Pumpkin Spur?!

 Pumpkin has decided to enter henopause strutting her stuff.

Her, uh...new stuff. As in a spur.

Yes, we're sure she's a hen. And yes--she went with just growing one, kinda like Michael Jackson and his glove.

As Long As There Is Food Involved...

...chickens don't give a hang about being embarassed. 

As always on the day after Halloween, the chickens get the Jack-o-Lanterns. But why just give it to them, when you can take advantage of the banties being so small, and stuff them inside the pumpkin for picture time?

 

 Marble goes first, and good-naturedly complies while Chonk and Bobbie watch...

Tingle, standing on the ground to the left, makes a maximum effort stretch to reach the goodies.

But immediately jumps up for a more direct approach. She is one of about ten hens molting right now, and looks quite the train wreck.

Skillet's turn in the gnashing pumpkin o' terror...

Bacon the roo, however, doesn't find the humans funny at ALL, and scoots right out.

After this we remove the glow-in-the-dark plastic teeth and move it to the ground. The others aren't shy, and join right in. Kentucky on top, in front. Left to right is Pumpkin, Marshmallow the whiteish hen towards the back, Henry the golden-laced Cochin in the far background. Oxide the frizzle is next, with Basil, Bonesaw and Gumdrop making up the rest of the hens.

Skillet resumes her spot on top. Bobbie the buff Brahma roo in front, he is only 7 months old, but is growing by leaps and bounds. Chonk the light Brahma hen is beside him, she is an adult. The whiteish roo on the back right is Milton the d'Uccle/Cochin mix bantam, our Head Roo.

Kentucky boots Skillet to hang upside down like a bat and nibble. Pie (Rambo's daughter) the buff Brahma mix on the far right, is the only one who has finished her molt; she looks grand with her foot feathers and dignified beard.

Gumdrop joins Kentucky and they snarf down pumpkin together. Everyone else is more sensible and goes directly in from the front.

 The entire chicken yard is awash in molted feathers, and it's only going to get worse in the next two weeks or so since most of them are just getting going on the molt thing.

And our nighttime temps are already dipping into the low 20's. Hurry up and grow new feathers, ladies!

The Scariest Time Of Year...

And it's *not* Halloween.

Around here, it's molting season.  Pumpkin leads in the headlong stampede to lose all your feathers...

Yes, that's *one* lone tail feather left hanging dismally off her butt.

Not to be outdone, Rambo horns into Pumpkin's photo session and shows off HER fright outfit.

I admire her thoroughness in literally molting head to freakin' toe.

Then she ran off like some guy being chased by a 60 Minutes news crew.

Alice shows off her naked pink chicken skin...

As does Pie.

...so now you know what a chicken tail looks like without the tail.  Or any other surrounding feathers. Or dignity.

Give her a week and she'll be a chicken again, I swear she will.

Pele wins for most shocking, though.  From this angle, not so bad, right?

HERE

Those naked legs...

Jesus, I'd run and hide, too.

Rambo consoled herself later on by partaking of the Chickam pumpkin.

...but emerged long enough to shoot me a glare that clearly said, 'Enough with the camera, already.'

I wisely took the hint and split.

THAT Isn't Food!

Want to see what a bad girl looks like?

 Pumpkin, The Idiot Queen.

 The kid noticed her acting a bit off this afternoon and brought her into the house so I could observe her. It was nothing really obvious, she tooled around the living room kinda foraging but not *eating* any of the Cheeto I'd just been feeding Zevon, one of our 12 year old bantam Frizzle hens who has been a house chicken for the last few days due to the weather. Now, a chicken not eating=something wrong, so I felt her crop...yup, no food in it.

VERY unusual, so while my husband grabs her and holds her, I start to check her over. Suddenly she opens her beak a bit, and I juuust see a glint of silver. Oh dear, there's something metal in there!

This. Wedged deeply into her mouth.

It had come off the power strip in the coop and was basically a washer, and the dumbshit had tried to eat it. It was in there so deep that I could barely get my fingertips on it, it was, 'brace the chicken head and force your fingers in there to get the thing'. I knew I had one chance to get it before it went in deeper, and luckily snared the thing on the first try.

The kid got all kinds of kudos for following her gut and bringing one of those, 'something isn't right' things to our attention. Pumpkin seems OK now, if nursing a sore mouth. She had some mealworms and went back out.

Damned dumb bird.

I For One, Welcome Our New Yard Dinosaur Overlords...

This is what happens at our house during certain times of the year if you get up and leave the room.

You lose your spot.  Ya gotta watch where you sit these days.

Mess with her comfy chair and this what she morphs into:

 Not really, haha.  That's what a broody hen looks like.

Meanwhile, In Nevada...

My husband's video gaming was attended to by Pumpkin today.

'No, not the SPAS-12!  Go for the rocket launcher!'

Proper chicken supervision was maintained at all times.  Pumpkin does love her some TV.

Today's Fun Is With Pumpkins!

So today the chickens got a pumpkin...

 ...which had an appropriate expression of dismay. The seeds and stringy parts were removed to avoid any crop impactions.

At first it was thoroughly inspected...

And then, as always when FOOD is discovered, found to be wonderful.

  Baby the Kraienkoppe hen liked it...

 

Sora the white Leghorn hen REALLY liked it, and decided to defend her pumpkin against all interlopers. Pompador, on the right, just couldn't figure it out .

Bloop the d'Uccle roo and Fries the black mottled d'Uccle hen decided to stick with an eye, since Sora obviously wasn't coming up for air any time soon.

 While the gray Giant Cochin contingent huddled together and mostly watched.

 There is plenty left for tomorrow, although Sora didn't believe it and did go to roost rather reluctantly.

Little-Known American Holidays...

For the benefit of people living outside the US, I thought I'd share one of our lesser-known holidays...

The annual Torture Of The Pumpkins!

First, introduce your Halloween jack-o-lanterns to a flock of suspicious chickens.

Your big, tough rooster will immediately run away screaming and hide in the coop for the next 10 minutes.

Hens, being more practical, approach cautiously...after all, it MIGHT be food!

Sooner or later, you just know that someone is gonna stick their head in one of the pumpkins...

...and Rose wins.

Not to be outdone, others quickly follow suit.

Zipper, with Bloop watching in confusion.

Pompadour is content with pecking out The Thing's eyes.

Gloria, the Brinkotter, goes at this 'eating' thing hammer & tongs while CM watches.

Sora and Pompadour are a bit concerned...

...and Pomps makes use of The Thing's eyeholes again, this time to watch her.

Bloop does, too.

As does Burger. Gloria was in there a long time.

After a while it got to be like some kind of weird 'stick-your-noggin-in-a-gourd' club.

It's hard to tell if the chicken is wearing the pumpkin, or the pumpkin is wearing a chicken. Sora, looking like a Christmas hat.

WILSON!! I'M SORRY, WILSON!!!

Chickens are so very predictably weird.