Zombie Chicken!

The kid just came up to me showing me Blossom's right foot (the uninjured one) and said, "She's missing the end of THIS toe, now!"
I look. "Haha, she couldn't have hurt herself in the house. Naw, her *toe* is there, she's just snapped off a claw." There is a tiny drop of dried blood, but Blossom is fine.
Kid INSISTS part of her toe is gone. I give it a closer look, comparison to purple bandaged toe on other foot is made.
Blossom is missing the end of her fucking toe and claw.

Terrific, now we have to search my house for a chicken toe.
Step one: Look for blood in area chicken hangs out.
Success, we find a couple of *tiny* blood spots (on the carpet I just cleaned, BTW)

ToeHunt 2018 begins.
My husband finally finds it, next to the couch.

Yup.

This is about a 10 on my Weird-Shit-O-Meter.
Apparently she'd injured *both* toes originally, this one had stayed in place and today the broken off part finally fell off. Creepy thing is, I had thoroughly inspected her feet with my hands to check for other injuries and never saw this. Kinda glad because if her toe had suddenly come off in my hands while the kid was holding her it would have traumatized that poor girl.

...Or we have a Zombie Chicken. I'm personally going the Zombie Chicken route.

And yes, that IS a previously broken outer toe on the foot with the claw flipped upwards. Chickens LOVE to do this, it's a very common injury.

For crying out LOUD...my life is just one dumb, weird thing after another, I swear.


EDIT:  YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

That settles it, Blossom is a goddamned ZOMBIE.

Hours later, I was just putting my shoes on and found this NEW tidbit sitting *right* where my husband found the first one. 'Oh HAHA,' I thought, 'husband dug the toe out of the trash and put it there to mess with me.' Then I realize that IT'S NOT THE SAME TOE.

Inspect chicken. Yup, she's shed another toe!

At this point I'm off to the Intenet to see what new weird chicken disease that causes the damned birds to shed body parts is going around. Happily, no chicken leprosy...nearest we can figure is that it was caused likely by frostbite months ago and the toe bits are just now falling off. Chicken people experiencing the same thing are saying Silkies and Cochins are prone to it.

But, I mean, LOOK at the first pictures I posted--that damned toe is ON there, right?! And it looks FINE.
It's freakish.

Stupid bird has 3 toe tips/claws left. And yes, I pulled on them all to make sure no more were about to fall off like damned autumn leaves.

 Who knew that the zombie apocalypse would start with a chicken?

HOLY CRAP!

So the kid just got home from her volunteer job at a local thrift store, she has to perform 20 hours of community service to qualify for the Nevada Promise program (2 free years of college, baby!).

She bought something. I know this is true because my husband walks in and says she bought something. In kind of a warning tone. Also, he's smirking.
OK, I say, where is it?
He says, SHE HAS TO GO BACK OUT TO THE CAR TO GET IT, IT'S BIG. AND HEAVY.
*insert Holy Crap Moment here*
*also insert maniacal laughter from the kid*
*GoTo HolyCrap*
Next thing I hear as I make my way out to the living room to see what the Hell this thing is, is Blossom the househen who is NOT PLEASED and is LOUDLY vocalizing as such.
I continue and round the corner...
"HOLY CRAP!"
Apparantly it's my new favorite phrase, at least for today.

Yeah, the kid had gone shopping. This damned thing is as tall as I am. I realize that ain't saying much...but lordy. I can't imagine how much real estate getting rid of this thing freed up at the store.

And yeah, OF COURSE we showed it to the chicks.

...who couldn't care less.

Blossom the housechicken, she of the broken toe--SHE cared when the thing first came through the door.

WHAT IS THAT THING AND WHY IS IT IN MY HOU--

...Oh look, chicken food!

After this all interest was lost in their distant relative who has come to live with us in our house. Forever.

Wow.
That's a looong time, forever.
Maybe I just won't go in the kid's room any more.

Meanwhile, the baby chicks have decided to pose like little feathered delinquents as they finalize their plan to use the cinder block/camera setup to escape the box.

I mean, if you came across a group of human kids lounging SO purposefully nonchalantly, you'd mutter, "Juvenile delinquents..." and get the Hell outta there, yes?

Next I fully expect to find 'Fuck The PoPo' and 'JETS' written on the side of the box...

Chickens, Great And Small

The baby chicks are doing great...although wings have come in and the start of tails, and we can tell that we got skunked on Frizzles.

The traditional grassy dirt clod that provides dirt to scratch & dustbathe in, green material to eat, hidden bugs to find, grit for crops, a first introduction to our local pathogens to help build immunities--plus a primo thing to leap on your sister from--was introduced.

...and there was much chickspicion.

 As in lots of glaring and pointedly turning their backs to it because that'll fix THAT weird new thing.

Eventually the grassy clod was accepted and is being joyfully used.

But who needs a dirt-clod-toy when you can just go and flat-out LAY in your food like a little feathered heathen?

Or, when that gets old, roost your big butt on your poor little sisters. Because why sit on just one of your siblings when you can camp on two of them?

Geez Nora, move your butt.  Poor Gumdrop and Bobo--!

Zuul prefers to ignore all these goings-on.

Meanwhile in big chicken news, Blossom the Silkie mix hen is still in the house recovering from her attempt to rip off one of her toes via a compound fracture.  I had to reset (poor thing!), bandage and splint it and so far she's doing fine, having herself another housechicken stint until she is healed up enough to go outside again.  I have no idea how she managed this one.

But wait, there's more!  Why have ONE entitled, grumpy hen in the house when you can have TWO?

Cue Alice, the Barred Rock hen who we discovered one day as a 3 day old chick at Tractor Supply, her broodmates had attacked her vent and had wounded her so grievously that the guy who came to remove her headed for the back door...where I'm sure she was destined for the trash can and death. I asked him if I could have her and he gave her to us...frankly she was so profoundly injured at only three days of age I never expected her to live, I just didn't think that death in a trash can was something she should have to suffer.

So we took her home, treated her wounds and gave her her own little section of the brooder box where amazingly, she lived and eventually grew up to join the flock!

 Alice has been glowingly healthy...until today.  Today we found her suffering from a condition known as Ascites, or Water Belly--a buildup of fluid in the abdomen, usually in laying hens, that can be caused by Fatty Liver Syndrome, amongst other things (I suspect her injuries as a chick have come back to haunt her).  I have a home treatment for it gleaned from other chicken people, and I'm also going to drain off some of the fluid with a syringe to make her more comfortable.

When you keep chickens, you learn pretty quick to take a deep breath, woman up, buckle down and be your own vet. Chicken keeping frequently involves smelly, disgusting procedures that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

But first, since Alice apparantly hasn't been able to perform her poop curtsy properly and has badly soiled vent feathers--a bath!

This is the beginning of the bath, before the warm water soaked off all the gunk.  You don't want to see the 'after' condition of that bathtub.

After the bath will come meds and sticking her with a syringe to draw off some of the fluid, then she and Blossom can hang out and watch TV together.

Sigh...

Chicken Migration!

We got fed up with UStream throttling back our data stream, so my husband shopped around and found Chickam a new home on YouTube!

The new Chickam!

Come and see, the picture is VASTLY improved, yay!

395, Again...

Another trip down highway 395, where weird things await...

One thing that has bugged me, literally since about 1980, is this sign with the weird squashed-bug symbol on the bottom. It looks like a right-facing Pac Man with six legs.  The sign is just ahead of a curve in the highway as you are going southbound. There is no matching sign going northbound.

 WHAT THE HELL DOES THE SQUASHED-BUG SYMBOL MEAN?!

I've even taken to the Internet to try and find out what the stupid thing means. No dice. All I can figure is, it is a warning that several (three) dirt roads offshoot the highway ahead.  But I've never seen anything like it where other dirt roads join the highway...and there isn't any kind of flashing warning light nearby, either (my other thought).

I grump my way down the highway.

Continuing the weird sign theme, further down is a Seventh Day Adventist billboard on the outskirts of Big Pine.  It used to have a message to the effect of 'Saturday is the sabbath, changed to Sunday by the Anti-Christ'. Not entirely friendly for a church, but oh, well.

They've upped the ante.

WOW.  That's some serious hate-slinging, there. Why would a church (and more importantly, the members) tolerate such a hateful message being displayed...? Truly a sign of our sad times, I guess.

So much for peace and love at church. Just based on that sign, I'd never join that one.

A little further down the road...

When you start to suspect that at this point, your doctor is just being a dick.

One happy note--the Give and Take sculpture garden outside Olancha has another new installation!

A raven who looks like he's either wearing the Wicked Witch of the East's striped socks and ruby slippers or some rad toe socks.

I love him, and he's a lot closer to the highway so hopefully he'll attract more attention to the sculpture garden!