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Profiles in Poultry

It’s a cinch nothing as fun as Weinergate is going to happen this week, so let’s look at my chickens! Chicken baseball cards, as it were. The new girls are coming up on 14 weeks, and already my little flock has established a clear pecking order.

This is Vita. She’s the very bottom of the hierarchy, poor thing. She’s big, beautiful, sweet, shy, slow, clumsy and everybody picks on her. She doesn’t even try to get her share of treats. I throw a few bits her way, but she’s scared of them.

When chased, she honks like a mistreated squeeze box. At rest, she makes a pi-cuck, pi-cuck sound, like an oil can.

I’m hoping she doesn’t have some kind of congenital weakness in her legs, because she’s always been a lumbering, slow thing. Given a choice, she sits. Last week, she actually went lame and limped around the garden pitifully for a few days. Worried us quite a lot, but she seems back to normal now.

Whew. I wasn’t looking forward to telling a vet I had a gimpy chicken.

When she’s all growed up, it’s clear Vita is going to be the biggest and most beautiful chicken in the whole flock. And still they will pick on her.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 13, 2011, 10:06 pm

Chicks agree: the internet is boring.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: June 13, 2011, 10:30 pm

Well, we DO have Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz running around yelling to everyone that Obama has created the BESTEST economic boom since the roaring ’20s, but since her face reminds me of one of your chickens, the chicken post is just fine with me…. 😉


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 13, 2011, 10:42 pm

And still we will go on sneaking extra bits of food to her because she really is a lovely chicken.

Though the beautiful nicotianas that I planted out (dodging the rain showers last Friday) are looking distinctly the worse for wear since the little darlings developed a four-plant-a-day-habit.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: June 13, 2011, 11:35 pm

Heehee
Well, I was thinking you could make her your house chicken. But I see they’re all already house chickens.

Now if you can just get them to lay directly into the frying pan…


Comment from Mitchell
Time: June 13, 2011, 11:54 pm

I must be hallucinating – there seems to be something that isn’t black, white or gray on this blog! oO


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: June 14, 2011, 12:01 am

It’s those drugs you took Mitchell, and I must have taken them too, because I think I see color too.

And here I thought the chickens were all in greyscale.

Thanks for the chook update, Stoaty! Your chickens always make me smile.


Comment from dawn
Time: June 14, 2011, 12:33 am

When she’s all growed up, it’s clear Vita is going to be the biggest and most beautiful chicken in the whole flock. And still they will pick on her.

Her name should be Sarah P.


Comment from porknbeasn
Time: June 14, 2011, 12:57 am

Awww…she is a lovely bird. I think all your bird kids are lovely.

Do they poop all over everything? My sister has nine cockatiels and she sometimes wakes from a nap with all of them sitting on her. They especially like sitting on her head because it keeps their feet warmer. Yeah, they poop on her.


Comment from EZnSF
Time: June 14, 2011, 12:57 am

+5 @ Dawn.
But then again, I’m watching the (R) debate and pining for my love.


Comment from Oceania
Time: June 14, 2011, 1:05 am

Oh that’s just Fowl .. animals in the house!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Mind, at the moment I have sand in the house … its bit like the beach here, but with glacial silt …

Outside is like, well, trucks have dumped sand for childrens sand pits, but alas, no one has shifted it yet ..


Comment from Scott Jacobs
Time: June 14, 2011, 1:21 am

I had a gimpy chicken

I understand that there’s a pill for that…


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: June 14, 2011, 1:24 am

Flashy – Wot? You never let your Ewe in the house to cuddle on a cold night? LOL…


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: June 14, 2011, 2:15 am

I have pick-chewers, believe me!

A weasel with a chicken on each shoulder? Two on its head nibbling the ears?

Reckon this badger has breakfast-in-bed blackmail fodder to last him for decades!

Bwahahahahah!


Comment from Mark Matis
Time: June 14, 2011, 2:30 am

Hey, SWeas:
You could always get her some fighting spurs and a spike collar. Bet the other blighters would keep their distance if she was outfitted with those. Of course, then she would probably look like Lady GaGa or something…
}:-]


Comment from Sporadic Small Arms Fire
Time: June 14, 2011, 2:44 am

Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 13, 2011, 10:06 pm
Chicks agree: the internet is boring.

Show them the website with the succulent, wriggling earthworms and you will learn something.

Vita is indeed a handsome chick, with an uncanny resemblance to spruce grouse I used to ingest in wholesome quantities when I lived up rural Norff.
The part I miss most is having resin-y breath after eating so many of them, wrapped in aluminum foil or grilled…

Spruce grouse must be Buddhist as their dignity and imperturbable resignation, nay, peace with doom is very inspiring. Either that or they have the self-preservation instinct of cauliflower. I never liked to use a boomstick to pick them, a cheap arrow was all it took. The distances were somewhat longer than comfortable for butterfly net, but pulling a full draw was counterproductive, really.

The true biological mystery is not the SWeasel allowing herself to be mounted by domestic fowl. The cunning beast just does it to camouflage herself better, appear harmless, etc.

The true mystery is What Happened to Mr. Mongoose. He has not been seen in, say, a while.


Comment from JeffS
Time: June 14, 2011, 3:51 am

Well, here’s a lead in to Weinergate:

The new girls are coming up on 14 weeks, and already my little flock has established a clear pecking order.

Your chooks are a bunch of peckers.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: June 14, 2011, 5:36 am

What are you shooting at, and with what, Weasel? Must be f1.4 on a 50mm lens with that depth of focus. Blurgh, I want a DSLR.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 14, 2011, 8:57 am

Nikon D40, which I love to pieces and abuse horribly. The depth of field is pure Photoshop, though — I blur backgrounds heavily.

I started doing that because it reduces file size considerably (my goal is to keep main post images under 50K, and I usually manage it). But I like the way it looks, too.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: June 15, 2011, 3:43 pm

Vita is going to be the biggest and most beautiful chicken in the whole flock. And still they will pick on her.

I spent the last week with my dad… He and my stepmother had a new cat and an older cat. Thor is a 5-year-old ex-male, Jewel is a female just coming out of kittenhood, about half Thor’s weight; both declawed.

We introduced them for the first time. Now Jewel bullies Thor.


Comment from Nina’s nina
Time: June 18, 2011, 4:51 pm

you know how it is though… haters gonna hate

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