#[ (which is about the size of a domestic hen) ]

[who-is-muses]

Slyggians are able to survive without eating or drinking for extensive periods of time, and only need to refuel their bodies once a day. Salaak capitalizes on this by eating and drinking first thing upon waking up, where none of the other Lanterns can watch him. He's very self conscious of how he eats and his Slyggian diet, consisting almost entirely of liquids, liquidy solids, and insects.

[kedreeva]

Today in measuring your peahen, Bug is casually 2 foot, 3 inches tall (she can stretch a little taller when she REALLY wants a treat). This is just tall enough to see over a tray table and pull things off of nightstands and end cabinets.

Bug is also a little over 3 feet long from tail tip to beak tip. Most of Bug is made up of tail and neck. There is a 6lb dead weight in the middle somewhere that she knows how to directly place onto the ball of one foot while standing on you.

Bug's wingspan is around 3.5 feet, thought I didn't get a measurement. It will be over 4 feet as an adult.

Bug is growing in her spurs. As a Spalding (hybrid) hen, Bug will likely have one inch bone knives conveniently attached to her tarsometatarsus. This is technically fused foot bones, not a leg bone. Curiously, pure Pavo cristatus hens have spurs, and pure Pavo muticus hens have spurs, but many domestic Pavo cristatus and low-percent Spalding hens lack them. This is one of the indications of domestication in the cristatus species. As I prefer the wild type, I prefer my hens spurred, so this is a good sign!

Bug's toes measure a smidge over 5 inches from the tip of her rear-facing to to the tip of her longest front facing toe. Try measuring that on your hand.

Bug's nails measure 1/2-3/4 an inch long, depending on the toe. That's almost as long as one finger section for most people.

When I had snakes, I got asked all the time if I was afraid of them biting me. The answer is no. I have been bitten by a 6 foot long, 20lb boa constrictor, and have no scars to prove it. Meanwhile I have so many scars from peafowl sitting on me, particularly on my forearms, that I have had to reassure people I am not a danger to myself.

I post these photos as a reference, but also as a precaution. This is a BABY peafowl, and a female at that. She is only 6 months old and weighs a little over 6lbs, which means she's about 2/3 of the way grown, and adult hens are typically 3/4 the size of an adult male. These are BIG birds that can do a LOT of damage, even accidentally. When they become aggressive, as in the case of hand-raised males or poorly bred birds, they become a potentially fatal threat to any other fowl you have. Unlike chickens, they are more than capable of (and prone to!) jumping to human face level before they flog (kick with their feet in a way that allows their spurs to hit home), which means they could easily take out an eye or cause other serious facial injury if they get a lucky strike. I have seen more than a few people end up with stitches, and more than a few birds end up euthanized because people think they are gonna be cute cuddly friends.

I know that Bug is a cute bird, but I also want to stress that a) she has an outstanding personality as a result of breeding choices and socialization b) she hasn't hit maturity, and won't do so for another 2+ years, so her personality could change considerably still and c) I have been raising peafowl one way or another for my entire adult life, which has been structured around keeping them. I love my birds, and I would love for more people to keep peafowl as they are great animals, but they are not casual animals. They are large and potentially dangerous farm fowl that take a lot of space, care, and knowledge to keep.

[mrs-dr-reid]

My Personal Evan Buckley Headcanons

Part 1/?

He’s a public menace to society when showing how much he loves you. He will grab your face and kiss the life out of you when you’re in the middle of a conversation with Hen at the firehouse, he’ll scoop you up and carry you bridal style when you’re just trying to find almond milk at the grocery store, and if the opportunity presents itself, he will 100% be grabbing your ass in plain view of everybody when you’re out on the town together

Buys duplicates of his favorite hoodies but still in the same size so you can still steal them without leaving him without one. Sometimes you’ll both wear the same hoodie accidentally, and the entire Fire Fam pretends to vomit at the domesticity

He loves dancing in the kitchen with you to “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” by Paul Anka at 2 in the morning when he can’t sleep, because holding you as close to him as possible and swaying back and forth helps him calm his crazy trains of thought enough to go to sleep

He buys little cheap trinkets when he’s out because he thinks you’ll like them. You have an entire memento box full of the little doodads he brings you, from mini slinkies to tiny snow globes to tiny stuffed animals that are meant to be hooked on a backpack

You convince him to start journaling to get all of his thoughts out of his head and onto paper, and whenever you see him scribbling away in the little journal you got him, you can’t help but smile to yourself

He tries to take you roller skating for a date exactly once because he almost ends up in the emergency room with a concussion. The poor man is absolutely terrible on skates, and he ate it multiple times until you finally put him out of his misery and made him take you to get milkshakes

He’s just the teensiest bit touch-starved, so if there is an opportunity to put his hands on you (in both everyday and nsfw scenarios), he’s going to take it. Hugs from behind, putting an arm around your shoulder or waist, peppering kisses all over your face, trapping you in a cuddle session on the couch, all the physical affection

He’s allergic to llama wool, but he didn’t know that until the first time he went to a petting zoo in LA that had llamas and he broke out in a rash after petting one. He can do alpacas though, which he thought was weird because he thought they were basically the same animal until he googled the difference between them

He loves doing matching couples costumes on Halloween with you. One year you guys went as Jack Skellington and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and it was a big hit (the amount of time you guys spent doing and then taking off your makeup should be a world record)

He’d never admit it, but he loves a good session of “hate-watching”, where you two sit and find the worst show you can think of to just sit and talk shit about the entire time you’re watching. The most recent victim was Dawson’s Creek because he can’t stand how annoying all the characters are. He does love the memes though, and uses the GIF of Dawson's ugly crying face all the time

He desperately wants a dog, but his apartment complex doesn’t allow them. Once you two get married and move to the suburbs (Hen and Karen are your two-doors-down neighbors), he finally gets his dog. You guys adopt a little golden retriever puppy from a nearby shelter and name him Doug, and that dog becomes the goofiest guard dog to your future kids you could ever ask for

He throws things at people when he's bored, but they're usually very harmless things that are more annoying than anything else. TicTacs, chips, pens, socks, balled-up straw wrappers, popcorn, stuff like that. One time he absolutely beaned you with a boba pearl, and it very nearly exploded all over your face. He slept on the couch that night

Everytime he sees you interact with a kid, he gets INTENSE Baby Fever. The younger the kid, the more intense it is. Like, if you guys are watching Christopher for Eddie, and Buck looks over from the kitchen to see you and Chris doing a puzzle or something, his heart swells a little and he gets that fuzzy feeling in the pit of his stomach. When you guys are on a call and he sees you holding a baby while the mom is getting examined by Hen and Chim, it takes every ounce of self-control he has to not whisk you back to your place away from prying eyes, if ya know what I mean *wink wonk*

He is a firm believer in Lazy Sundays, so when the both of you have Sunday off, it takes no convincing from him to stay in bed until noon snuggling (or doing something else *cough cough*). When you eventually drag yourselves out of bed, you don’t bother getting dressed and just veg out on the couch the rest of the day

He knows how to play the guitar, but the only songs he can play are “Wonderwall” by Oasis and “Good Riddance” by Green Day. He’s working on learning other songs, but right now that’s it

Sometimes he accidentally uses your hair products in the shower when he’s still half-asleep and not paying any attention, and then you tease him all day because “I’m the one with the good hair in this relationship, Buckley, quit trying to steal my thunder”. You play with his hair all day though, so he considers it a win

He knows he messed up when you call him by his real first name, because like everybody else you always call him Buck, Buckley, or some goofy variation on “Buck”. But when you call him “Evan”, he knows he’s in for it

[pleistocene-pride]

The wild turkey is an upland ground bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey the other being the Ocellated turkey. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey, which was originally derived from a southern Mexican subspecies of wild turkey. They prefer to dwell in open deciduous woodlands, but can also be found in mixed and coniferous forests, tall grasslands, croplands, orchards and marshes. Wild turkeys are gregarious birds that travel in small or medium-sized flocks, usually with one dominant male and up to 20 or more hens that make up its harem. During the winter, multiple flocks may join up and create large groupings of 150 or more birds. Wild turkeys are omnivorous with there diet consisting of acorns, nuts, fruit, seeds, pine cones, roots, leaves, ferns, insects, carrion, and small amphibians/ reptiles. Wild turkeys are themselves preyed upon by foxes, coyotes, hawks, owls, eagles, lynx, bobcats, cougars, bears, alligators, and crocodiles. Wild turkey show marked sexual dimorphism with females being smaller at around 2.5 to 3ft in length, and 5 to 12lbs in weight compared to males at around 3.5 to 4ft in length and 11 to 25lbs in weight. This makes the wild turkey the the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. Despite their weight, wild turkeys, unlike their domesticated counterparts, are agile, fast fliers. Both sexes have long reddish-yellow to grayish-green legs. The body feathers are generally blackish and dark, sometimes grey brown overall with a coppery sheen that becomes more complex in adult males. Adult males, called toms or gobblers, have a large, featherless, reddish head, red throat, and red wattles on the throat and neck. Male also have a long, dark, fan-shaped tail and glossy bronze wings. The breeding season can last from late February to early August.  During such time males try to mate with as many partners as they can, and display for females and other males by puffing out their feathers, spreading out their tails and dragging their wings, gobbling, and drumming/ booming, this behavior is most commonly referred to as strutting. After mating hens will lay 10-14 eggs in a nest made of shallow dirt depressions engulfed with woody vegetation. After a 28 day incubation period, the eggs hatch and the chicks are ready to leave there nest and follow there mothers nest in about 12–24 hours and will stay with there mother from about 4 months. Under ideal conditions a wild turkey will reach sexual maturity at around 1 to 2 years, and may live up to 10 years.

[byneddiedingo]

Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall in Lover Come Back

Tony Randall, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and Clint Walker in Send Me No Flowers

Lover Come Back (Delbert Mann, 1961) Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Edie Adams, Jack Oakie, Jack Kruschen, Ann B. Davis. Screenplay: Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning. Cinematography: Arthur E. Arling. Art direction: Robert Clatworthy, Alexander Golitzen. Film editing: Marjorie Fowler. Music: Frank De Vol.  Send Me No Flowers (Norman Jewison, 1964) Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Paul Lynde, Hal March, Edward Andrews, Clint Walker, Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, based on a play by Norman Barasch, Carroll Moore. Cinematography: Daniel L. Fapp. Art direction: Robert Clatworthy, Alexander Golitzen. Music: Frank De Vol. The gag "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin" has been attributed to various wags, including Groucho Marx and Oscar Levant, but in fact the canard that the Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedies were about Day defending her virginity stems mainly from the second of the three films, Lover Come Back. In the first, Pillow Talk (Michael Gordon, 1959), Day's character seems perfectly willing to go off for a weekend with Hudson's, and in the third, Send Me No Flowers, they're already married. Still, these are sex comedies, and Day's characters are, if not virgins, at least naïve. Pillow Talk remains the best of the trio, if only because its initial teaming of the perky Day with the handsome Hudson feels inspired -- as if its makers had been watching the great screwball comedies of the past and had looked around for contemporary equivalents to Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, and Carole Lombard on the one hand, and Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, and Joel McCrea on the other. If Day and Hudson don't seem quite as distinguished as that company, I think that's because the movie industry had changed so much in the interim, with stars no longer seen as members of a studio's repertory troupe. To my mind, Day and Hudson hold their own nicely. What had also changed was a certain coarsening of the treatment of sex as the Production Code began to crumble -- there's a sense that writers and directors in the heyday of screwball comedy were content to finesse the limitations of the Code while those of the early 1960s were thumbing their noses at it. Certainly there's nothing so crass in the great comedies of the 1930s and '40s as the scene in Lover Come Back in which Day's Carol Templeton orders a designer to remodel the container of a potential client's product, saying that whoever gets the contract will have "the most attractive can." Cut to a closeup of the bunny-tail-adorned bottom of Edie Adams as the nightclub dancer Rebel Davis. There's also a lot of humor in these movies that feels sadly dated, especially the play on symbols of the Confederacy when Hudson's Jerry is trying to woo a Southern client: Rebel exposes an array of Confederate battle flags across her chest as the band plays "Dixie." Send Me No Flowers feels a little less crass than either Pillow Talk or Lover Come Back, partly because we have moved from sex comedy to domestic comedy of the sort more familiar from TV sitcoms: Hudson's George is a hypochondriac who mistakenly thinks he's dying and wants to provide for Day's somewhat ditzy and impractical Judy. If the brawny Hudson seems like a misfit in this part, we have to accept it as a given -- just as we have to accept the goofiness of Cary Grant as a paleontologist in Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938). Perhaps one reason the producers cast the improbably large Clint Walker as Judy's old boyfriend was to make Hudson look comparatively normal in size.

[growchick]

New Poultry Farming Methods For Poultry Farm For Sale

Poultry farming is defined as “raising different types of domestic birds commercially for the purpose of meat, eggs, and feather production." Chickens are the most popular and frequently farmed poultry species. Every year, around 5 billion chickens are grown for food.

 However, the poultry business requires proper methods and planning. If you want to start poultry farming on your poultry farm for sale, then these methods will be helpful for you.

 In this blog, we will discuss some of the latest poultry farming methods that can help you grow your business.

1.    Free-range farming

Giving poultry birds the freedom to walk around outside for a specified amount of time each day is known as "free-range poultry farming.” With this farming technique for poultry farms for sale, birds are kept indoors at night to protect them from predators and bad weather.

Typically, poultry birds are allowed to roam freely all day long. They may have lived outside the home for half of their lives.

For this type of farming, you must choose a suitable poultry farm for sale with the necessary drainage system, ventilation, protection from prevailing winds, protection from all kinds of predators, and that is not overly cold, hot, or moist.

For poultry birds, extreme cold, heat, and wetness are particularly damaging, which lowers their productivity. In comparison to cage and barn systems, it uses less feed.

2.    Organic method

The organic layer poultry rearing system is also one type of free-range farming system. In free-range farming, many poultry are raised together. In organic farming, particular poultry species are grown in small groups with low stocking densities.

A few limitations of the organic laying method include the systematic use of synthetic yolk colorants, water, feed, pharmaceuticals, and other feed additives, as well as smaller group sizes with low stocking density.The producer should keep at most 1000 chickens per year and at most 2000 chickens per residence.

3.    Yarding method

Small farmers frequently utilize this technique. In this technique, cows and chicks are grown side by side. The farmers build a fence in their yard and confine the cattle and chickens there.

4.    Battery cage method

Interestingly, it is one of the most prevalent methods used in many countries. In this method, small metal cages are utilized. Every cage can accommodate about 3 to 8 hens.

Typically, the cages have slanted wire mesh floors that allow the feces to fall through and mesh or solid metal walls. All the eggs are collected on the egg-collecting conveyor belt of the cage when the hens lay eggs.

The water is provided to the hens using overhead nipple devices, and food is provided in front of them by a long, bisected metal or plastic pipe. Long lines of cages are stacked on top of one another. There may be multiple floors in a single shade that can house hundreds or perhaps thousands of hens.

Conclusion

Grow Chicks offers poultry farms for sale, which will help you start your poultry farming business today. Visit our official website to learn more about farms.

[tonkimai]

Pet city pets wyandotte mi

#Pet city pets wyandotte mi free

#Pet city pets wyandotte mi free

I'm asking that chickens be classified under the current ordinance definition of domesticated companions which states "Domesticated companion animal means an animal that has traditionally, through a long association with humans, lived in a state of dependence upon humans or has been traditionally kept as a household pet, including but not limited to: dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils, ferrets, mice, rabbits, parakeets, parrots, cockatiels, cockatoos, canaries, love birds, finches and tropical fish." Being as chickens are very social, I'll be asking that up to 4 hens be allowed per single family household regardless of lot size and location and kept in a chicken coop or enclosure with attached run with periodic free range in fenced yards. Even then, the noise level is comparable to human conversation of 60-70 decibels while dog barking can be up to 90 decibels. so youll know exactly what it will cost to live in the city you love. Chickens only make noise to announce the laying of an egg or if danger is near. Find pet friendly apartments for rent in Wyandotte with Apartment Finder - The. Chicken waste does not attract rats-chickens process food efficiently enough that the waste isn’t attractive like dog waste and makes the best fertilizer for gardens and flower beds. Roosters, while colorful, can be noisy and aren't needed for hens to lay eggs. Chickens are omnivores and will eat just about everything from table scraps to insects to weeds to mice. This ordinance is outdated as backyard hens have become popular across the state as not only sources of fresh eggs but gentle pets for the entire family to enjoy. It shall be unlawful for any person to keep, within five hundred (500) feet of any dwelling, street, alley or public place, any animal, bird or fowl except pigeons and such animals or birds as are commonly kept or housed as household pets. This petition has been created to repeal or revise Wyandotte City Ordinance 1370, 4-15 which states:

[once-was-muses]

Slyggians are able to survive without eating or drinking for extensive periods of time, and only need to refuel their bodies once a day. Salaak capitalizes on this by eating and drinking first thing upon waking up, where none of the other Lanterns can watch him. He's very self conscious of how he eats and his Slyggian diet, consisting almost entirely of liquids, liquidy solids, and insects.

[theramseyloft]

Diet

Woooo, is this subject ever a pain in my ass for something so simple...

There is just... SO much misinformation out there, from sources that should otherwise be credible.

So let me set the record straight as a specialist in the care of pigeons:

Pigeons are strict granivores. 

They can’t digest any part of a plant but seeds.

No leafy greens. No stems. No roots, no tubers, no bulbs, no flowers... 

ESPECIALLY not the fruit!!!

They can neither taste nor process the sugar!

Nothing but seeds.

Not even as a treat.

Vets often suggest greens and fruit and florets for literally every companion bird, going off the parrot template.

If a small animal (non-farm) vet gets to see a companion bird, you can reliably wager that it’s either a psittacine or finch, and win that bet most of the time.

Hardly any one ever brings pigeons to a vet.

Breeders consider it cheaper to kill the sick ones than try to find out what’s wrong with them, and pigeons as companion birds are still extremely niche.

The only way to change this is for people with pet pigeons to bring them to their vet like they would a cat, dog, rabbit, or other pet for regular check ups so that a base line can be established before that animal gets ill.

The more vets provided with base lines of healthy pigeons, the more accurately they will be able to treat pet pigeons.

Parrots in captivity that are fed the fruit and nut heavy diet that most species eat in the wild will develop fatty liver disease and die very young.

Wild parrots fly for MILES every day to forage that sugar and fat rich diet, which fuels their long foraging flights.

Their diet is adapted to their lifestyle, and their lifestyle is adapted to their diet, as is the case with most species.

Parrots have only been captive bred for the last 70 or so years. The larger species take up to 5 to sexually mature, and can live into their 70′s or 80′s

We have been breeding them in captivity for less than the lifetime of a single healthy individual.

Parrots simply have not had the time to physiologically adapt to the utterly sedentary life they live as human house pets.

We take these birds built for a high stamina nomadic lifestyle supported by a diet high in fat and sugar, and have them live most of their lives in a single room.

To keep them alive, we have had to make up for their lack of opportunity to adapt their physiology by adapting their captive diet to this drastic change in their life style.

Even finches (primarily seed and insect eaters, mostly) are usually kept in such extreme confinement that their captive diet has needed to be modified to avoid being dragged to an early grave by a fatty liver.

Pigeons were the first birds humanity domesticated. 

Even before chickens.

About the time camels were domesticated; in the dawn of agriculture and stationary settlements.

What made them easy to domesticate was that, being desert/scrubland birds, seed was the diet they were already adapted to.

It was easy enough to share enough grain with them to make living in a dovecote worth while.

In exchange, humans got some of the most nutritious fertilizer known to man to this day.

Being picky about what kind of seed you eat isn’t beneficial of a desert bird, and wild rock doves already adjusted the volume of their feed intake with the natural fluctuation of seed availability through out the year; eating more when they had to fly further afield to find it, and needing to eat less per foraging trip when there was enough nearby that they didn’t have to range as far.

Because adjusting their food intake according to how close and plentiful food was already came naturally to rock doves, the only transition in the development of domestic pigeons was that food would always be close and plentiful.

Pigeons have had THOUSANDS of years to adapt to not having to fly nearly so far to find enough to eat in human care as their rock dove ancestors did in the wild.

Here is the basic break down of nutritional requirements for racing homers (the breed that serves as the base line for domestic pigeons), according to Avian Medicine: Principles and Applications. Ritchie, Harrison and Harrison;

Pet shops are starting to sell dove and pigeon diets now, lots of which would make decent bases, but still need extra protein or fat added.

There are also lots of wild bird blends that make good bases.

I used to love royal wing Classic Mix from TSC, as it was easily accessible, but it needs a lot added to it, and that can get pretty expensive.

Chewy sells an excellent diet designed for pigeons breeding and performing: https://www.chewy.com/versele-laga-classic-pigeon-food/dp/259128 , which is what we order for the flock now.

But for a house pet or two, it’s often easier and less expensive to mix your own blend.

Pigeons can eat pretty much any whole (in the hull) seed that they can comfortably swallow.

Birds that are performing, raising peeps, or under weight need all the fat and protein they can get, so lots of dried legumes for protein (Mung beans, lentils, and split green peas are favorites), millet (fatty and high protein, especially easy to digest), safflower seeds, and black oil sunflower seeds (rich in oil and extremely fatty).

Non-breeding House pets tend not to need as much fat, so their feed should be higher grain like wheat, barley, and oats with lower fatty or high protein seeds.

The more confined the bird (unless the bird is sick or healing from an injury), the less fat it needs in its diet.

So the owners of a pet or two are free and encouraged to experiment with their blends.

Most pigeon’s can’t comfortably swallow striped sunflower seeds, so keep your selection below that in size.

Chopped up tree nuts or peanuts are an EXTREMELY high fat treat (think pigeon cheese cake) and should be given *very* sparingly.

Chia seeds have a very high caffeine content and need to be avoided.

Other than that, you can experiment with any grain, legume, or other seed small enough for them to swallow, provided nutritional parameters are maintained.

Do not used hulled seeds!

The hull is important, not because they can digest cellulose, but because they can’t. (which is why they can’t process any part of a plant except the seed)

The hulls of seeds they eat make up the vast bulk of solid fecal matter and act as vital dietary fiber.

That pigeons need grit to grind down food in their gizzard is a myth.

They need it to obtain dietary minerals, and that distinction is a matter of life and death.

Avoid the starter chick grit for chickens, and the charcoal grit for song birds, as these are both made with a base of Granite, which is made by leeching the calcium out of lime stone. 

Galliformes need granite grit because it won’t break down in their gizzard, where they use it as a mechanical aid to grind food.

That’s exactly what makes granite based grit a serious intestinal impaction risk for a columbiform like our domestic pigeons.

Because what they need grit for is dietary minerals, it’s important that their grit dissolve in the gizzard to be absorbed by the small intestine.

Hens will lay eggs with or with out a cock, and the cock also has a skeleton to maintain, so calcium supplements are a necessity.

Hens and breeding cocks can also get salt deficient from both producing eggs and feeding peeps.

My breeding flock has Oyster Shell grit offered free choice and free access to a salt and mineral brick for horses.

It is generally safest to assume that a new pigeon has not been adequately supplemented, because birds who have not will gorge on grit and salt to their detriment.

Pigeons deficient enough t crave it can poison themselves overdosing on salt. Salt poisoning is nearly always fatal!!! so do not ever offer pigeons any kind of salt based grit in a loose, granular form.

I use the salt and mineral brick because their beaks are not hard enough and they do not have sufficient bite strength to get large enough quantities off of the brick to sicken themselves before the craving for that mineral is satisfied.

A single indoor pet can be given one of the little salt/mineral wheels for hamsters.

Calcium deficient pigeons craving grit can impact their crops gorging on it.

As stated earlier, my loft birds have free choice access to oyster shell grit next to their feed.

To prevent new birds form gorging dangerously on it, a tiny pinch is sprinkled over their meals every morning during their 4 week quarantine.

By the time quarantine ends, they are not deficient, and will not be craving grit ravenously enough to hurt themselves on it.

Bon appetite to your sweet cooey friends and house mates. ^v^

[kedreeva]

I think that... if you've never seen a green peafowl (Pavo muticus) before, or at least never seen one next to a human being before... the size of them is unclear. Most of the greens in the US are American greens, which is to say that they've had their blood diluted with Pavo cristatus blood somewhere along the line. They're smaller, and they sound a little different. There are a couple of farms (and I do mean a COUPLE, I think there are like 2, maybe 3 now) that have imported and breed actual greens, but those birds are generally for conservation, with excess males offloaded either for American green improvement fodder, or for high-spalding hybrid junk. Usually the latter.

These are some pure Pavo muticus imperator birds (a subspecies of the muticus species), from a video posted to one of my peafowl groups, beside yearling Pavo cristatus birds.

Now, yearlings are a LITTLE smaller than full adults, but not by much. Here's a pic of the bigger of the two yearlings, the one that I'd guess (given where his shoulders stand compared to the human) is male and about full grown (minus the train), standing near a pair of imperator hens:

And standing beside the big kahuna of this pen, the male. He doesn't even have to stretch to reach this human's waist.

For reference, my cristatus birds, most of whom are not short for domestic blues, have to jump if they want to reach my hand in a similar position, and I'm only 5'3".

(source)

[yuichi-ro]

Okay but listen-

Domestic, small backyard farm life, with Hanma and Baji 😃

Both Hanma and Baji each have their own favorite Silky or Cochin that they always pack around and even named.

I feel like both of them would love to go to the feed store and get anything possibly new for their chickens, and honestly their dogs for that matter. Knowing the owners of the shop by heart and always chit chatting with them every time about what's new with everyone.

why is this so funny but?? so vivid in my mind?? I could go off on this bc something about these two with chickens is making me scream laugh. So allow me to channel that into pretty presentable headcanons ────── #ʜᴀᴀᴊᴇᴇ.♡ ᴘᴇᴛ/ᴅᴏᴍᴇꜱᴛɪᴄ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ ──────────────────

─» full disclosure the chickens were my idea and Hanma tried like hell to not let Baji get roped into it because he was certain two dogs and three cats were more than enough ─» like most everything I want, I end up getting it ─» Hanma's on board only when he gets the green light to get "fighting" chickens. Spoiler they're all hens and just useless birds who hardly lay eggs but we love them ─» Baji gets suckered into the "backyard bird" trend and picks out stupid shit like bantams but yes he ends up with black silkies bc he thinks they're cool ─» I don't care what we get I just want chickens lets be honest ─» everyone has a name, every god damn chicken has a name even if we had to buy bulk fillers for an online order. Oh that random sex link that we ended up with six of them? Each of them is named after the Golden Girls

─» the dogs are surprisingly useless which was Hanma's main argument against having chickens in the first place ─» honestly the dogs now spend more time outside "protecting" the flock and I ain't even mad bc everyone is out of the house and away from me ─» the kids love the chickens and are both chicken whispers to their two fathers disapproval ─» Hanma cannot catch a chicken to save his life and it's funny watching him try to out smart an animal that has a pea brain ─» Baji is no better but he at least corners them in the coop before attempting to wrangle them ─» and yea they like spring time bc then the feedstore always has chicks and Hanma and Baji talk themselves into maybe two or three chicks. What's a few more beaks? ─» chicks get first class rides in their pockets. Baji will pack two chicks at a time or more in his pockets without reservation. Hanma just carries his and proceeds to do everything one handed the rest of the day ─» yeah they might've been this useless with the kids too ─» there is contention between Baji and the feedstore owners though ─» just a few items he carries at the petstore might be cheaper at the feedstore and now every time Baji goes in he has that tight lipped fake friendly smile going on when he chats with the owners ─» either they know he's an asshole or they think he's a sweet guy honestly I'm not sure but neither Hanma or I are getting in the middle of it ─» Hanma is that person at the store who fucking holds up the line though and talks way too much and makes everyone groan but once again the owners just think he's charming and as handsome as can be and I roll my eyes ─» we don't have a backyard flock size. We can't have just like four chickens, we have like nearing twenty of them ─» Baji likes to feed the birds and the chickens. Hanma thinks its a waste of time and money but then they get into a nittering argument about how much the chickens love bird seed over just corn ─» we have tried ducks and geese before. I hate them. I feel like Hanma just absolutely loves geese. They're so onrey and aggressive he thinks it's the funniest shit in the world ─» Baji and the dogs get pinched more than anyone else in the house ─» doesn't matter how long we've had them either man keeps getting pinched and at this point even the kids are smart enough to not get pinched ─» another year and another day of Baji getting pinched with killer bills ─» they both spend an amazing amount of time out with the chickens. Even if the kids aren't with them or if I'm not either. Though I do spend a lot of time with our chickens ─» Baji babies them like they're actual humans (as he does with all the pets) and Hanma thinks they're the dumbest cutest things in the world ──────────────────

[lazyevaluationranch]

13/08/2020 We're worried this vaguely disgruntled adolescent chicken might be a rooster. Her comb is a suspiciously bright colour, and it looks like she's growing saddle feathers, the long droopy feathers that trail across a rooster's back. 

They're all supposed to be hens, but determining the sex of a newly-hatched chicken by peering at its undercarriage is only about 95% accurate. Sooner or later, if you buy chicks, you'll lose at Rooster Roulette. We've had hens with saddle feathers before, though, so we're hoping we've dodged the Rooster of Damocles for another year.

600ish words on chicken history and 1800s farm blogging might be a bit much even for readers of this blog, actually.

In 1843, Britain forced China to sign the Treaty of Bogue, which granted British traders access to several areas they had previously been blocked off from. British traders started buying live Chinese chickens and shipping them west. The Chinese chickens were much larger and fluffier than western chickens, and so gentle that roosters didn't fight each other, and sometimes sat on eggs. Queen Victoria was presented with a pair as a gift. She loved them, which of course means that the chicken world lost its collective mind.

The ensuing chicken-breeding craze was called Hen Fever and lasted from about 1845 to 1855. Individual chickens sold for hundreds of dollars. People invested in fancy breeds of chicken, expecting great profits, clearly the very soundest of financial ideas. This was chronicled by chicken breeder George P. Burnham in his 1855 book A History of the Hen Fever: A Humorous Record.

Hen Fever and the fact that we hadn’t yet realized that the sneaky descendant of the dinosaurs were biding their time and hiding out as birds made Breeding the Largest Possible Chicken seem like a good and normal idea. Breeders developed the “Brahma” breed from the chickens imported from China. Burnham described the Brahma, which he calls the "Bother'em", in totally scientific and unsarcastic fashion. Behold, some vintage 1855 chicken mockery! Burnham describes the breed’s edibility:

They are remarkable for producing bone, and as remarkable for producing offal. I have had one analyzed lately by a celebrated chemist, with the following result:

    Feathers and offal,    39.00 

    Bony substances,     50.00 

    Very tough muscle and sinew,    09.00 

    Miscellaneous residuum,02.00  

    ——— 

    100.00"

Their diet:

A peculiarly well-developed faculty in this extraordinary fine breed of domestic fowls is that of eating. "A tolerably well-fed Bother'em will dispose of as much corn as a common horse," insists Mr. Snooks. This goes beyond me; for I have found that they could be kept on the allowance, ordinarily, that I appropriated daily to the same number of good-sized store hogs. ... 

But Snooks is correct about one thing. They are not fastidious or "particular about what they eat." Whatever is portable to them is adapted to their taste for devouring. Old hats, India-rubbers, boots and shoes, or stray socks, are not out-of-the-way fare with them. They are amazingly fond of corn, especially a good deal of it.

Their size:

This rara avis in terris grows to a height somewhere between .00 feet .16 inches and 25 feet. Its weight somewhat between .06 pounds and 1 cwt [100 pounds]. ... They are very inquisitive in their nature. Their habit of stalking around the dwelling-house, and popping their heads into the garret-windows, is evidence of this peculiar trait.

He also supplies this extremely accurate scientific diagram of the breed. Behold, the majesty and grace!

So anyway, some people thought it would be funny to have one giant extra-fluffy Brahma hen. Which means, uh, if we lose Rooster Roulette, we might end up with an omnivorous farm dinosaur a meter tall. Oops. 

(Luckily (?) for us, she doesn't seem to be purebred. Wrong comb.)

Please enjoy this video of Fitim Sejfijaj’s Brahma rooster, originally posted to Brahma Club Kosovo on facebook:

[seafoamcrest]

((would rhea ever think about having a child? or is flayn (or sitri) the closest equivalent to that?))

ON RHEA AND HAVING CHILDREN:

TLDR: not right now, but she wants to if she ever gets to retire

Right now, Rhea cannot even think about having a child. She is the mother hen for all of Fodlan and must safeguard its future, she doesn't have the time to devote herself emotionally to anyone. That being said, she has adopted children, in a sense. Most of her "children", the ones she gave her Crest and Crest Stone fragments to, are merely mentees that she has no real emotional connection to.

Sitri and Flayn are different. Sitri was the only one of her homunculi that she loved because despite the circumstances in which she came to be, Sitri still looked at Rhea as a loving mother, and that just made Rhea BSOD. Flayn is her baby niece, probably the only person aside from very small children she will allow herself to be somewhat affectionate to in public.

But what does Rhea want in the future? She wants to retire from her Archbishop position and start a little family of her own. And by little, I only mean little in comparison to the Church's size. She would adopt Cyril if he lets her*. And thanks to the same magic that brought you Homunculi Flesh Puppets ™️, Rhea can conceive biological children with her s/o regardless of their sex. She will have as big of a horde of baby Nabateans running around as her s/o is comfortable with.

This is a huge part of why she wants to resurrect the Goddess, actually: Rhea feels that with peace and order restored by the Goddess in Fodlan, she can finally retire from her 1000+ years of Church leadership and begin a sweet, new domestic chapter in her life as a mom.

[writtenonreceipts]

It’s quick, it’s simple. It's domestic Nessian and co.

#

Family Ties

At eleven o’clock that fateful Thursday, Nesta stared at the turkey still basking in it’s brine.  Just the sight of it made her want to hurl, but she’d never been a fan of meat to begin with.

“Oh this is a terrible idea,” Nesta said. "Who the hell let is host Thanksgiving?  Absolutely the worst thing we could have ever done.”

“Probably,” Cassian agreed as he stared over his shoulder at the bucket that held the twenty pound bird.  He’d insisted they should get a bigger bird with the horde of people coming over for the holiday but Nesta reminded him of the poorly sized oven of their townhouse.

“We should call it off.  Lock the doors and get back in bed,” Nesta insisted.  She rested her hands on her hips and glared at the offending carcass. 

Her husbands hands snaked around her waist and his nose burrowed into her neck. “I like the sounds of that.”

Before either of them could act on Nesta’s suggestion however, the front door of their small townhouse burst open and a loud shout penetrated the mid-morning silence.

“UNCLE CASSIAN!”

The man in question chuckled into Nesta’s skin before pulling away from her just before a small ball of energy rammed into his legs.  In a fluid motion, Cassian pulled a five-year old boy up into his arms.

“Damn boy, when’d you get so big?” Cassian asked grinning at the child in his arms.

Eyes widening, Elias Court stared at his uncle, his black hair falling into his impossibly blue eyes.  “Momma says that’s a bad word and we shouldn’t use it.”

Nesta snorted at that.  If Feyre was scolding her son for cursing she would first have to clean up her own language.  

“Well, your Momma is right,” Nesta agreed.  She gave Cassian a look, but her husband just shook his head and kept on grinning.

Nesta slipped out of the kitchen to the front door to find Rhysand juggling a pie, sack of groceries and a clingy three year old.

“Looks like you’ve got everything under control,” Nesta commented wryly.  A part of her wanted to revert back to old times and be petty towards Rhysand, but the poor man did look a bit overwhelmed.  At least until Moira squealed in delight at her aunt.  “Come here baby.”

Taking Moira from Rhysand, Nesta stepped out onto the front steps of the house and waited for a very pregnant Feyre to come up the drive.  It didn’t surprise Nesta at all that Feyre insisted on driving despite how long it took her to get in and out of a car.  Nor did it surprise Nesta that Feyre was also carrying two seperate covered pans, a giant purse, and sack of other food items.

Nesta knew better than to say anything or offer to help,  but she did set Moira down and tell her to go find the spare bedroom where a few dolls were stored.  The child immediately took off back into the house.

Nesta stepped aside on the small porch as Feyre approached.

“Hey Nesta,” Feyre said with a tired smile.

“You look ready to collapse,” Nesta said. She knew Feyre would just scowl at her which she did. “You’re seven months pregnant babe.”

“I know," Feyre groaned. “Don't tell Rhys but I am more than ready to do nothing today.”

"Then go out your feet up," Nesta insisted.  She grabbed the two pans of food from her sister, both stuffed full of potatoes and yams then took the other sack full of rolls and butter.

“Because then he'll turn into an overbearing mother hen.” Feyre hissed while glancing over Nesta's shoulder to the inside of the house. “And then I might strangle him. You'd think with baby number three he'd have calmed down.  No.  He’s gotten worse, Nes.”

Nesta of course didn't miss the soft smile on Feyre's lips.  Despite the way Feyre went on, there was no mistaking the love between the two.

"Come in and put your feet up," Nesta ordered as she ushered Feyre inside. Her sister rolled her eyes but entered the house.

"When does Azriel get in?" Rhysand asked as Feyre and Nests came in.

"He's catching a ride with Elain and Lucien," Cassian said. 

"And they’re running late," Nests added. "Apparently Micah was not cooperating with his special onesie."

"He's barely a month old," Rhysand said.

"It's his first Thanksgiving, babe," Feyre chuckled going immediately to the couch. “They are allowed to be annoying parents.  Just this year.”

Moira was quick to return from the spare bedroom, doll in hand while Elias begged Cassian for a shoulder ride.

As she looked over the first part of her family, Nesta couldn't help the dopey little grin crossing her face. It had taken them all far too long to get to where they were individually and collectively. And it was good.

#

It was hours later when food comas were established and four children were asleep for naps that the adults were finally able to settle down and talk.  Elain still had Micah in a wrap that kept him close to her chest, his red hair sticking out in all angles.  As Nesta had expected, her sister was an amazing mother and Lucien doted on his wife and son to no avail.

Azriel leaned against the kitchen counter eating a second piece of pie while Rhysand showed him designs for a renovation to the new baby’s room that needed to be completed.

"Where's the booze," Elain called from the kitchen as she dug through cabinets and the fridge. "It's Thanksgiving and I haven't had a decent drink in ages."

"We are a boozeless house," Cassian announced. "Don't tell Mor. She'll disown us."

The blonde in question was spending the holiday with her girlfriend’s family.  A feat that no one had expected but supported full heartedly.  Varian and Amren were too busy in Hawaii enjoying life as a newly wed couple free of children and commitments.

"No but really," Elain said as she closed the fridge.

Nesta smiled softly and met Cassian's eye.  They shared a gentle look that had tears springing to Nesta's eyes.

In their five years of marriage, it had just been the two of them. And Nesta had never thought that would change. Not with the way she'd treated her body when she was younger. Not when Cassian too had faced a rough childhood. They'd resigned themselves to a simple life together. And their other family members. Until now.

Cassian leaned down and kissed Nests gently on the crown of her head. 

"We are booze less for about eight more months," Cassian said when Nesta didn't, tears already crawling down her cheeks.

Feyre sat up from her position on the couch and Elain let out a squeal as she dashed back into the living room.

"Are you serious?" Elain hissed in a loud whisper, sparing a look to Micah who slept soundly. "Nesta?"

Nodding fervently, Nests pulled up the camera on her phone where her first scan was and passed it around.

"Sweet little angel," Feyre cooed, holding onto the phone longer than necessary. She kept one hand firm on her own pregnant belly as she stared at the picture. "Oh Nesta, this is amazing."

Nests could only nod as she smiled at her family. Cassian's hand found hers and she realized that in the midst of everything...she was home.

#

tags-I didn’t use my usual list, because I know most of ya’ll tend to read/prefer my Rowaelin/TOG fics more...and then I kinda forgot who prefered being on which lists too because I am the worst. Good news is my inbox is always empty sooooo correct me if I ever mess something up. Love you guys!

@bamchickawowow  @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln 

[viking-raider]

Scaredy Cat! *fluff*

Summary: You’ve been dating Henry for a short while, but things are serious. After being away filming Nomis, Henry’s impatient to see you again, and goes straight over to see you after landing, but he ends up having a problem with your roommate. 

Pairing: Henry Cavill/Reader

Word Count: 1,546

Rating: G - Fluff, Ailurophobia (Fear of Cats), Cotton Candy Goodness, Scaredy Cat!Henry, Puppy!Henry, Childhood Trauma, Hurt/Comfort

Inspiration: This Anon ask (x) The Cat in this story is based off my cat, Midnight.

Author’s Note: Tell me what you think!

Tag List: @jennylovelyheart, @peakygroupie, @jessevans, @rosie-loves-things, @ohjules, @mary-ann84, @omgkatinka, @the-freak-cassie-131, @heelsamizayn, @agniavateira, @cap-barnes, @romyr4, @michelehansel, @katiebriggs004-blog, @badassbaker, @mrsaugustwalker, @authentic-bish-face, @rizeandvibe, @severuined, @supernaturalvikingwhore, @bellastellaluna, @wondersofdreaming, @thisisntmyrightera, @michelle-1185, @winchwm, @royallylazy, @sofiebstar, @worldicreate, @agniavateira, @fantasygirlsuniverse, @witches-of-discovery-a, @xuxszx, @ayamenimthiriel, @keiva1000, @fantasygirlsuniverse, @itsreigns, @constip8merm8, @scorpionchild81, @mylifefallingupthestairs, @onlyhenrys, @luclittlepond, @ellixthea, @lebguardians, @geralt-yennefer-jeskier, @cherrybloomn, @p3nny4urth0ught5, @iloveyouyen, @hollydaisy23, @mcuimagination, @psychosupernatural, @sweetlybigdragonn, @whitewolfandthefox, @moviemonzy, @the-soot-sprite, @hell1129-blog, @trippedmetaldetector, @captaingothgirl1996, @dont8mind8me8eue, @peaky-marvel, @desperate-and-broken21​, @monstersnmoney​, @dancingwendigo​, @redhot-mystacism​, @thereisa8ella​, @black-ninja-blade​, @oddduckthatgirl​, @rosewinx​, @henrythickcavill​

You let out an excited squeal at the knock at your flat door, knowing it was your new boyfriend, coming over to spend some quality time with you, after being gone filming Nomis, in Canada, for several weeks. “Henry.” You beamed, so super excited to see that scruffy face and those wild curls of his, that you bounced into his thick arms, melting into his warm body and burying your nose into his thermal sweater, taking in his amazing and masculine scent.

“I've missed you so much, y/n.” He whispered into your hair, easily picking you up.

The pair of you had met through mutual friends several months before, and really hit it off. You spent a lot of time either at his place or outings, like hiking or music concerts or restaurants. But, Henry was too impatient to see you, and came straight over to your place, after his plane landed, he'd only been inside your flat, once, and that was only for a second.

“I missed you too.” You replied, kissing him. “How was your flight?” You asked, as he set you back down on your feet and came inside, closing the door behind him.

“It was really good.” He smiled, toeing his shoes off. “It's even better to be back home,” he told you, taking a seat on the couch. “getting to see you.” He added, smirking, a wild glint in his blue-brown eyes, and making you blush.

“It's good to see you too, Puppy.” You chuckled, your cheeks warming up and turning bright pink. “Would you like some wine?” You asked, trying to pull yourself together again.

“I'd love some.” Henry nodded, licking his lips and watching you, knowing the effect he always had on you.

“Okay.” You giggled, turning on your bare heels and going into the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of white wine and two glasses. You had just gotten the cork out of the bottle, when you heard the most unmasculine sound, between a squeak of surprise and a yelp of terror. You put the cork down, “Henry?” You called out his name, padding back into the living room and finding him standing on your couch, one leg slung over the back of it, like he was ready to run and looking down at something sitting between the couch and coffee table, a look of pure terror and fear on his surprised face. The object of his fear? Your domestic short-hair, 4kg, tuxedo, cat, Midnight. “Are you okay?” You asked him, biting the inside of your cheek to prevent the amused grin making your lips twitch, and a giggle.

“You,” Henry gulped, eyes glued to the black and white cat. “have a cat.”

You blinked at him, something dawning on you. “Are you allergic to them?” You asked, worried that he would be, you felt dumb for not making sure first.

“No.” Henry replied, his tone short and eyes wide as Midnight moved, to lick his paw. “I was attacked by my Gram's cat, when I was a little kid, and I haven't liked them, since.” He explained, setting his foot down on the floor, at the back side of the couch, and swung his other leg over, putting the couch between him and Midnight.

“Oh.” You answered, still trying not to laugh, but the need to laugh at him melted away, watching a horrified flare in his face and eyes, and the way his massive body jerked, like he'd been hit, seeing Midnight jump up onto his vacated spot on the couch. It made your heart hurt and feel horrid, seeing this big, strong and gentle man, shrink in size, before you, because of the feline. “It's all right, Henry.” You told him, your voice soft and gentle, like you were trying to soothe and frightened child; in a sense you were, you were trying to pacify that little child in Henry, that had been hurt all those years ago. “He won't hurt you, he's a good kitty.” You promised him, using your body as a buffer between the gentle giant and the ferocious cat; you rested your hand on his wrist. “He probably just wanted to meet you, and get a belly rub.”

“Then, gnaw off my hand.” Henry huffed, eyeballing Midnight with a look of concern and accusation, of his implied maiming.

“No.” That you did chuckle at, squeezing his hand. “He's the cat version of Kal.” You laughed.

“Don't insult my dog, like that.” Henry said, looking down at you, clearly offended by the comparison.

You laughed again, shaking your head at him, this man with arms as thick as your body and towered over you, like a mountain. “Here, sit.” You tugged on his arm and pointed to the floor. “Trust me.” You said, softly, when he looked down at you, dubious.

“If he bites me, I'm biting you.” Henry commented, sitting down.

“Don't threaten me with a good time, Henry Cavill.” You giggled, sitting down between his long legs and made a hissing noise, getting Midnight's attention. You patted Henry's thick thighs as he jerked, hearing Midnight's inquisitive meows and as he jumped up on the back of the couch, perching there for a moment, before smoothly landing on his paws between your and Henry's legs. “Who's my good fur baby?” You cooed at Midnight, making him meow again and rub up against your legs and body.

You scratched Midnight's head, moving your fingers down his neck, over his arching back to scratch his butt. “See? Good Kitty.” You smiled back at Henry, still using your body as a sort of shield for Henry's nerves.

“Your kitty, that's why. He likes you.” Henry said, his hands gripping your hips and pulling you closer to him, trying to hide himself behind you, peeking at Midnight from around your head.

“That's a good point.” You nodded, crossing your legs, knowing Midnight would climb into your lap and lay down, which he did; purring, like a jet engine. “But, I know, something else about him, that you don't.”

“He's secretly on that top five, most wanted list, for cat related murders.” Henry deadpanned, his face blank with seriousness.

“No.” You laughed, shaking your head at him. “He's got nickname in my flat building, T.C, Totally Cool, because he's super chill.” You reached back, wrapping your hand around Henry's wrist and pried his hand off your hip, chuckling has his long fingers twisted in the waistband of your sweats. You untangled his fingers from the fabric and carefully rested his big hand on Midnight's back, feeling his arm strain and tense, twitching against your palm as his rested on Midnight's soft black fur. “See, he's only purring louder. That's a good thing, they only purr, when they're happy.” You smiled back at him, still seeing his very horrified face, but his eyes were slowly losing that life-long fear. “and, you still have your hand, too!” You chuckled, resting back against his chest as he, very, slowly pet Midnight.

“Yeah.” Henry smiled, relaxing and finding he liked your cat. “So, how long have you had him?” He asked, looking at you.

“He turned eleven, in January.” You told him, turning your head and kissing his scruffy jawline. “I got him from a shelter, when he was three.” You explained to him.

“That's a long time.” Henry remarked, smiling at you, then gasp, his body and hand jerking away. “What the fuck.” He snapped, looking at his hand, for a bite mark, and you giggled at him, patting his cheek and kissing the other one.

“He licked you, you silly Puppy.” You informed him, gently taking his licked hand in yours and rubbing your thumb over the teeny bit of saliva, on the top of his hand. “He likes you. He only licks the people he likes, and approves of.” You explained, patting Midnight on the head.

“Oh, so, he'd have bitten me, if he didn't like, and approve, of me?” Henry frowned, staring at his licked hand.

“No, Hen. He would have just ignored you.” You snorted, shaking your head at him. “But, he licked you, so, you passed the Midnight Test.”

“It felt so weird.” He replied, relaxing again. “Like, sand paper.”

“Cat tongues are rough, like that.” You told him, making a kissy face at your cat. “Their tongues are like, built-in, brushes, for when they clean themselves.” You elaborated, letting Midnight lick your hand, in example. “It doesn't hurt, it just feels really strange. Especially, if you're only use to licks from a doggo, like Kal.” You grinned, nuzzling Henry's neck.

“That's not so bad.” He smiled, resting his cheek against your hair, and holding his hand close to Midnight's face; which made you smile and get butterflies in your stomach, and let him lick the top of his hand, chuckling at the feel of it.

“So, you cool with cats now?” You asked, looking up at him.

“I'm cool with your cat.” Henry replied, scratching Midnight between the ears. “I'm still a scaredy cat with other ones.” He chuckled, kissing you on the lips.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

« Before we come to these difficult matters, I must back-track and say a little about the origin of the idea of sexual selection. It began, like so much else in this field, with Charles Darwin. Darwin, although he laid his main stress on survival and the struggle for existence, recognized that existence and survival were only means to an end. That end was reproduction. A pheasant may live to a ripe old age, but if it does not reproduce it will not pass its attributes on. Selection will favour qualities that make an animal successful at reproducing, and survival is only part of the battle to reproduce. In other parts of the battle, success goes to those that are most attractive to the opposite sex. 

Darwin saw that, if a male pheasant or peacock or bird of paradise buys sexual attractiveness, even at the cost of its own life, it may still pass on its sexually attractive qualities through highly successful procreation before its death. He realized that the fan of a peacock must be a handicap to its possessor as far as survival is concerned, and he suggested that this was more than outweighed by the increased sexual attractiveness that it gave the male. With his fondness for the analogy with domestication, Darwin compared the hen to a human breeder directing the course of evolution of domestic animals along the lines of aesthetic whims. [...] Darwin simply accepted female whims as given. Their existence was an axiom of his theory of sexual selection, a prior assumption rather than something to be explained in its own right. Partly for this reason his theory of sexual selection fell into disrepute, until it was rescued by Fisher in 1930. Unfortunately, many biologists either ignored or misunderstood Fisher. The objection raised by Julian Huxley and others was that female whims were not legitimate foundations for a truly scientific theory. But Fisher rescued the theory of sexual selection, by treating female preference as a legitimate object of natural selection in its own right, no less than male tails. Female preference is a manifestation of the female nervous system. The female nervous system develops under the influence of her genes, and its attributes are therefore likely to have been influenced by selection over past generations. [...]

When we are discussing difficult theoretical ideas, it is often a good idea to keep in mind a particular example from the real world. I shall use the tail of the African long-tailed widow bird as an example. [...] The male long-tailed Widow bird is a slender black bird with orange shoulder flashes, about the size of an English sparrow except that the main tail feathers, in the breeding season, can be 18 inches long. It is often to be seen performing its spectacular display flight over the grasslands of Africa, wheeling and looping the loop, like an aeroplane with a long advertising streamer. Not surprisingly it can be grounded in wet weather. Even a dry tail that long must be a burdensome load to carry around. We are interested in explaining the evolution of the long tail, which we conjecture has been an explosive evolutionary process. Our starting point, therefore, is an ancestral bird without a long tail. Think of the ancestral tail as about 3 inches long, about a sixth the length of the modern breeding male's tail. The evolutionary change that we are trying to explain is a sixfold increase in tail length. 

It is an obvious fact that, when we measure almost anything about animals, although most members of a species are fairly close to the average, some individuals are a little above average, while others are below average. We can be sure that there was a range of tail lengths in the ancestral widow bird, some being longer and some being shorter than the average of 3 inches. It is safe to assume that tail length would have been governed by a large number of genes, each one of small effect, their effects adding up, together with the effects of diet and other environmental variables, to make the actual tail length of an individual. Large numbers of genes whose effects add up are called polygenes. Most measures of ourselves, for instance our height and weight, are affected by large numbers of polygenes. The mathematical model of sexual selection that I am following most closely, that of Russell Lande, is a model of polygenes. Now we must turn our attention to females, and how they choose their mates. [...] So, having accepted the assumption that females do the choosing, we next take the crucial step that Fisher took in confounding Darwin's critics. Instead of simply agreeing that females have whims, we regard female preference as a genetically influenced variable just like any other. Female preference is a quantitative variable, and we can assume that it is under the control of polygenes in just the same kind of way as male tail length itself. These polygenes may act on any of a wide variety of parts of the female's brain, or even on her eyes; on anything that has the effect of altering the female's preference. Female preference doubtless takes account of many parts of a male, the colour of his shoulder patch, the shape of his beak, and so on; but we happen to be interested, here, in the evolution of male tail length, and hence we are interested in female preferences for male tails of different length. We can therefore measure female preference in exactly the same units as we measure male tail length - inches. Polygenes will see to it that there are some females with a liking for longer than average male tails, others with a liking for shorter than average male tails, and others with a liking for tails of about average length. 

Now comes one of the key insights in the whole theory. Although genes for female preference only express themselves in female behaviour, nevertheless they are present in the bodies of males too. And by the same token, genes for male tail length are present in the bodies of females, whether or not they express themselves in females. The idea of genes failing to express themselves is not a difficult one. If a man has genes for a long penis, he is just as likely to pass those genes on to his daughter as to his son. His son may express those genes whereas his daughter, of course, will not, because she doesn't have a penis at all. But if the man eventually gets grandsons, the sons of his daughter may be just as likely to inherit his long penis as the sons of his son. Genes may be carried in a body but not expressed. In the same way. Fisher and Lande assume that genes for female preference are carried in male bodies, even though they are only expressed in female bodies. And genes for male tails are carried in female bodies, even if they are not expressed in females. [...]

This is really a key point in the argument. The rationale for it is as follows. If I am a male with a long tail, my father is more likely than not to have had a long tail too. This is just ordinary heredity. But also, since my father was chosen as a mate by my mother, my mother is more likely than not to have preferred long-tailed males. Therefore, if I have inherited genes for a long tail from my father, I am also likely to have inherited genes for preferring long tails from my mother. [...] The general conclusion is this. Any individual, of either sex, is likely to contain both genes for making males have a certain quality, and genes for making females prefer that same quality, whatever that quality might be. So, the genes for male qualities, and the genes for making females prefer those qualities, will not be randomly shuffled around the population, but will tend to be shuffled around together. [...] These consequences can only be proved mathematically, but it is possible to say in words what they are, and we can try to gain some flavour of the mathematical argument in nonmathematical language. [...] 

It could turn out that the average female preference was exactly the same as the average male tail length. In this case female choice will not be an evolutionary force tending to change male tail length. Or it could turn out that the average female preference was for a tail rather longer than the average tail that actually exists, say 4 inches rather than 3. Leaving open, for the moment, why there might be such a discrepancy, just accept that there is one and ask the next obvious question. Why, if most females prefer males with 4-inch tails, do the majority of males actually have 3-inch tails? Why doesn't the average tail length in the population shift to 4 inches under the influence of female sexual selection? How can there be a discrepancy of 1 inch between the average preferred tail length and the actual average tail length?

The answer is that female taste is not the only kind of selection that bears upon male tail length. Tails have an important job to perform in flight, and a tail that is too long or too short will decrease the efficiency of flight. Moreover, a long tail costs more energy to carry around, and more to make it in the first place. Males with 4-inch tails might well pull the female birds, but the price the males would pay is their less-efficient flight, greater energy costs and greater vulnerability to predators. 

We can express this by saying that there is a utilitarian optimum tail length, which is different from the sexually selected optimum: an ideal tail length from the point of view of ordinary useful criteria; a tail length that is ideal from all points of view apart from attracting females. Should we expect that the actual average tail length of males, 3 inches in our hypothetical example, will be the same as the utilitarian optimum? No, we should expect the utilitarian optimum to be less, say 2 inches. The reason is that the actual average tail length of 3 inches is the result of a compromise between utilitarian selection tending to make tails shorter, and sexual selection tending to make them longer. We may surmise that, if there were no need to attract females, average tail length would shrink towards 2 inches. If there were no need to worry about flying efficiency and energy costs, average tail length would shoot out towards 4 inches. The actual average of 3 inches is a compromise. 

We left on one side the question of why females might agree in preferring a tail that departed from the utilitarian optimum. At first sight the very idea seems silly. Fashion-conscious females, with a taste for tails that are longer than they should be on good design criteria, are going to have poorly designed, inefficient, clumsily flying sons. Any mutant female who happened to have an unfashionable taste for shorter-tailed males, in particular a mutant female whose taste in tails happened to coincide with the utilitarian optimum, would produce efficient sons, well designed for flying, who would surely outcompete the sons of her more fashion-conscious rivals. Ah, but here is the rub. It is implicit in my metaphor of 'fashion'. The mutant female's sons may be efficient flyers, but they are not seen as attractive by the majority of females in the population. They will attract only minority females, fashion-defying females, and minority females, by definition, are harder to find than majority females, for the simple reason that they are thinner on the ground. In a society where only one in six males mates at all and the fortunate males have large harems, pandering to the majority tastes of females will have enormous benefits, benefits that are well capable of outweighing the utilitarian costs in energy and' flight efficiency. 

But even so, the reader may complain, the whole argument is based upon an arbitrary assumption. Given that most females prefer nonutilitarian long tails, the reader will admit, everything else follows. But why did this majority female taste come about in the first place? Why didn't the majority of females prefer tails that are smaller than the utilitarian optimum, or exactly the same length as the utilitarian optimum? Why shouldn't fashion coincide with utility? The answer is that any of these things might have happened, and in many species it probably did. My hypothetical case of females preferring long tails was, indeed arbitrary. But whatever the majority female taste had happened to be, and no matter how arbitrary, there would have been a tendency for that majority to be maintained by selection or even, under some conditions, actually increased — exaggerated. [...]

The key to the argument lies in the point we established earlier about 'linkage disequilibrium', the 'togetherness' of genes for tails of a given length - any length - and corresponding genes for preferring tails of that self-same length. We can think about the 'togetherness factor' as a measurable number. If the togetherness factor is very high, this means that knowledge about an individual's genes for tail length enables us to predict, with great accuracy, his/her genes for preference, and vice versa. [...] The kind of thing that affects the magnitude of the togetherness factor is the strength of the females' preference - how tolerant they are of what they see as imperfect males; how much of the variation in male tail length is governed by genes as opposed to environmental factors; and so on. If, as a result of all these effects, the togetherness factor - the tightness of binding of genes for tail length and genes for tail-length preference - is very strong, we can deduce the following consequence. 

Every time a male is chosen because of his long tail, not only are genes for long tails being chosen. At the same time, because of the 'togetherness' coupling, genes for preferring long tails are also being chosen. [...] The reason there is any momentum in the evolution towards longer tails is that, whenever a female chooses a male of the type she 'likes', she is, because of the nonrandom association of genes, choosing copies of the very genes that made her do the choosing. So, in the next generation, not only will the males tend to have longer tails, but the females will tend to have a stronger preference for long tails. [...] 

If half the females in the population preferred long-tailed males, and the other half short-tailed males, genes for female choice would still be choosing copies of themselves, but there would be no tendency for one or other tail type to be favoured in general. There might be a tendency for the population to split into two — a long-tailed, long-preferring faction, and a short-tailed, short-preferring faction. But any such two-way split in female 'opinion' is an unstable state of affairs. The moment a majority, however slight, started to accrue among females for one type of preference rather than the other, that majority would be reinforced in subsequent generations. [...] Whenever we have an unstable balance, arbitrary, random beginnings are self-reinforcing. [...]

Remember that selection by females is pulling male tails in one direction, while 'utilitarian' selection is pulling them in the other ('pulling' in the evolutionary sense, of course), the actual average tail length being a compromise between the two pulls. Let us now recognize a quantity called the 'choice discrepancy'. This is the difference between the actual average tail length of males in the population, and the 'ideal' tail length that the average female in the population would really prefer. [...] 

In other words, a choice discrepancy of zero means that evolutionary change comes to a halt because the two opposite kinds of selection exactly cancel each other out. Obviously, the larger the choice discrepancy, the stronger the evolutionary 'pull' exerted by females against the counteracting pull of utilitarian natural selection. What we are interested in is not the absolute value of the choice discrepancy at any particular time; but bow the choice discrepancy changes in successive generations. As a result of a given choice discrepancy, tails get longer, and at the same time (remember that genes for choosing long tails are being selected in concert with genes for having long tails) the females' ideal preferred tail gets longer too. After a generation of this dual selection, both average tail length and average preferred tail length have become longer, but which has increased the most? This is another way of asking what will happen to the choice discrepancy. The choice discrepancy could have stayed the same (if average tail length and average preferred tail length both increased by the same amount). It could have become smaller (if average tail length increased more than preferred tail length did). Or, finally, it could have become larger (if average tail length increased somewhat, but average preferred tail length increased even more). 

You can begin to see that, if the choice discrepancy gets smaller as tails get larger, tail length will evolve towards a stable equilibrium length. But if the choice discrepancy gets larger as tails get larger, future generations should theoretically see tails shooting out at ever increasing speed. [...]

Let us first take the case where the choice discrepancy becomes ever smaller as the generations go by. It will eventually become so small that the pull of female, preference in one direction is exactly balanced by the pull of utilitarian selection in the other. Evolutionary change will then come to a halt, and the system is said to be in a state of equilibrium. The interesting thing Lande proved about this is that, at least under some conditions, there is not just one point of equilibrium, but many (theoretically an infinite number arranged in a straight line on a graph, but there's mathematics for you!). There is not just one balance point but many: for any strength of utilitarian selection pulling in one direction, the strength of female preference evolves in such a way as to reach a point where it balances it exactly. So, if conditions are such that the choice discrepancy tends to become smaller as the generations go by, the population will come to rest at the 'nearest' point of equilibrium. Here utilitarian selection pulling in one direction will be exactly counteracted by female selection pulling in the other, and the tails of the males will stay the same length, regardless of how long that is. [...]

Now we come to consider the other possible case, where preference increases at an even higher rate, per generation, than tail length itself does. [...W]hat is needed now is evidence from real animals. How should we go about looking for such evidence? What methods might be used? A promising approach was made by Malte Andersson, from Sweden. As it happens, he worked on the very bird that I am using here to discuss the theoretical ideas, the long-tailed widow bird, and he studied it in its natural surroundings in Kenya. Andersson's experiments were made possible by a recent advance in technology: superglue. He reasoned as follows. If it is true that the actual tail length of males is a compromise between a utilitarian optimum on the one hand, and what females really want on the other, it should be possible to make a male superattractive by giving him an extra long tail. This is where the superglue came in. I'll describe Andersson's experiment briefly, as it is a neat example of experimental design. Andersson caught 36 male widow birds, and divided them into nine groups of four. Each group of four was treated alike. One member of each group of four (scrupulously chosen at random to avoid any unconscious bias) had his tail feathers trimmed to 14 centimetres (about S'/z inches). The portion removed was stuck, with quick-setting superglue, to the end of the tail of the second member of the group of four. So, the first one had an artificially shortened tail, the second one an artificially lengthened tail. The third bird was left with his tail untouched, for comparison. The fourth bird was also left with his tail the same length, but it wasn't untouched. Instead, the ends of the feathers were cut off  and then glued back on again. This might seem a pointless exercise, but it is a good example of how careful you have to be in designing experiments. It could have been that the fact of having his tail feathers manipulated, or the fact of being caught and handled by a human, affected a bird, rather than the actual change in length itself. Group 4 was a 'control' for such effects. The idea was to compare the mating success of each bird with its differently treated colleagues in its own group of four. After being treated in one of the four ways, every male was allowed to take up its former residence on its own territory. Here it resumed its normal business of trying to attract females into its territory, there to mate, build a nest and lay eggs. The question was, which member of each group of four would have the most success in pulling in females? Andersson measured this, not by literally watching females, but by waiting and then counting the number of nests containing eggs in each male's territory. What he found was that males with artificially elongated tails attracted nearly four times as many females as males with artificially shortened tails. Those with tails of normal, natural length had intermediate success. The results were analysed statistically, in case they had resulted from chance alone. The conclusion was that if attracting females were the only criterion, males would be better off with longer tails than they actually have. In other words, sexual selection is constantly pulling tails (in the evolutionary sense) in the direction of getting longer. The fact that real tails are shorter than females would prefer suggests that there must be some other selection pressure keeping them shorter. This is 'utilitarian' selection. Presumably males with especially long tails are more likely to die than males with average tails. Unfortunately, Andersson did not have time to follow the subsequent fates of his doctored males. If he had, the prediction would have been that the males with extra tail-feathers glued on should, on average, have died younger than normal males, probably because of greater vulnerability to predators. Males with artificially shortened tails, on the other hand, should probably be expected to live longer than normal males. This is because the normal length is supposed to be a compromise between the sexual selection optimum and the utilitarian optimum. Presumably the birds with artificially shortened tails are closer to the utilitarian optimum, and therefore should live longer. There's a lot of supposition in all this, however. If the main utilitarian disadvantage of a long tail turned out to be the economic cost of growing it in the first place, rather than increased dangers of dying after it has grown, males who are handed an extra-long tail on a plate, as a free gift from Andersson, would not be expected to die particularly young as a result. »

— The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, Richard Dawkins