Happy you are coming to peace with your roosters.I’ve done with her something I try not to do- showing only the "pretty" pictures. She looks like this maybe a quarter of her day. The rest of the time she looks like this : her bad eye closed, and not moving.
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She’s pure grit, that is sure. She has always been the slightly crazy chicken that wasn't as smart as the other. But it’s incredible what she has pulled through. I would have sworn she would be the second to pass after Vanille but she’s still there picking on all the new girls, and chatting to us for as long as we listen to her. My partner puts her on his knees and say "come on Blanche we’ll have a little chat the two of us" and off she goes with her little buk buk buk...it works every time.
Too hot and too windy again. The chickens got worried at some of the strongest gusts of wind, I also really don't like it. It's a good thing they are now all going to roost much later, from 7.45 to 8.30, because the weather becomes bearable again toward 7.
I realised I have talked a lot about Théo and Gaston's behaviour together, but not about how our relationship with Théo has evolved. I said that it had drastically improved when we had him crated for a week because of his leg. I could even catch him and give him food in my hand very easily. It hasn't stayed that way, mostly because I don't hand feed him regularly enough. I can catch him sometimes, but most often not. While he is more aloof, even weary, he has never shown any form of aggression or even angry looks toward me or my partner anymore. He actually likes my partner better than me now, because I bring him back inside every time he goes out of the chicken netting (we don't want him to hurt Piou-piou), I also tell him off when he grabs and pulls to mate unwilling hens, and he totally hates that. But to a certain point, I think he has a relative trust in me now. If he's hiding somewhere and I can't see him, I call him softly, and he always comes if Gaston isn't close by, or he answers also very softly so I know where he is. He knows that if he gets chased out of the coop too many times I'll come with him, so he can jump on his roost without being attacked. And I think he understands that we protect him from Gaston. So it's a sort of truce, partly due to the fact that he understood while crated that our hands are not ennemies, and partly to his new weak position which make us allies, even if he doesn't love it.
As for myself, i’m feeling much lighter for the first time in months. I was really stressed thinking about how to keep them both, make them live together without Théo getting wounded, quarrelling with my partner and wondering if I should have re-homed Gaston. Now I feel like the situation, while not ideal, is safe. If at worse, Théo gets really thrown out of the coop he can roost in the second coop.
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I tried to take pictures of the two black unnamed chicks.
All black, yellow legs :
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Black and white, blue grey legs :
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Lily has become an escape artist. We don't want big chickens in the garden. She escapes about twenty times a day and I bring her back twenty times a day.
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Another pot chick.
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Another laying drama day. And still I found no egg. Not sure if she’s pretending, or hiding them somewhere. Poor Théo!
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Ann. Love her big dark eyes.
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I was 9 when they discovered I needed glasses to see in the distance. When I was 16 it stabilised. And could get lenses hurray !
Sounds great.
I only laugh because I can sympathize RC. I find myself taking pics with my phone so that I can easily enlarge it to read it. Have worn glasses all my life. At least I beat that polio thing when I was young.
Love the greenery. It's dry, dusty and brown here with no relief coming.
Red kites are mainly carrion eaters. They are unlikely to try for a grown chicken.Here too they screwed up. The plain just outside Nice along the river they used to nickname the most fertile valley of Europe...then they built first several commercial zones, then a stadium, and now Ikea, and the new campuses for both private schools and uni. All that on floodable land.
I remember you mentioned the population where you live had exploded when they made a highway exit.
Seems like everything we can do wrong, we do. We want things asap and never think about longer term consequences. A bit like me with my chickens. Well it's not longer term any more, it's happening now.
It has been very rough for Chirk. It's why I was, and still am, amazed he had the spirit to want to heal.
It's difficult to think of a good solution for him. Nature is a bit too rough for my liking in his case, I hope things will work out in time.
Relatively I think Gaston is not as bad with Théo, as Théo used to be with him. He doesn't drive him out of the yard. Most of the time he just chases him out of his sight. And from what I have seen Théo manages to eat and drink well enough, though he has to wait.
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Last night proved me wrong about roosting being a bit agitated but successful. I'm still locking only the run, as it feels much nicer in the coop with the door open. It closes with screws, so while it's pretty quick it's still longer than just shutting a door. I had just finished this before going to roost/bed, when I heard a ruckus of chick's distress cries that did not subside. It was dark enough that I couldn't see inside, so I opened the run again. I saw that one of the leghorns, don't know which, that was roosting next to the chicks, had thrown them off their roost or scared them down, and had taken their place. They couldn't see in the dark and were trying unsuccessfully to climb back on the ladder. I didn't want to wait for them to work it out, so I just picked the leghorn and put her further on the roost next to the other leghorn, and used my phone's light to help the chicks climb back. I really wasn't expecting a problem so late ! They would have made it one way or the other without me I'm sure but it shows their place on the roost isn't totally a certain thing yet. Usually they have more tolerant hens next to them, Piou-piou, Cannelle, or Merle most of the time.
Mysterious jumbo egg. This morning after the first set of laying I found among others, a huge light egg in the nest. I thought it was Nougat as she's the only one who lays big egg, it was much paler than her usual, but since the shell was very solid I didn't worry. However just after lunch we saw Nougat and Gaston looking everywhere for nesting places for an hour. After looking desperate she went back to her usual laying place in the second coop and laid one of her usual big freckled egg, around 90 grams. It was looking completely normal for her, so it seems very unlikely she could have laid the other just a few hours before. By elimination, the only other possibility is that huge egg was laid by Léa, as she was the only chicken that didn't lay today. But it was way bigger than her usual ! Not sure what happened.
From left to right : Léa 's usual egg, the mystery egg I found this morning, and Nougat's egg from this afternoon.
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This morning we had a new visitor, that I hope will not become a recurrent one, a red kite. I'd never seen one before ! He was very insistent and came back twice, didn't look scared of me at all, so I hope he doesn't stay. We have enough with the gallicus hawks, the bald eagles, the sparrow hawks and the goshawks.
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Like they often do the chicks played on the woodshed shelter but then the two cockerels realized they have grown heavier and they were scared to fly down. Pied Beau made a ridiculous exit jumping where he could, while Petit blanc flew down after a long hesitation and crashed.
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Mixed breed dustbathe.
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Cannelle seems to be doing good. She has laid two eggs this last week.
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Théo's continuous clumsy and rude flirting with Merle could begin to pay off.
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Piou-piou has been finding multiple ways to join the flock and Gaston. Here she is coming from underneath. I let them stay a bit together watching. Anyway without locking them up it's impossible to be checking all the time and he still manages to get out and mate her every now and then.
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Sweethearts reunited.
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My Dad was as near sighted as me and at 4 years old the school put him in boxing classes. That is how they figured he couldn’t see because he had no idea where the person hitting him was standing.
