What your pet did to make you smile today!

my3cents

Latatian wrote: »

If this is cockerels- we had brothers, raised together, together all the time, and at a certain age one of them remained calm and the other one started attacking it quite a lot.

They are normally OK if they have been reared together but they have such short memories that they can forget family in a very short time. Even a night sleeping in different runs is enough to start them at each other.

New Home

I'm happy to announce that baby chick number 3 has just hatched. I love them.

Latatian

These two were literally never apart until one of them drove the other one away and led him a dog's life. One run, one henhouse. We had to rehome him. It was that or come back to injuries. They were both sweet and gentle with humans they knew.

I'm not trying to be cantankerous- this is just what happened with ours. I would have liked to have known how bad it could get even with our sweet cockerels, so that I would have had a chance to prepare.

aonb

Hopefully your 3 will be hens rather than cockerals
If all are cockerals - which happened to me once - I would really really recommend you rehome them asap. My 3 were great buddies until they started to mature - you think hens bullying is horrible to watch - cockerals take it to a seriously horrible dimension!

I would have thought the ratio of hen:cockeral was something like 10:1 minimum??

New Home

aonb wrote: »

Hopefully your 3 will be hens rather than cockerals
If all are cockerals - which happened to me once - I would really really recommend you rehome them asap. My 3 were great buddies until they started to mature - you think hens bullying is horrible to watch - cockerals take it to a seriously horrible dimension!

I would have thought the ratio of hen:cockeral was something like 10:1 minimum??

Rehoming them is not an option, they'd end up in the pot, and these are my pets.

I'm not sure about the ratio male to females - maybe it's something to do with the breed (I'm not sure what they are, to be honest, except that they're very small and white) or the space they had available, but the ones my great-aunt had were all paired up, each 'husband' had a 'wife', none of them fought with the others, and they'd all perch on the same branches of the same tree, each couple beside the next, boy-girl, boy-girl, boy-girl, and so on. They were all completely free to roam all over the place, they had coops if they wanted to use them, but other than that they were free.

If there are males, first I'll see how they interact, and then I'll take it from there, there's plenty of room for them anyway, thank God.

Also - chicks update: they've started eating from my hand, their mam showed them how, and they took to it like ducks to water (pun intended... ). Possibly one of the cutest things I've ever witnessed.

New Home

aonb

hope it works out with them either way New Home - they are SOOOOOOO CUTE! How do you do anything with those 3 to drool over! Is mum a bantam?

Your aunts set up with 1 male/1 female pairings sounds amazing - havent every come across that kind of harmony

New Home

I think both parents might be, I just don't know enough about poultry breeds to be certain.

This morning I invited my neighbour and her three year old grandson to see them. He was soooo excited and happy, and oh so gentle with them, he wanted to pet the hen and the rooster too! Then, just before he was due to go home, he lifts index finger, places it along his little nose, he smiles expectantly and whispers to me, 'Will you please give me one? Can I bring one home, just one, only one little one...'

I told him he can come back and visit them any time he likes.

Layinghen

I feel given my name I have every right to go all cluckey over these cute little chicks:D:D:D

New Home

Yes you do, LayingHen, you do.

Ken.

So when do we start the 'great big name New Home's chicks' thread?

my3cents

@ New Home, I assume you have those chicks are in a covered run as in the top covered as well as the sides and don't let the chicks out in the open without someone being there? We learnt that hard way that crows will take a chick that isn't protected.

New Home

my3cents wrote: »

@ New Home, I assume you have those chicks are in a covered run as in the top covered as well as the sides and don't let the chicks out in the open without someone being there? We learnt that hard way that crows will take a chick that isn't protected.

Ahem.... at the moment they are indoors, in a spare room

Thanks for that, my3cents ... I only started letting them and their mam out yesterday afternoon for a few minutes (for paternal visits too even though I kept the rooster in with them at night-time too :rolleyes: ) and I don't lose sight of them even for one second. They were out a few times today too (aonb was right, I'm not getting much done at all!) but I do watch them all the time, both because they are hilarious and adorable to watch, and because I'm afraid the crows, jays, magpies, cats, the odd roaming buzzards, a rat, and even their own dad might cause them harm. A magpie killed a juvenile blackbird before I could stop it, a couple of weeks ago, then dropped it in the middle of the road, and that blackbird was at least three times the size of these little cuties, so I'm on high alert!

They are hilarious, this afternoon the hen started to stretch and preen, and within a few seconds they were copying her. Then one of them pecked at the hind toe of one of its siblings confusing it for a tasty morsel (the sibling wasn't impressed in the least, but I was in stitches). Another one realised that if it picked up a tasty morsel and brought it away from the others it could eat it in peace; one keeps pecking at the wattles and comb of its mother, and another (or maybe it's always the same one :rolleyes:) went for the rooster at full speed with its wings stretched out, while the rooster was looking at it in fear and running backwards to get away from it... I have a feeling that one might be a boy, and not a very smart one at that...

New Home

ken wrote: »

So when do we start the 'great big name New Home's chicks' thread?

Probably as soon as it's obvious what gender they are... imagine if I had a rooster called, uh, I don't know, Monica, or something...

EDIT - For now, they're collectively known as The Fabergés.

hardCopy

Mo figured out how to open our front door handle and let himself out for a run.

I was outside and he tore off for a quick run before I spotted the swinging door.

He reappeared once I called his name. He followed me inside after my first "Come Here". Good dog got showered in treats for coming back.

reallyrose

I hurt my back and I'm currently in bed taking basically all the pain meds (the doctor scriped me a laundry list of stuff)

Swanson is minding me, he's right beside me, purring away.

TG1

Bob turned 14 today (well it's his approximate birthday!) And the fact that he spent the afternoon racing up and down the beach after a ball makes me smile so so much! He is still a puppy at heart, and long may it continue!

AryaStark

Nymeria always finds something to sleep on!!!

Senecio

Took Dougie to Clare with us for the long weekend. He's 12yrs old now but still a puppy in his own mind so he ran around the countryside like a maniac for 2 days solid. When we got home last night he was so tired that he couldn't quite make it all the way into his bed.

hardCopy

Mo graduated from his reactive dog class. He's still a (leash and window) reactive dog but at least we have some extra methods to try and redirect his attention while we try and work through it, and he came away with a few more positive experiences of being leashed around other dogs.

witnessmenow

We have a foster dog at the moment who every time she hops up beside me on the couch or just follows me around it raises a smile. She's come on loads since we first got her, when I first met her in December she wouldn't even take cooked chicken from my hand (or right in front of me). She's very nervous before she gets to know you! But the time it takes for her to get used to new people seems to be less and less which is great!

We're expecting in August, other than that I'd say there would have been a very good chance she wouldn't be going back! Will be heartbreaking when she does

New Home

All ready for bed.



(Spot the babies! )

lassykk

Our cat has taken to miaowing in the morning after we feed him. I originally thought something was wrong or I'd forgotten to give him milk but it turns out I'd forgotten to pick him up for a hug. As soon as I did he was happy out and didn't miaow again.

I did the same thing again this morning to make sure I wasn't going mad and he repeated the exact same thing!

He likes nothing better than a group hug between myself and my OH too.

I've read in a few places that cats don't like to be picked up but our lad is a real exception!

patmac

Binky wondering what's going on!

aonb

We had a BINKY when we were kids

New Home

My baby chicks are growing up quickly - about 10 days ago they took their first dust bath, and yesterday evening their parents decided it was time for them to sleep on their 'family' branch; the 'adults' went up and they began calling their children, and surely enough one at a time the chicks made their way up the tree, flying from little branch to little branch, until they snuggled under their mammy's wings and tummy.



BTW, I'm now thinking they might be two boys and a girl.

aonb

whats that nutty chick doing hanging upside down like that ?!?!?!?!? :eek: How high off the ground is that branch?!?!?! Jeez my nerves would be shot looking at those antics!

New Home

It'd be about 5ft 6 or 7. They do fly, though, which is quite unusual for chickens, as far as I know.

I think that chick likes to see the world from a different perspective... :rolleyes: Bird-brained, the whole lot of them... :pac:

If you look at the older photo, they're more or less in the same position, except for the fact that that bamboo cane inside the 'hen-house' was only about a metre off the ground...

Kovu

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA BATCAT!!! This is where he goes to sulk if I don't open the attic for him. Weirdo cat.
New Home your chicks are so gorgeous, we used to rear some here and I really miss their antics. We have an abundance of pine martens so they'd be taken in a jiffy.
As for sexing them, the combs should be the first giveaway, the lad in the middle of the pic above looks like a male.

New Home

Does you cat fly too, Kovu, or did s/he get a lift off Spiderman?

As for those chicks, yes, I think the one on the left is a girl, and the other two are the boys.