Chickens are not kind. They do peck each other. I found one pecking at Wai the other day – to my horror- his skin is fragile enough.
But this chook had half her side torn off by her flock of white chickens. Basically skinned. It has healed somewhat but all the feathers are gone from that wounded area. So she is staying home with me. I let her sit in her old home under the warm light last night and this morning I’m going to put her in a little cage and rehome her with the layers. She will be in her crate as she heals but surrounded by a flock. She won’t grow too big on their diet.
Chickens are very hardy.
Though this one is really not well.
Quacker has joined Mr. Flowers at waiting for his dinner at the bottom of the steps. As you know, Mr. Flowers actually comes up the steps and stands on the veranda to eat any left over cat food, so I expect Quacker up here soon. The verandah is busy!
Tima is Free Again
Tima is already powering around the farm doing her housekeeping now that her gates are open again. Yesterday she was cleaning up after the white chickens and out in the field, in between erupting onto the verandah to gaze into the house, just in case something has changed while she was incarcerated in the back fields to stop her breaking down the chicken fence to get at their food.
Nothing has changed.
Now that the meat chickens are gone she is free again.
Have a great day!
Time for me to do morning chores! 🛵
Celi
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22 responses to “All Except One”
Oh that picture of Tima and the cat peering in the door! Love it.
Yes!!! And their colouring is so similar!
The veranda needs to be renamed The Lunch Counter 🙂 Seeing a Bobby up there might be a shock however! Of course, there are really no words for Tima. She is however becoming the most “in your face” star of the farmy I think.
I know it is normal but I feel for that white chicken. Is it a hierarchy thing with chickens, a food thing or are some just bullies in general?
Bullies in general I think plus chickens really will eat anything – each other included. I have not had this problem before because they are free range – not on top of each other – but I do know that many other growers snip the sharp end of the beak off so they can’t damage each other.
She is good this morning. Eating and drinking and hanging out in their old warm room.
Probably not nice of me to say, but now I don’t mind so much the idea that the flock is going to be in the freezer 😉 Glad she is doing better.
Yep, that Tima is too much! As Deb says, she has definitely become the ‘star of the farmy,’ that rascal!!! So happy that she and Wai Wai have agreed to share a bedroom again!
They are tucked up together every night – nice and warm – I am grateful too!
Chickens are terribly mean to each other—they remind me of people.
Indeed. Mean people.
Yes…where lots of people work together.
Poor Wai!
My dad started keeping chicken with regular battery chicks, relocated to freedom. When they got to about 3 years old they started pecking each other mercilessly. I offered to put them down and cook them, but got told off and instead, a local farmer dispatched them and then they got a Christian burial (no kidding)! The next chicken were a mix of interesting breeds – some of them didn’t get along and then there were two gangs of chicken. Like Dayphoto said, it reminds me of people too, though chicken can be quite friendly and social. I prefered my dad’s ducks 😉
It’s a good job Tima doesn’t know how fragile glass is!
They buried them!?!! (Hides face behind hands!).
Chickens are funny. I definitely have two gangs. The Barn chickens and the Chook house Chickens and ‘ne’re the twain do meet’!
I know! I could’t believe it. He also fed the foxes, because he thought they were hungry – it encouraged lots of foxes and they killed the ducks 😳
“The Barn chickens and the Chook house Chickens and ‘ne’re the twain do meet’!” – exactly!
Oh my. Your Dad!!
Barking mad!
The chickens pecking each other was a constant problem for my uncle with the hatchery. He had a big yard next to the barn with a good 500 chickens (could’ve been more) and I can remember him talking about that. He’d trim their beaks and some of the roosters had blinders on (one especially mean one ended up as Sunday dinner when he finally badly hurt a hen), he wasn’t even a good dinner, tough and stringy.
Mean is seldom tasty.
Interesting that he put blinders on the roosters.
This wee hen goes very still when another chicken comes near. She is getting lots of visitors today from the barn flock, now that the gates are down.
Some people just can’t take the final step that turns animal into food. Our chooks are thankfully fairly decent to each other, aside from the eternal squabble about who gets to roost where at night. But I know when the time comes it’ll be my job to send them on their way; the Husband is just too soft hearted. They’re layers, so they’ll be scrawny and tough, but coq au vin is a fine dish to make the most of even the toughest, scrawniest bird… He won’t mind eating that!
Amusing that women are the tough ones!
But not really surprising, don’t you think?
Loved this post – –
Stay Blessed – Mel
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Sorry to hear about the chook.. although I suspect she is very lucky to be in your care