always been the top hen, Piper was the one that held everything together. She was the constant for nearly eight years. Piper will be mourned by her flock sisters and most especially by Pip who has shared a nest with her for nearly eight years.     
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Dec 11, 2019 22:05
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RIP Piper. If Chicken Heaven exists I hope it also happens to overlap with Hell for Tasty Bugs.
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Dec 11, 2019 22:21
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Goodnight, Sweet Chicken. She had a happy life thanks to loving parents.
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Dec 11, 2019 23:19
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spookygonk posted:Today we said goodbye to Piper.  rest in peck beautiful queen, you were so lucky and you never even knew it
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Dec 12, 2019 06:04
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Enjoy the deep sleep, Piper. Any fool can see you were a top-notch hen.
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Dec 12, 2019 15:47
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Dec 13, 2019 03:49
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Rest in peace Piper. What a fantastic bird. 
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Dec 13, 2019 03:51
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Rip a good chook Also that t shirt is great
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Dec 13, 2019 07:05
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RIP Piper! She had a good run.Kuros posted:How often you give food to the hens and say, "Tina you fat lard! Eat the food!" As often as possible, of course :p My rooster's foot is bothering him today, it was fine yesterday. I'm hoping he just had an awkward landing and it'll be better in a little while 
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Dec 13, 2019 17:28
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Mozi posted:RIP Piper! She had a good run. Wonderful  To everyone here, I don't have the room for chickens as I live in a condo but I love seeing the pics y'all post. Thank you for those.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:02
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Kharnifex posted:Also that t shirt is great From reading this thread, I assume the reason they'll never find your body if you mess with the chickens is that the chickens will literally eat you and leave nothing to bury. 
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Dec 13, 2019 18:18
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My girls have gone on strike. No eggs in over a month. It's cooler, but not super cold, and they kept laying even in the shortest days the past two winters. They're two and a half, so they should at least be giving something, right? Kennedy decided November was a good time to molt, so she has an excuse. Somebody, we don't know who, had a couple of shell-less eggs before the general strike. Are they done? These are our first chooks, so we don't have a lot of experience.
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Dec 13, 2019 19:05
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I'm in the same situation, right down to two of my best layers having molted recently.
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Dec 13, 2019 19:17
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Only one of my six chickens is still laying and yeah it's been at least a month.
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Dec 13, 2019 19:33
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Hmm. Is it the eggpocalypse?
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Dec 13, 2019 23:00
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noooo qimmy donated herself to the wilderness
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Dec 14, 2019 00:19
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she just took off vertically like a little rocket and was gone, over the fence and out of my life i explained to my friend kimmy, who requested a quail named after her, that every time i name a bird after someone they promptly come to grief. i thought creative spelling would break the curse, but it did not! i'm not even surprised, i knew this would happen
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Dec 14, 2019 00:19
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fauna posted:noooo qimmy donated herself to the wilderness Is there no hope of her bumbling back? That’s saddening.
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Dec 14, 2019 03:22
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Captain Log posted:Is there no hope of her bumbling back? That’s saddening. *shabbat sundown, friday the 13th. sometimes all you can say is "welp"
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Dec 14, 2019 04:28
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the rest of the children are under indefinite house arrest, at least until they're older and not as hyperactive. lesson learnt i took them out, but only for five minutes so they could dust-bathe and i spent the whole time hovering over them poised to spring if one of them tried to ascend. no fatalities resulted and the three survivors are safely back in the cage. they are officially in the "don't u fucken touch me" stage of their development. quetzalcoatl is the prettiest, but the wildest  quiche has inherited felafel's perfect plob form  and friday... remains   it is looking like friday's a hen and the two remaining chiplets are both roosters (the late qimmy was also a hen, alas). this is basically the opposite of what i predicted when they were all chicks, and proves i'm nothing but a fool and not worth a hot drat when it comes to poultry. the adults are all doing well. frida q dislikes the chicks, hot chip's love has transformed her, and felafel is regrettably overcome with lust for all his children, roosters and hens alike fauna fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 04:30
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  FELAFEL WANT HEN   here you can see why it's so difficult to protect quail against predators. even though they're on the same trophic level as a mcnugget and they know it, they're cursed with curiosity. if something new is going on outside the cage they want to know about it, and they fit their heads through surprisingly small gaps. "my" goshawk used to just perch on top of the cage, wait for the little necks to come craning out between the bars and nip them neatly off like rosebuds. as with most things to do with quail, it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic (if you live in a major bird of prey area, which i luckily don't at the moment, the solution to this is to meticulously wire the whole cage to remove any gaps. i've also had some success with piling brush on top of the cage, making it harder for large birds to perch on)
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Dec 15, 2019 10:16
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