Did I mention the sick chicken?
Poor Maggie. The chikkens got a scare on Tuesday while we were out. Presumably a fox. They were safely locked in, but feathers everywhere. Everything that could be kicked over was kicked over and there was flapping and also beGAKKing.
The little girls, in their separate enclosure, both had bloody noses from flying into the walls in a panic. Unfortunately, Maggie has also mysteriously lost the use of her back legs.
Her legs don’t seem dislocated. She can move them a little. Her toes are warm. Her wings work okay. She’s alert and her appetite is good.
I have consulted the International Sisterhood of Chicken Ladies and it could be anything from a deadly disease to something she’ll shake off and get over in a few days. As long as she keeps eating, I’ll keep feeding her and hope for the best. It’s a little like having a Furby.
Please, nobody take my nice little chicken in the Dead Pool!!! Round 52. Tomorrow. Six sharp, Weasel Blog Time. Be here.
July 25, 2013 — 9:26 pm
Comments: 28
Ridiculously photogenic pullet
Coco, this afternoon. She’s lost all her baby fluff and is starting to look like a proper little chicken. Isn’t she a beauty?
This one’s Uncle B’s. He’s always wanted a little black hen. He has something stuck in the back of his brain about a little black hen in folklore.
So I twiddled around the net for a while looking for little black hens. Turns out there are a lot of them in poems and images. My favorite was a song called Li’l Black Hen by a New Orleans bluesman. And the bluesman’s name was….wait for it…Coco Robicheaux.
He was singing a song about his grandmother’s – his Granmere Philomene’s – favorite chicken, La Petite Poule Noire. Her Little Black Hen. He says his grandma loved that hen, carried it around like a cat, because the tiny bird took on all the hoodoo, all the bad stuff that was floating around, absorbed it, reflected it, and protected the family. The chicken was the family’s talisman and guardian, and while it lived they felt safe.
Yeah. Huh. Uncle B just pulled the name Coco out of thin air and attached it to the chicken. As Monsieur Robicheaux was a medicine man and died in 2011, I am going to assume our bird is him reincarnated. Because, really, that’s the only explanation that makes any sense.
You know, I bet we have 20% less hoodoo already! Thanks, Coco!
Good weekend, folks.
July 12, 2013 — 11:10 pm
Comments: 37
Let’s see if I can fob them off with a chicken picture
This girl has taken to laying her eggs in a lavender bush. It’s funny, because technically she is a color called lavender. Also, because she is completely invisible when she’s under there, so it looks as though the bush is shivering and going bok-bok-bok.
Eh, sorry about the lameness of posts lately. There’s a lot going on IRL, and current events still suck all kinds of ass.
Before the week is out, I’ll see if I can’t get a good picture of the babies. They’re starting to look like proper little chickens now. Which is what they are.
July 10, 2013 — 11:21 pm
Comments: 21
Sure, I’ll stick a fork in that socket
Awww, look at the adorable baby chickens! Now let’s talk about Paula Deen. I thought I’d share my specialist knowledge of the use of the n-word in the 1960s South. Because that would be a real dumb thing to do, and I’m kind of stupid.
When I was a kid, you would never, ever, EVER use That Word to a black person’s face. Just not something a respectable person would do. Talking to a white person, you might use The Word, but it would be regarded as pretty strong language. One never used The Word lightly in describing an actual person.
But as a general descriptor, The Word was ubiquitous. It was attached to black neighborhoods, soul food, loud colors and dogs of indeterminate breed. It still hung around in songs and rhymes. There was a hill in the town I grew up that had been called That Word Hill (by persons of all colors) for so long, it’s probably on the maps like that. I was in my teens before I heard a brazil nut called a brazil nut.
So Paula Deen, who is ten years and more older than I am, may have thought it was pointless to deny she had ever used The Word, without realizing how far the earth had shifted since she learned the rules. So, a pity post. I dread the day I look down at the earth under my feet and don’t recognize the terrain.
Now, I feel pretty silly having written this whole post without ever using the word in question. My mother taught me not to invest more power in the plain syllables of particular words than in the ideas they represent. But, hey, when the world has gone a little crazy on a topic, best don’t poke it with a stick.
The chickens? They play outside in the sunshine all day, and at night I bring them in to sleep in a cat carrier on my desk (and occasionally flutter around, strut about the desktop and perch on my shoulder). They’re so little, and it’s been so cold. Today, I thought it was warm enough and they were old enough to sleep in their box in an enclosure for the first time, so they could run around at first light.
Then, as it got darker, a sad, frightened peeping came from the run. So, ummm…one more night won’t hurt anything.
July 1, 2013 — 10:38 pm
Comments: 41
Lookit me! I’m a tree!
This is how I know it’s Chicken Bedtime: when they fly up and settle on my shoulder. It’s not because they love me, it’s because they are roosting birds and I’m the next best thing to a tree.
And no, thanks for asking, they don’t have little chickeny accidents very often. Let them hop down onto my keyboard and they let fly the chicken plop, but they haven’t decorated my shirt yet. They’re ladies.
I was going to go with Rachel Jeantel and her apologists tonight, but then I thought, “it’s the weekend. I don’t feel like having a conversation about race. Chikkens!!!”
And for the record, I’m pretty sure Nelson Mandela has snuffed it and they’re keeping his chest going up and down until Obama is ready to enter stage left, but I won’t call the Dead Pool until the official announcement. It is The Law. It’s okay; gulliblepratt’s dick is surely safe for a few more days.
Have a good weekend!
June 28, 2013 — 10:56 pm
Comments: 25
My chicken has fleas
I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but Mapp has gone broody again this year. Like every year. Right on schedule. Laying season comes, she squeezes out half a dozen, and then locks herself in her room, screams at everybody and won’t come out for three months.
A couple of times a day, I take her out and put her in the grass and make her eat something. I had a neighbor over this afternoon to gawp at the babies. When I pulled Mapp off the nest, neighbor peered into the nest box and said, “it’s crawling with fleas!” And it was.
Chicken fleas. Who knew?
Time for some diatomaceous earth.
Diatoms, for those who have long ago forgotten middle school life sciences class, are microscopic, aquatic algae with beautiful silicate exoskeletons, like tiny crystal paperweights. (Paperweights! Not very poetic, but I’m going with it).
In some places in the world, old busted dead diatom skeletons have settled together to form a soft sedimentary rock that crumbles into a fine floury powder. This is diatomaceous earth, and it has a number of interesting uses.
One of which is insect control. You can sprinkle it around the chicken house, the perch, the run, even the grass and it will kill tiny bugs. It’s perfectly safe for the birds — in fact, it’s recommended to put up to 10% food grade DE into their feeds for intestinal parasite control — but it’s hell on insects. I’ve heard different descriptions of how it works. Some say it abrades the outside of the bug, causing it to dehydrate. Other say they swallow it and it cuts up their little innards.
Which is why I haven’t used any before. It’s one thing to poison a flea, it’s another to feed your local bugs broken glass and razorblades.
June 20, 2013 — 11:08 pm
Comments: 28
Herro!
First day allowed out in the grass. +1. Loved it lots. Would recommend to other chickens.
Carefully supervised, of course. They got lunged at a few times, pecked once or twice. Mostly ignored.
Yes, Vita got her licks in, I’m happy to say. It was great to see her stick up for her position at last. Nobody was hurt, just lots of squeaking and flapping. And peeping and burbling and scratching and pecking. A good time was had by all. There will be video here, as soon as it’s done uploading. Which will be, like, another hour even though it’s just a minute long, because our upload speed sucks.
Yes, fuck it, I went with chickens again. Good weekend, folks!
June 14, 2013 — 9:56 pm
Comments: 31
Chicken drama
That bird on the other side of the mesh is Vita, the most beautiful chicken in the whole parish. She is also, no doubt about it, the very bottom of the pecking order. All the other chickens (including the tiny black one in the corner) pecked and belly-bumped and fought their quarter to claim their spot in the poultry hierarchy. It’s a somewhat fluid thing, the pecking order — except for Lucia (top hen) and Vita (bottom hen).
Vita never tried. She never fought. She gave up from day one. I looked out the window one day to see her lying motionless, beak-down in the grass, the top two chickens taking turns giving her a good hard peck. I though she’d died and they were trying to revive her, but no…she was just lying there letting them demonstrate her position on the social scale.
Sometimes, she goes off by herself for a little wallow in the sunshine, solo. Although these days, her role is so firmly established, nobody much bothers to give her a hard time any more. She’s kind of Invisible Vita, bottom chicken. She breaks my heart, that chicken.
Until the new babies. They’re in their own run in the daytime now, so the other chickens can see them and get used to them, but not get at them. Oh, Vita is very interested in the babies. Yes indeed. She’ll stare at the chicks for a few minutes, then bang give the mesh a peck and make them jump. I think Vita doesn’t want to be bottom hen any more. But the piebald, Maggie, and the little black bird, Coco, are feisty little so-and-sos and won’t give up without a fight.
It’s going to be an interesting Summer.
June 13, 2013 — 11:14 pm
Comments: 17
Important Chicken Update
D’AWWWWWWW.
Brought home the new chooks this afternoon. The little black one is about five weeks, the little two-tone is about seven weeks. We can’t be more precise. Because our chicken lady is a bing-bong, is why. They’re getting along fine, though, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
No names yet. We’re thinking of calling the piebald one Magpie, Maggie for short. The little black one we’re trying very hard not to call Shaniqua or Towanda. Because people ask, and then we have to tell them.
And now begins the long, slow process of integrating them into the flock.
In related news, I bought a new high-powered squirt gun today.
June 3, 2013 — 8:29 pm
Comments: 27
‘STAAAAAACHE!
Yes! That is my hand holding a magnificent Tiny Mustache Owl! (That’s not really what it’s called. They told me, I forgot). His name is Mister Cornelius.
His main diet in the wild is insects, which is what the ‘stache is for — he just stands there majestically and food flies into it.
While I was holding him, his ear tufts suddenly went up like devil horns, his eyes went all spooky and evil, his whole face changed shape and I’m thinking, yipes, I’m for it! But he’d only spotted a dog walking by. Mister Cornelius, he doesn’t like dogs.
You know what this means, right? IT’S SUMMER FÊTE SEASON! The weather was awesome this weekend, and we went to a country fair in the Western end of Sussex and a steam rally in Kent.
And you know what that means, right? You’re gonna be staring at a LOT of agricultural equipment this week. w00t!!!1!!
May 27, 2013 — 10:35 pm
Comments: 26