See, updating
Oct. 18th, 2010 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaSo, um, the chickens.
See, there's been this raccoon. It started coming around like one AM, but then earlier and earlier in the day, until finally it got dark one night and when we went to put the chickens away something had already gotten in. From the looks of it, it killed Fluffles but couldn't figure out how to get her back out. Somehow - we're still not sure how - Chubbycheeks got out. We found a huge patch of feathers midway on the lawn and then a trail of feathers leading across the street into the bushes and assumed it had made off it her, but the next day our neighbors called to say she was hanging out in the bushes by their house. She was an absolute mess, with her tail and back feathers gone, but with only a small bite mark. I cleaned her up and a lot of the damaged skin just sort of peeled off with healthy skin underneath. And now the whole area's covered in nailed-down chicken wire, and she gets put inside before it gets dark.
But it meant we were down to one chicken, which isn't good. Chubbycheeks has never been a cuddly chicken but she was desperate to be around us, to the point I sat out there to watch her and she jumped in my lap. Plus winter's coming up and a single chicken can end up freezing.
So, my great-uncle has chickens, and we went down to check them out. He was insistent we take the young healthy good laying ones, but I wanted the beat up ones, both because I figured they'd be less trouble on Cubbycheeks (who is not a dominant bird at all) and because I figured they'd be better off (ten of them in a pen maybe a third the size of our pen). Oh, also the young ones were mostly Leghorns and those things are apparently total assholes. We were actually intending to just borrow them over the winter, but he'd decided to get rid of them so we're keeping them. He wasn't there when we went back and the woman taking care of them agreed with us on taking the pathetic ones, so we got the old buff orpington, who's missing half her feathers and turned out to be so low on the pecking order even Chubbycheeks could successfully bully her, and then a plymouth rock, who did not put up with that bullshit and started attacking Chubbycheeks right back, which was good because it meant also protecting Blondie, who finally relaxed and could do normal chicken stuff. They're both big birds, so they should do well at keeping Chubbycheeks warm, and both extremely docile birds, although they weren't handraised like ours were so they're not used to handling. I'll cuddle them a lot over Thanksgiving.
That may sound ominous to you but that's silly, they're chickens.
See, there's been this raccoon. It started coming around like one AM, but then earlier and earlier in the day, until finally it got dark one night and when we went to put the chickens away something had already gotten in. From the looks of it, it killed Fluffles but couldn't figure out how to get her back out. Somehow - we're still not sure how - Chubbycheeks got out. We found a huge patch of feathers midway on the lawn and then a trail of feathers leading across the street into the bushes and assumed it had made off it her, but the next day our neighbors called to say she was hanging out in the bushes by their house. She was an absolute mess, with her tail and back feathers gone, but with only a small bite mark. I cleaned her up and a lot of the damaged skin just sort of peeled off with healthy skin underneath. And now the whole area's covered in nailed-down chicken wire, and she gets put inside before it gets dark.
But it meant we were down to one chicken, which isn't good. Chubbycheeks has never been a cuddly chicken but she was desperate to be around us, to the point I sat out there to watch her and she jumped in my lap. Plus winter's coming up and a single chicken can end up freezing.
So, my great-uncle has chickens, and we went down to check them out. He was insistent we take the young healthy good laying ones, but I wanted the beat up ones, both because I figured they'd be less trouble on Cubbycheeks (who is not a dominant bird at all) and because I figured they'd be better off (ten of them in a pen maybe a third the size of our pen). Oh, also the young ones were mostly Leghorns and those things are apparently total assholes. We were actually intending to just borrow them over the winter, but he'd decided to get rid of them so we're keeping them. He wasn't there when we went back and the woman taking care of them agreed with us on taking the pathetic ones, so we got the old buff orpington, who's missing half her feathers and turned out to be so low on the pecking order even Chubbycheeks could successfully bully her, and then a plymouth rock, who did not put up with that bullshit and started attacking Chubbycheeks right back, which was good because it meant also protecting Blondie, who finally relaxed and could do normal chicken stuff. They're both big birds, so they should do well at keeping Chubbycheeks warm, and both extremely docile birds, although they weren't handraised like ours were so they're not used to handling. I'll cuddle them a lot over Thanksgiving.
That may sound ominous to you but that's silly, they're chickens.
