Sad stories
My first two chickens. The one on the right died at three and the one on the left lived to be eight and was never the same. Never made another friend, fed alone. Although, to be fair, she was always a little crazy.
Across the threshold this afternoon came this article from Backyard Chickens – “Do Poultry Mourn Over The Loss Of A Flock Mate?” It’s full of sad stories.
On second thought, don’t read it. It’s sad.
p.s. chickens are another thing that doesn’t work in black and white. You really need to see that red comb to figure out what the heck you’re looking at.
March 13, 2025 — 8:06 pm
Comments: 4
74-year-old mom of 50 expecting again…
They recorded her laying an egg in Hawaii in 1956. It takes five years for an albatross to reach sexual maturity, so she was at least that old. That makes her the oldest known wild bird today. Her name is Wisdom. Which isn’t really apt because her name was Wisdom when she was a five-year-old.
She’s laid 50 to 60 eggs since then, and maybe 30 of them have lived to fledge. That’s a lotta albatross.
They mate for life, so when her hubby stopped turning up some years ago, they assumed she was done. Nope. She recently began flirting with the boys and apparently snagged herself one.
Wisdom, you minx.
I’d promise to follow up, but the reporting account is on Instagram. I don’t do Instagram.
December 10, 2024 — 6:23 pm
Comments: 4
Oh! Oh! I know this one!
You can read the article if you want (graphic is theirs), but the answer is yes. The ‘official’ answer used to be no, but one of my chickens farted once so I knew better.
Then I got wondering whether that was an AI generated image. See how the thigh is in front but the foot lands behind the foot on the other leg? That’s a tell. I have now spent a stupid amount of time trying to get an illustration similar to that out of free AI art generators.
I can tell you “chicken farting” absolutely won’t do it. It resolutely gave me steaming chicken dinners. “Living chicken with feathers farting” was the first prompt that gave me a non-cooked chickens, but no farting. “Living chicken with feathers and smoke coming out of its bottom” got closer, but the smoke came out of everything BUT its bottom. Farting must be on the no-no list.
Nothing blew up today. I was so bummed about this – I’ll be honest with you, if I knew the password to my blog, I’d’ve posted a bored one-liner from my phone rather than bother to boot my computer. Unfortunately, I got paranoid one day and set my password to one of those crypto-approved things like ?~3lkjh4,+_qqola
September 19, 2024 — 7:02 pm
Comments: 11
What a weird day
Joe Biden has been on deathwatch all day. Moments ago, an apparently fresh video of him surfaced, so he ain’t already dead after all. He was pretty feeble though.
I believe in Uncle Al’s theory – Joe is so ding-dang mad that they de-nominated him without permission that he can’t be trusted in front of a microphone until he simmers down.
Then Jimmy Carter was dead. Then Jimmy Carter was not dead. I admit, I was taken in by the fake death notice. Ain’t nobody reading all of that (and nobody did).
Real talk, though – he’s 99 and some days he doesn’t wake up all day.
More important than all that, Albert the cockerel isn’t doing well. He spent the day standing in the corner of his cage with his head down. He is not a young chicken, and the last of my Polands, which (when they weren’t disappeared by something in the hedge) had a tendency to wilt and die suddenly.
By this evening, he’d rallied enough to get up on the perch for the night. I’ll keep you posted.
Finally, Gromulin won the Dead Pool with Lou Dobbs. So there’s that. You know what that means.
July 23, 2024 — 7:10 pm
Comments: 8
A little something I stole from the cat this morning
He was in pretty rough shape when I put him in the box. I gave him some sugarwater, suet and a piece of apple and covered the box.
I checked up on him after an hour, and naturally he fluttered out into the room. There are a thousand hidey-holes in this room, so I had to give up looking after a while. Fortunately, I did catch him before the cat did and got him back in the box.
My rationale for holding him was that a fully recovered little bird would be flying all over the room, not going to ground. I kept him for another couple of hours and he began to thrash. I thought he was going to hurt himself banging around the box, so I let him loose in the garden.
He flew off, but down rather than up and skittered off into the hedge. I doubt he’ll make it, poor thing.
July 10, 2024 — 6:26 pm
Comments: 6
Look at that silly little tail
I, too, had a chick called Albert and this morning he tried to kill me again. Look at this goofy-looking little fuzzball and picture it.
He’s still goofy-looking but he grew into a giant, ridiculous, rage-filled monster. Only to me, though. He’s never attacked anyone else. Because I raised him, nature is telling him I’m the final boss and if he defeats me he will be crowned King Chicken. They say there’s nothing more dangerous than a hand-reared bull, for the same reason.
I’ve posted about his spurs before. You may laugh at the idea of a chicken-related injury, but he’s heavy enough and they’re sharp enough to do real damage. He caught me in the soft part of the knee once and crippled me for days.
Yes, I can easily fend him off if I see it coming, but he goes days and days without incident and then wakes up one morning with murder in his heart.
He’s the very last of my polands. I miss those silly bastards and their feathery afros.
June 18, 2024 — 6:52 pm
Comments: 9
Peep!
My new favorite YouTube binge channel is A Chick Called Albert. He’s a Dutch hippie with an animal rescue – ho hum – but his claim to fame is (and this is unheard of) he will take rescue eggs and try to incubate them.
When gamekeepers are instructed to clear out the nests of ground-nesting birds, or poultry keepers or aviaries find abandoned mystery eggs, he’ll take them in and give them a shot. I’d hate to think what his failure rate is, but he does seem to know what he’s doing and his successes are awesome.
Several times, to my horror, he’s helped a chick along at hatching time. Poultry keepers are told never, ever to do this. The very first sign of life in an incubating egg is a robust vascular system – gnarly veins – growing along the inside of the shell (on candling, it’s honestly spooky as hell). These veins are not totally inactive at the time of hatching, and hurrying things along can kill the chick. But, again, he seems to know what he’s doing.
The little peeper in the thumbnail turned out to be a zebra finch. Watching him giving it a first feeding with a pipette and a magnifying glass was something else.
I absolutely adored hatching eggs, which is how I ended up with three roosters and one hen. Never again, I’m afraid. I’ll have to hatch vicariously through my friend Alwyn here. His posts have slowed way down, but his back-catalogue should keep me busy a while.
p.s. If you think it’s a little creepy that the first thing he does is kiss the newly hatched bird, he’s not. He’s warming it up with his breath because he’s taken it from the nice warm incubator into the cold room to examine it.
June 17, 2024 — 7:25 pm
Comments: 7
Stop me if you’ve heard this one
I feel like I’ve posted about this before, but this is the first time I’ve seen the famous hen up close. This is my friend’s hen who has turned into a rooster. Yes, it’s a thing. Sort of.
As I understand it, chickens come into this world with two gonads: the one on the right is active and the one on the left is a they/them. The active gland determines the sex of the bird.
But if a cyst or an injury or just plain old age damages the active gonad, the enby one wakes up and goodness knows what it makes of things. The hen usually stops laying eggs and becomes sterile, and takes on the secondary sex characteristics of a cockerel.
I’ve never heard of this happening to a rooster, come to think of it.
True enough, her comb is bigger than the others, but she didn’t really develop the male pattern feathers (which can happen). Most tellingly, though, she wakes up in the morning, belts out a COCKA-DOODLE-DOO and then, oddly, lays an egg.
She’s an old hen (which is probably her issue) and an egg eater (the unforgiveable chicken sin). Their veterinarian keeps urging them to wring her neck, but they can’t bear it.
May 29, 2024 — 7:45 pm
Comments: 6
I can hear the wah wah pedal
I think this is the chicken equivalent of sexy times in the hot tub.
One of these days, Uncle B will remember he shares his Google photos with me. I am thief.
Oh, ew. He’s just sent me a picture of a dragon chicken. Obviously a painful mutation that some sadistic bastard decided to breed.
Ah, yes. Vietnamese mandarins.
May 15, 2024 — 7:34 pm
Comments: 9
Look, a duck!
I’ve been in a Zoom meeting all evening, so here’s a picture of somebody else’s duck that I stole from Uncle B’s Google Photo.
She gets a fresh wading pool every day and every day she jumps into it and immediately shits (pictured).
This is the same friend who had a pet turkey that was amazingly sweet and friendly. Sadly, Gloria the Turkey died. She has two other turkeys now but they’re just turkeys.
My back hurts. Stupid Zoom.
February 6, 2024 — 7:59 pm
Comments: 3