Happy Easter!

The bulbs in my front yard are finally coming up...

And my plum tree is blooming!  Maybe it'll fruit this year...

 The chickens were happy to see the sun...

Cam posed nicely.

Cam also reminded the banty boys who was boss. The Head Roo calling lesser roos for food like this, especially when he has nothing, as Cam does, here, is a major diss--he's treating them like hens.

Tingle climbed in the kid's lap and gave her a snuggle.

The weather had cleared long enough this afternoon to have our Easter egg hunt, which the kid still enjoys...

 

Though sometimes finding the eggs can be difficult.


Luckily, Dusty is happy to help. She picked up a red one and followed the kid back across the yard...

Being a Cocker Spaniel mix and a soft mouth, she held the one she found very gently and gave it up when asked.

Good girl!

Springtime Romance

It's springtime in the chickenyard, and everyone is getting properly twitterpated.

Cam was having wind issues today, it blew up his tail and made him look like a big ol' flower...

 Then he got it together and faced INTO the wind...

He eventually went out walking with Tater Tot. Cam and Tater Tot are having a bit of a romance right now, he escorts her around the yard while she keeps up a running commentary. He listened very attentively to everything she said.

That is all. 😊

How Chickens Do Halloween

The other day the kid and I went out and wormed the chickens...a good time had by all, as always. In two weeks we get to do it again, as you must to catch any hatching worm eggs and break the cycle. Some of the implements of chickeny terror:

Broad-spectrum paste wormer, which kills everything, both mixed with water to be given orally and applied straight to that little bare spot in each wing pit and masssaged in, so:

 Chickens do not appreciate a wing pit massage and resist this procedure. Especially proud pretty bois like Milton, here.

Dog toenail cutter to trim any claws/spurs that need it and Adams Flea and Tick mist, sprayed liberally deep into the No Man's Land of chicken butts (where angels fear to tread, sister) and fluffy thighs and feet to take care of any mites. Since the kid holds the bird while I do all these things to the chickens, I am also free of worms and/or mites since I never fail to get that stuff on me. Not pictured: the goodie dish holding bits of diced ham, a few pieces given to each bird at the completion of worming along with a sincere apology...and boy, you'd better make it sound good, they can tell the difference.

But what the hey, it was also a good time to get a few pictures of pissy chickens!

Because most of the time when you try to photograph chickens while doing the semi-annual worming, they know what's coming and get all snotty and squirmy, so you wind up with pics of thrashing poultry like this one of Tater Tot:

It was also a good time to update on Blossom, my half-Silkie who this year decided to start shedding toes like a maple tree in Fall. We figured it was frostbite from last winter and her toes waited until months later to actually fall off.
Blossom *had* ten toes--Silkies have 5 toes on each foot instead of 4 like normal chickens. Blossom being a little weirdo from the get-go, she had two of her toes fused together at hatch, the two rear-facing toes of her left foot. I expected for her to have problems with *those* toes, if she ever did have foot troubles...

Nope. Weirdo mutant fused toes are just fine, as is ONE other toe. Blossom has shed all of the rest of her toe tips, though.
Even worst, she did this while staying in the house recovering from another injury...all of a sudden I started finding the ends of her toes, claw and all, lying in the middle of the living room.
FREAKY.
To make things even MORE gruesome, I never found two of her toes. Either the dog ate them or they are lying in wait somewhere in my house for me to have forgotten all about it and then pop up someday.
ICK. Zombie Chicken.

Speaking of zombies...
Happily, some of the other chickens posed nicely for head shots. Although I didn't realize until later that my daughter's zombie bunny Tshirt had lined up perfectly...

 Cam, my big Americaunas/Giant Cochin mix Head Rooster doin' the zombie bunny thing...

Several others got in on it.

 Pie, an Americaunas/Buff Brahma mix hen

 Tater Tot again, (once she calmed down) a bantam Cochin/MilleFleur Belgian d'Uccle mix hen

...and Rambo, the Head Hen, a 7 year old buff Brahma hen who is WAY too dignified to wear zombie bunny ears and is NOT amused by all this tomfoolery.

ARRRGGHHH, DAMNED ROOSTERS ANYWAY!

Yeah, another round of Weedcat vs Cam. Cam managed to tear the almost healed scabs off Weeds' face, so once again Weeds got the worst of it. They both ended up with a bunch of missing neck feathers, too.  Neither is seriously hurt, though.

This time, it had been raining for two days and both boys were covered with a mixture of blood & mud, so it was bath time all around.

ROOSTER SHAMING
This was after I'd been forced to just hose off his head & neck to get most of the gunk off. Not such a big shot when you're all wet, are you Weedcat?

Next it's time for the pretty beach towel!

 OK Cam, your turn!
Next to the word 'Dipshit' in the dictionary is this picture.

 He had no clue what the big white tub was for.

But that changed pretty damned quick.  

 Pretty towel time for you, too.

 Then he got to see what a bad boy looked like.

 Scrawny, embarrassed rooster.

They both got dried with the hair dryer and stayed inside for another hour and a half until totally dry since it's still cold & wet outside, then Cam went back out into the coop. Weeds is inside tonight and probably tomorrow until I'm sure no one will peck at his wounds, then HE goes into the coop and Cam into the small run like before.

I swear I'm gonna stuff them both in a box and mail them to Argentina. We're within a couple of weeks of having the back of the property cleared, planted & fenced so they'll have a 1/2 acre to roam--but no, they have to do this NOW.

Now that Cam is dry I can see that Weedcat managed to remove ALL of Cam's fluffy face feathers. Guess he spoiled Cam's pretty-boy good looks until they grow back.

The Clock Is Ticking...

The countdown to trimming the fluffbutts has begun.  In one week we remove everyone's dignity, and but good.  It's gonna be a total Shock and Awe campaign because I only want to have to do this once--I remember last year it took three shearings to accomplish our goal.

First His Majesty King Fluffy Pants, Weedcat...

 Yes, and YOU, Cam...

 And then the laying hens.

 
Because not much, ahh...business is actually getting done when Weeds and Cam get down to business--not all of the eggs I'm using when I cook are fertile.  So the Butt-Shearing Apocalypse commences next Saturday.

The old ladies who are out of lay and the banties escape this indignity--the banties since they don't grow enough buttfluff to interfere with fertility.  With everyone else we'll have to stock up on goodies to apologize with.