We picked up a new cemani hen. Local guy sold her to us because she doesn’t lay many eggs and his flock were massive bullies to her. Basically, he got nothing from keeping her and she was unhappy with him, so he figured it’d be better to find her a different home.
So far she’s pretty skittish, which is to be expected considering how her old flock acted. We’re going to take her to a vet, and if everything comes up clear then we’ll work on introducing her to everyone else after some quarantine time.
recently discovered my chickens consider me their bodyguard. if they’re screaming about something moving in the weeds, they wait for me to come out, quiet down, and then cluck until I go over to the offending area and look around it to reassure them there’s nothing in there. once I do that, they’re cool as cucumbers
Where did this romanticism about loose Chickens in the Garden start?
Do you know what unsupervised chickens running loose in your garden gets you? A fucked up garden.
They eat everything. Not just the bad bugs. The good bugs. Bees from your hive. New shoots coming up. The tops of your root crops. Unripe tomatoes. Ripe berries. Your rare Aroid that you brought outside for more natural light.
What doesn't get devoured gets either trampled down or dug up. Then they go stabby-stab into your baby pumpkins with their damn face-knives. Dig holes like a sled dog trying to escape the suburbs. Gods help you if you’ve got a hormonal rooster with a clear line of sight to your elderly neighbor.
You’ve heard good fences make good neighbors?
Well here good fences are the only thing keeping the prehistoric horrors at bay. They will test the perimeter. Yes I know they're soft, round, and cute. They still forage like an orc army. Don't be John fucking Hammond.
Sunbathing Chickens are extra amusing, not only does it look like they have been attacked by a serial killer, they absolutely have to try to crowd each other out of the sunniest spots...
Anyway, who wants to see the reference pics I took of my chickens!!!
Hose (left. she has a yellow beak and legs), unnamed (right, she has a black beak and blue legs)
and here's my page of trying to understand how they move their wings so I could have all the positions and how to abstract them down. I did all this at the end of January and drew most of the final chickens today, so idk how much this helped, but it did at least help a bit.
the black silkie is also unnamed. They're all halfway between livestock and pets so...