#Chickens

[justcatposts]

Cat incubating eggs and raising chicks

(Source)

[makenna-made-this]

My mom: i miss having a dog in the house :(

My overly friendly buff orpington: say less

[beetlecathedral]

Touched grass with my wife

@metalsands

[superfluffychickens]

Cassiopeia is seriously the coolest-looking bird I’ve ever seen!

[conscious-naivete]

[ID: a buff orpington hen sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. end ID.]

her feet can’t reach the pedals

[seabeck]

Pickle looking serious

[jokingluna]

[insufferablefirehazard]

[whirling-ghost]

[ID: a trio of fluffy but concerned looking chickens. end ID]

its so windy my poor poor chickens are being blown around like dry leafs they look like this

[foldingfittedsheets]

In proof that any competency can be hot here’s a story from when my beloved and I first started dating.

See, they were living in a house and had chickens in the backyard. The original chickens were called Salad, Parm, and Caesar which we can all agree is very funny. They were later joined by Tesla, Spirit, and Cecil who didn’t fit the theme but we’ll forgive them.

The owners didn’t clip the wings so the chickens were really just pets that flew the fence sometimes but largely respected their backyard borders. One of the chickens however was notorious for breaking containment. The jury is out on whether it was Tesla or Spirit but we’ll say Tesla as that was my recollection.

So one morning after I had slept over I was dressed in my nice work clothes, button up, vest, etc. ready to leave for work.

I kissed my beloved goodbye and walked to my car when I spotted the chicken in the front yard. I went back and tapped on the door. My beloved opened it back up and I reported, “One of the chickens is out.”

My beloved was getting ready for their day too and their face fell. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Oh? Well that’s fine, come here real quick.”

I scoped out the yard and pointed where I’d like them to stand then stalked toward the chicken. The hen turned her head warily and started to move away from me but then saw my beloved in her escape path. She decided to make a last ditch effort for freedom and bolted, trying to make a break under my legs.

I casually scooped a hand under her, slinging her upside down and holding her by her feet so she was forced to go passive in my grip. Holding birds upside down is like a cheat code to put them in a trance. I’ve learned since this can be risky as the blood rush can harm them in rare cases but holding chickens by their feet was like my entire childhood so apologies to all those past birds but we didn’t have any resulting injuries.

I looked back at my beloved, dressed in my business casual work clothes with a chicken dangling incongruously from my hand and said, “Not too bad, she just goes in the backyard, yeah?”

My beloved nodded. I casually tossed the hen over the fence and she flapped down to land amidst the rest of the flock with a disgruntled cackling sound.

I turned back for one last kiss and found my beloved starry eyed. “That was so hot.”

“It was!?”

“Yeah! You knew exactly what you were doing and you were so smooth! You made that look so easy and it would have taken me forever.”

I puffed up with pride and took my leave, mentally adding chicken wrangling to my list of sexy assets.

[kedreeva]

Watching a post on FB about chickens not eating a food their owners got them, and people telling this person "just don't give them more until they eat it" and "they'll eat it if they're hungry enough" and thinking about how if someone asks about a toxic plant in their yard these same people will swear chickens "know what's good for them" and "they won't eat stuff that's bad for them." And somehow these two things live together in their heads with no conflict. Well which is it? Does your chicken know the feed is bad or can they not tell when things are good or bad for them?

I went through several feeds looking for one my birds actually liked that I also liked. The one they're on now is sound but they also seem to really enjoy it. They don't anymore, but they used to dig/sort through chows, spill a bunch, only eat it when they really had to. That's miserable, I think. What a miserable existence, to be expected to eat food you dislike every day with no control over it, no ability to change it. And it's deemed okay, because you're not willing to die over it so you're just being picky.

If your fowl are avoiding eating a feed, maybe it's not a good feed or maybe they don't like it. Maybe try a different one and see if you can find one that's decent but also tastes good. Try pellets vs crumble vs mash. This person was feeding mash (a powdery food meant to be served wet) dry and it had whole grains in it the birds were picking out. Of course they're going to pick out the whole grains and leave the dry powder behind. I would, too. It's not hard to give them some water with their chow. I do it near daily with crumble and the birds lose it, they love that stuff. It's so easy. It's such a little thing. Sometimes I just wish I could shake someone through a computer screen until their teeth rattle.

[wetlittlebeast]

Let’s hide inside of mama

[a-big-chicken-nerd]

baby dinosaurs first day of freedom

[salubriousbean]

I am. so powerful.

[themotelchicks]

Things on Wiley that I am OBSESSED with. His comb is such an interesting shape (kept trying to get a pic from straight on but he refuses to let me put my phone in his face like that lmao) & his tail feathers are so neat. The short ones with the blue/green inside and the yellow on the edges??? The sickle feathers that start off blue/green (and super iridescent) then turn striped??? 10/10 absolutely love this little terror. He's so pretty.