• Dec. 18, 2006
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Chickens can't swim!
Well, I went out front this morning and was accosted with the pungent odor of skunk. Of course there was no skunk so I quickly came to the conclusion that the offensive odor was coming from the cat that was at my feet demanding my full attention. Since we have chickens, Guineas, and ducks that have the run of the back part of the back yard (about 1/2 an acre of chicken playground), my first thought was "How many of the little ones are dead?" I fed the cat and went to the back and was surprised to find no chicken carcasses and no appearance of any scuffle with the polecat. I looked around and, although I did not do a head count, I was satisfied that none of the little Cochins or other babies had been invited to dinner, I went about feeding them and watering them.
I was happily back in the house doing my daily whatever when out on the lawn there arose such a chatter. I sprang from my post the see what was the matter. I tore open the door and rushed to the back and what to my wondering eyes should apear? Nothing other than a bunch of Grackles antagonizing the Guineas. Now while I was out there I began to wonder, "Why aren't the ducks in their pool swimming link they normally would be?" I walked over to the pool and guess what I see. One of the Cochin roosters practicing the fine art of........floating.
I actually started this post in a while back ago before we had our first freeze and it was nice and warm. Well, we have had our first freeze. Guess what! Chickens can't ice skate either.
Our poor chickens. I'm surprised that they haven't figured out how to fly and flown away. Apparently they are just gluttens for punishment. I guess they really are one of, if not the dumbest animals. But we like having them around anyway.
We built them a new house and they seem to really like it. However, the opossum figured out where it was rather quickly. One evening I am sitting in the den talking to a friend that was visiting for a few days and chaos broke out in the hen house. It was just getting a little dark so we hadn't closed the hen house door yet. Well, I don't know how Mr. Opossum did it, but he got one half of a chick out of the cage. He left the other half. Apparently we scared him and he ran towards the front. He in turn scared one of our roosters. In his haste to get away from Mr. Opossum, the rooster flew over the fence. The wrong fence. The neighbor has a Catahoula (sp?) dog who enjoyed playing with our rooster until I jumped the fence and retreived him. It was too late for the rooster. We had to put him out of his misery. He was such a beautiful rooster too. I still haven't figured out how he got over the fence. I mean sure, if necessary he could have flown over the fence, but this bird was severely lacking somewhere. He couldn't heven walk fast without falling down. Truthfully, I think there was too much inbreeding going on and he was to not quite right product of that. But he really was a pretty bird.
In order to keep the opossum at bay we decided to get a dog. Now this was going to be a tricky process. My children were almost 9 years and almost 1 year, at the time. We also needed another rooster (Why? I don't know. We still had a Brahma and a few Porcelain D'Uccle roosters.) We stopped by the pound one day to see if they had any roosters and they had one that was absolutely gorgeous. He was also not caged and VERY wild. We paid to adopt him and never did catch him. We came home with two rabbits instead. We also came home with guilty feelings because we were really hoping that the Sable Collie that was picked up as a stray would not be claimed by his owners. It was so evident that he came from a family with children because he never made a move when an adult approached him, but sprang to the fence when my son came. He would stick his nose through the cage as far as he could and try to lick my son. We went back a few more times to see it they had caged the rooster. Of course we checked on the Collie too.
I started doing quite a bit of research on Collies and talked to breeders to make sure that we wouldn't have a problem with the chickens and the dog. The Collie seemed like the perfect breed for us. We were really beginning to hope that the family did not claim the dog. Thankfully and unfortunately, the owners did come and claim him on the very last day before we could have adopted him. Thankfully for the dog and unfortunate for us. Although we would have given him a good home and lots of love.
Since the Collie at the pound was claimed we looked elsewhere. One day I got an email from a lady telling me that there were two pure bred Collies at another, fairly local kill shelter. Well, I got on the phone and went straight down there. We are now the owners of two Tri-Colored Collies. One is a smooth coat (long hair) and the other is a rough coat (short hair). They treed the opossum several times and then chased off a coon. Both the opossum and the coon have decided that we are no longer hospitable and left.
The dogs do very well with the chickens. Most of the time. We do have to get onto them some when they chase them. We have only had one incident. No, two. Sister caught one of the babies by the wing and brought it to me. I told her "No!" and that was that. For a while. The newest babies were big enough to go out and so we let them out of their cage and they went into the workshop. We couldn't get them out. Now, we don't know who got two of babies, but when we went in to check their feed and water, two were a bit mangled and dead in the floor. The other two were no where to be found. We did finally find the other two. They had high-tailed it to the hen house. One of them stayed in their cage for two days and wouldn't come out. Poor babies.
Honestly, I have no idea why we even have these chickens. We are not going to eat them. Now you might be thinking that we have them for the eggs. Nope. I cannot stand fresh eggs. They taste really foul to me. Yes, I know that the flavor of the egg depends on the diet of the hen. Well, I wont to know what they feed those Leggerns (Leghorns) in those elevated cages in the big hen houses. If I am to ever eat any of our chicken's eggs, I will have to keep them caged and on a strict diet of whatever the hens that laid the eggs in the store are eating. I just can't do that either though. Could you imagine living like that? Although I have been known to stay home for several days or even a couple of weeks at a stretch, I could go out if I wanted to. I just couldn't keep any animal caged up like that all the time. (I really feel bad because the rabbits haven't been able to get out and roam for a few days.) Besides, with the chickens being able to roam (plus the dogs occasionally still chasing them and the chickens occasionally chasing the cats), should we decide to ever eat them, we sure won't have any "fat, yella chickens" which is more that I can say for most store bought chickens. Heck, I have even bought whole chickens that have big globs of fat shoved down inside the cavity. YUCK!!
Well, I hope this has been a good source of information/entertainment for you. Please remember to tell any daring chickens that you come across that they cannot swim. They also should to test the ice before they fully step on it and make sure that it isn't going to crack under their weight.
Blessings to you all.
