#broody hens are so very shape

[babymillennial]

Leola and her broody buff orpington for the now posted Chapter 6 of Two Roads Walked to the Same End

[smoft-demons]

MC gets turned into a tiefling

I have had an idea!! Imagine,, MC gets into some magic bs, touches a cursed book Satan left lying around or trips over Solomon mid-experiment or some shit, and gets turned (temporarily) into a D&D tiefling. (Not using strict D&D rules, this is mostly just vibes. This setting doesn’t super work with D&D, as we all probably know)

You’ve got horns and a tail! Your teeth are sharper, your pupils are slit like Levi’s, you’ve got some sharpened senses and boosted magic and fire resistance. Maybe you even automatically know infernal now.

All that’s very cool, but it wouldn’t take long for the dumb baby tief shit to start happening. You’re a human, you’re not used to being shaped like this!

I’m imagining Lucifer, going just a bit broody over their human. Lucifer’s hand shooting out to catch your horn before it slams into a door frame. Lucifer sighing exasperatedly, suppressing laughter with all his willpower as you get tangled up in fabric as you try to put a hoodie on, because you’re not used to making normal clothes work properly with horns. He’d help you sort it out. He’d fuss over you like the mother hen he’d never admit he is.

Then Mammon, outright laughing at you when you step on your own tail or close a door on it—laughing at you, but still not hesitating for a moment to help. Tending to your injuries, checking you over and reassuring you without missing a beat. Being the very good (and a bit annoying) big brother that he is. He’s had lots of practise at this—5 little brothers worth of practice. Your tail lashing in agitation if Mammon doesn’t quit making fun of you, and Mammon softening, because that’s such baby Satan behaviour and he can’t help but melt about it.

Your body language mirroring Levi’s even more than before, and Levi sometimes having to turn around and stuff his fist into his mouth so he doesn’t scream about how endearing that is. Levi, adjusting the way your headphones sit on your head to accommodate for the new horns. You and Levi watching an anime together, both your pupils blown wide open in excitement. Your tails are swooshing happily in sync. (Beel was coming to collect you two for a snack run, but he just HAS to film this)

Beel, giving you satisfying stuff to bite, listening patiently as you screw up speaking in a new way, because your teeth are suddenly longer and sharper. He’d be reassuring and non-judgemental about that learning curve. About all the times you’d inevitably end up cutting your own lip or tongue on those new sharp teeth, too. It’s mildly embarrassing, but he would remain chill. He’s nice like that.

Asmo would help you maintain your new horns. He’d have all the products needed to keep them as pretty as possible. He’d want to take over styling your hair (because you can’t do it the same as usual now! There are horns in the way!) at first, out of both novelty and caring for you, and then he’d teach you how to do it yourself. He’ll still wanna do it for you sometimes though. You know Asmo, he can’t resist spoiling his MC. He’d be one to fuss over minor injuries… but he’d ALSO be one to want to test your new (slightly) increased resilience with products that were just a little too strong for you as a human. Like, a face mask with fire salamander ingredients that WOULD burn a human’s skin, but not a demon’s. Someone would have to step in to remind him that there still might be risk. Tiefling =/= high demon lord!

I imagine Asmo probably gossips with Mammon and Satan in infernal, about whoever they don’t like from RAD or wherever. I imagine the twins probably use infernal together too, just for minor references and things that are not worth the time to explain to you. I imagine they’d all be in the habit of using it for things they don’t want you to hear, like if they’re planing to surprise you. Imagine the surprise for all of them when they comment among themselves in infernal and suddenly their human (who is shaped like a tiefling) replies!

Satan would, upon learning that you know infernal now, make you read every untranslated story he has that he thinks you’d like. He’d get excited about experimenting with your boosted magic. He’d understand when you lose control, like if you hurt yourself while cooking and then instinctively react with hellish rebuke, setting the whole stove on fire by accident. He gets it! Imagine you and him doing the synchronized tail swoosh too.

Belphie would put pool noodles on your horns like a baby goat so they don’t accidentally stab him. Again. Belphie would tangle his tail up with yours, maybe to be annoying, maybe to be affectionate. Who knows with him tbh, it’s probably both. Belphie would be one to make fun of you for getting stuff tangled up in your horns, or stepping on your own tail, dumb baby tief stuff like that. He’s used to being the weakest, babiest demon in that house! But, since it’s you, he’d probably find some enjoyment in getting to baby (and make fun of) a younger, smaller demon (or rather, human newly shaped like a demon) in the family. Just because it’s you, I imagine he’d enjoy taking the role of older sibling for once. Just because it’s you.

(Should I make a proper headcanons/oneshot post about this?)

[genby-enby]

Chicken

Written for @femslash-friday-prompts​‘ 5/21 prompt.

AO3 Link

@genby-writes​ (My writing blog where I only reblog my latest writing.)

Copyright genby-enby 2022. All rights reserved.

I woke that morning to find Lady Selene had already left the room. Her bed was neatly made; the sheets cool to the touch. I fought down my initial panic by reminding myself she was unlikely to come to harm here.

We were visiting a town so small they didn't even have an inn. Instead, the mayor and her husband had welcomed us into their home for the duration of our stay. Lady Selene had most likely made her way to the dining room and hadn't wanted to wake me.

Grumbling to myself about unnecessary courtesies, I dressed before making my way to the dining room. Lady Selene was nowhere to be found, but the mayor's husband was enjoying a mug of tea at the table. He told me he thought my lady had taken her breakfast in the back garden. I thanked him and made my way outside.

I heard quiet laughter as soon as I opened the backdoor. Following the sound, I found my lady near the chicken coop. The mayor's son, Mathieu, sat next to her. He pointed to one of the chickens – a beautiful, speckled hen – in the yard and seemed to be instructing Lady Selene.

"Let her come to you, your ladyship," he said as I approached. "She loves to be pet but she'll spook if you try to grab her."

Lady Selene sat with her skirts (a lovely teal color that day) pooled around her. She had a determined look about her – not dissimilar to the way she held herself while working on difficult paperwork. I stood back a few paces, not wanting to interrupt.

With a bit of coaxing, the hen stepped within Lady Selene's reach. She held out a delicate hand to pet over the hen's feathers. The hen preened under the attention.

"We call her Mistress," Mathieu told her. "She's the one who keeps the others in line."

Mistress, having decided Lady Selene was an acceptable presence, hopped into her lap. She made herself comfortable and Lady Selene soon resumed her petting.

"Enjoying yourself, my lady?" I called as I continued my approach.

Mathieu jumped and spun around, clearly startled. Lady Selene startled as well but hardly flinched. It was unlikely Mathieu had noticed considering Mistress hadn't been disturbed at all. My lady looked over her shoulder at me with a bemused smile.

"Very much so," she answered, glibly. "I've never seen chickens up close and Mathieu was kind enough to teach me about them."

I glanced over to find Mathieu stiff as a board. He seemed to think he was in some sort of trouble. Amused, I offered him a reassuring smile.

"Thank you for assisting Lady Selene." I gave him a shallow bow. "She can be quite the handful."

Lady Selene scoffed lightly, taking no offense to my teasing.

"It was no trouble at all," Mathieu stammered. "In fact, it was my pleasure."

My smile grew at his sincerity. He was cute with a boyish charm to him. I hoped he'd never outgrow that charm.

I crouched next to my lady to take a seat between them. When I reached out to scratch under Mistress's chin, Mathieu finally relaxed.

"What do you think of them, my lady?" I asked.

She smiled fondly at Mistress. "They're quite cute."

A loud squawk drew our attention to the other chickens in the yard. Two hens had found something in the dirt and were play fighting over it. They exchanged a few harmless pecks before one strutted off, having decided the whole affair was beneath her. The hen's head bobbed with each step and Lady Selene stifled a giggle.

"They're rather silly, too," she added.

"You should see them when they're broody," Mathieu piped up. "Just last spring, Mistress went around stealing eggs from the other hens for her own nest. When the chicks hatched and her brood ended, we found she'd also pulled an egg-shaped rock into her nest."

Lady Selene laughed, her face lighting up. Mistress looked up at her with what I thought must have been offense.

"We don't mean to tease," she assured the hen. "Though, you have to admit, it is a funny story."

Mistress hopped off Lady Selene's lap as if she’d been insulted. She shook out her feathers and strutted away.

"You've gone and done it now, my lady," I teased.

She huffed, brushing feathers off of her skirts. I stood and offered her a hand to help her to her feet.

Accepting, she said, "A lady of her position should be able to take some harmless teasing."

I grinned.

Once Lady Selene was on her feet, Mathieu scrambled to follow our lead. We began to make our way back to the house.

"Please remind me to write to the groundskeeper, Brigid," Lady Selene said. "I'd like to request a chicken coop for the estate."

"Of course, my lady. Caught your fancy, have they?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"There's an endearing quality to them," she admitted. It was clear to me she'd fallen in love with the creatures.

"I'll see that it's done."

Taking hold of Lady Selene's arm, I halted our progress before we reached the house.

"Mathieu, please go ahead of us and have a fresh pot of tea made." My request was a politely phrased order and Mathieu, thankfully, took it as such despite my lack of authority over him. He made a hasty retreat.

As soon as the door closed, Lady Selene took my hand in hers. Her expression softened.

"I'm sorry I worried you, Brigid. You were up quite late last night. I didn't want to disturb your rest."

"Waking up to you is hardly a disturbance." The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I blushed furiously but refused to take it back.

Lady Selene smiled, lifting a hand to my red hot cheek.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said.

I nodded, looking around for a change in subject. My eyes landed on a small, white feather caught in Lady Selene's dark hair. I plucked it and held it up for her inspection. She gaped for a moment before laughing.

"I must look a right mess after playing with those chickens."

I caught her hand before she could start combing her fingers through her hair to look for more. She flustered, hating the idea of being disheveled for even a moment longer. Bowing my head, I brushed a kiss across her knuckles.

"That was the only one, my lady," I assured her. "No need to worry."

Lady Selene relaxed.

"Of course not. I need not ever worry when I'm with you."

Glancing up, I was caught by her beatific smile. I knew I must have looked like a lovestruck fool as I gazed back at her, but there was nothing I could have done about it. My lady, Selene, was often more lovely than I could bear.

I turned, afraid of what I might do if we were alone for even another instant. "We better get back before the tea gets cold."

Lady Selene went along with my gentle tugging, smiling all the while.

[wellthatschaotic]

uhh chicken infodump for distraction purposes

they were domesticated from red junglefowl (mixed with a bit of other junglefowl) (also, if you have the energy, look up red junglefowl hens vs brown leghorn hens. they look super similar) uhhh many centuries ago, at first mostly for entertainment (bleh) but later for eggs & meat as well, although that didn't happen until the 1600s(? please fact-check me on that)

lots of chicken breeds can lay over 300 eggs per year (like leghorns, for example) and others can lay 100 or less (like silkies). their egg colors are genetic, with the four colors being white, brown, blue, and green. green eggs are a combination of a blue egg layer and a brown egg layer, and that also applies for stuff like pale blue, light brown, brownish green, basically every color you can think of

the sultan chicken breed was originally lost, but it was recreated by pulling in traits from other breeds (feathered feet, crest, beard & muff, and a thing called "vulture hocks" which are like if stiff, long feathers protruded from their mid-leg joint behind them)

silkies are known for going broody. they also have a gene which makes their feathers not stick to themselves and therefore all of their feathers are downy, and this trait can be found in other breeds, although i can only think of silked seramas right now.

and speaking of seramas, they hold themselves very upright. i recommend looking up pictures of them, they stand like they've been told they need to be V shaped.

it takes about a month for an egg to develop fully, and for this reason that's usually how long broody chickens will brood, but they can often go for longer, 2 or 3 months or even until they are forcibly prevented from brooding

polish crested chickens need their "bangs" (the feathers on the front of their crest) trimmed so they can see. chickens can fly pretty well, one of our heaviest birds (maybe like 6 pounds?) regularly flies up on people if she thinks there's treats in it for her, and our polish laced hen likes to sleep twelve or fifteen feet off the ground in a tree (she starts off like seven feet up, on top of the coop, but still). chickens are amazing ridiculous creatures and i love them

ok i had to look up seramas and like

the POISE. the POWER

absolute models

[urban-homesteading]

Making Money from a Mini Farm: A Series

Raising hatchlings

When faced with the idea of starting your flock, the idea of having to buy an incubator and start from scratch can be quiet daunting.  That’s why most people will buy already hatched chicks.  You can help by for this market by completing some simple steps.

1) Pick your species, breed, and color

Just like selling eggs, you’re going to need a pure bred flock to make any money.  But you don’t have to limit yourself to one flock of chickens and call it a day.  Since species won’t interbreed, you can have chickens, guinea fowl, peafowl, and ducks while maintaining purebred fowl.  Be warned though, some fowl can carry parasites that are fine in that species, but deadly in another.  So while chickens can carry blackhead without harm to them, this parasite is deadly to peafowl and turkey.  So deworming is of extra importance in mixed flocks. Note: It is possible for a guniea hen to be breed by a rooster or peacock.  The eggs are usually sterile and if hatched, the chicks rarely live to adulthood.  However, it is possible.

2) How to know what to choose

Ask local feed stores what kind of breeds they will be selling.  Chain stores will often not be able to buy from you, but smaller stores will.

Create a poll in a local Facebook group and ask which breed people would buy/are looking to buy right now

Check Craigslist to selling.  You don’t want to flood the market, but if you see a few posts for one breed and the prices are consistently high, that means there is demand for that breed

Join local or online poultry groups

Attend poultry auctions or swaps

Make sure to stay away from fad breeds. These are just that, a fad, and will not usually be the desired breed the next year.  An example of that this year (2021) is the ayam cemani.  It is also advisable for you to stay away from chicken breeds that can be sexed at hatching.  Although the hen chicks will command a higher price than straight run (non sexed) chicks, you will be stuck with the male chicks.  This leaves you the option of raising them to adulthood and selling mature roosters (a noisy and labor intensive endeavor), or raising the roosters to 16-20 weeks old before taking them to a butcher or slaughtering them yourself.

An important note to consider: good quality stock will not come from hatcheries or catalogs. If you truly want to raise a desired and sought-out flock, be willing to pay for quality stock to begin with. Find breeders sanctioned by the ABA and APA at poultry shows or online.

3) Incubating

There are two basic ways to incubate.  One, you collect the eggs and incubate them in a machine.  Two, you let  the hens incubate them.  Different breeds have different tendencies to sit on eggs and hatch them.  This is called broodiness.  Some species, like the Rhode Island Red, will very rarely set on eggs, while others, like the Silkie, are so broody that they hatch eggs from different species. When a hen goes broody, she will sit on the eggs she has gathered for at least four weeks.  During this time, she will only leave to eat, drink, and eliminate.  She will peck at others who attempt to disturb her and will not lay any further eggs. For you, this means no keeping track of turning eggs or keeping the humidity perfect.  The downside is that this results in very few chicks each year as a flock of five hens will not produce more than 64 chicks at the most.  It is possible to put eggs from different species under very broody hens who will raise them as their own.  

So who is most likely to go broody?

Guinea hens:  Guineas are seasonal layers, and typically in most areas a hen can brood a clutch in the spring, raise them up until they can survive on their own, then breed again and start laying and hatch out one more clutch later in the year. Some hens manage three broods per year. A hen will normally lay 20-30 eggs at a time then go broody and if the eggs are taken or if she abandons the nest after going broody on it for a while for some reason (usually predators) she'll usually take a week or two to start laying again, and give it another try. If you don't let your hens go broody you can collect anywhere from 150-200 eggs per year.

Peafowl:  Pen hens will not breed until two years old, and pea cocks will not start until three years old.   Clutch size varies between 4 -12 eggs with 6 being the average. If you remove eggs while the peahen sits on them, she will continue to lay through the whole breeding season. Peahens will lay eggs in about three cycles during the season if you continually pick up the eggs daily. They may lay for a month straight and then stop laying for seven to ten days before starting to lay again. Peahens usually go broody about twice a year.

Ducks:  Very willing to go broody.  Will usually start after they’ve gathered between 8-16 eggs in a clutch. When eggs are removed daily, ducks can lay as many as 200-300 eggs in a year.

Chickens:  So breed dependent that you will have to research your individual breed

Incubating the eggs yourself: Store eggs at 50-60° F as lower and higher temperatures may reduce hatchability. Hatching eggs should not be kept in a refrigerator because the temperature is too low.  Eggs that have cracks, have thin shells, shells with ridges, or are excessively dirty or abnormal in size or shape should not be kept for hatching. Excessively large or small eggs are often not fertile and shouldn’t be set in the incubator.  For best results, hatching eggs should not be stored for more than 10-14 days before they are set. They should be stored in egg cartons with the small end of the egg down and held at a slant and turned twice a day. One simple method of turning the eggs is to prop one end of the carton up on an object at an angle of about 35° and then just shift which end is elevated twice a day to keep the yolk from sticking to the shell and have a malformed chick.

Incubators can range from the simple (you do all the work) to the complex (just pop them in and forget about them).  

4) After the Chicks Hatch

The chick can and should remain in the incubator for about 15-24 hours after hatching.

After 24 hours, the chick should be removed from the incubator and placed in a box with a clip-on light that is a 75-90 watt bulb. It will then need water and feed.  If you are raising multiple species, do not mix them.  Turkeys will easily trample tiny quail chicks. On the first day, they can be given water. An eyedropper can be a useful tool at this point. And then the next few days, the feed can be mixed with the water, and then the food and water can be left out for them to use as they need it.

And now you have a fluffy day-old chick that can be sold!

[stonecoldjerseyfox]

Jersey on my mind (part 35)

”So yeah, consider the mall a no go zone, unless we don’t bring a flamethrower or throw a couple of grenades in there first. It’s infested with walkers.”  

Mila gives herself a moment to breathe and adjusts Juri’s position at her aching hip, feeling slightly sore from her falling into the crowd of walkers. Her attempt to conceal a groan of modest pain doesn’t go unnoticed and Juri hugs his little arms tightly around her neck, in an attempt to comfort her, just as she comforts him when he’s hurt.  

Juri had had a good day; Carol had fixed him breakfast, lunch and snacks and then found a whole pack of new street crayons for him to play with. He’d kept himself busy the whole afternoon drawing. When he saw Mila and Daryl walk down the street, after returning from their eventful day out, he dropped the crayons and scurried up to them as fast as his short legs could carry him and threw himself into Mila’s arms. 

”Moya lyubov.” Mila exclaimed joyously and dug her nose into his hair. An immediate sensation of calm wrapped around her motherly heart when she felt him close and could inhale the scent of the soft skin in his neck. Was it even possible to be that soft? ”Moy malenkiy malchik.” She cooed. “My little boy.”

Juri pulled away and looked her in the eyes, let his crayon stained fingers run over her face, over her ears into her hair. He squished his nose towards hers and mimed ‘missed you’. Then he turned his small sunny face to Daryl, reached out his hand to invite him into the ‘welcome back’-hugging committee.

“Hey kiddo.” 

Slightly awkwardly Daryl took Juri’s small hand into his big, dirty, and squeezed it, on which Juri placed his entire weight on Daryl’s big arm, giggling happily as Daryl lifted him from the ground. With a cheeky smile Juri clung like a little monkey to his forearm before he reached for Mila again.

With Juri clasping her neck like a boa constrictor, Mila got up from the ground, with an internal cry of distress; there and then, when the adrenaline rush subsided, she began to feel the effects of the drop throughout her body. She felt sore, but bull-headed as she was, she refused to admit it out loudly. Over her dead body! She had to deal with the self-inspection later, inspecting the outcome of their expedition in solitude, locked inside the bathroom while taking an invigorating shower. 

While Juri smoldered her with affection, pointing out his crayon drawings of a blue smiling sun with freckles, his stuffed animals sunbathing and a couple of random shapes, apparently symbolizing different sorts of cars, Rick and Michonne came out of the house. From over the construction site of the wall, Aaron came running as well and joined them around Juri’s joyful street art. Daryl began to tell about the scouting, the unknown group of men who looted the gun shop and the mall, now infested with walkers. Every now and then while they were talking, Juri placed small light kisses on Mila’s neck, and when they came to the part, told in an as easy way as possible, where Daryl dropped her an entire floor into a hoard of walkers, Juri squeezed her neck to the point of where she thought he would hug her to unconsciousness.

“The looters who plundered the arms deal is probably a bigger problem.” She continues and looks at Daryl, who nods. Juri begins to twist and turn in her arm and Mila puts him down on the ground. “You never know.”

Rick sighs, puts his hands on his tight hips and puts weight on his right leg; proper displeased sheriff style.  

“What do you think?” He looks at Daryl. 

“Given the amount of ammunition-” Daryl raises his eyebrows slightly. “One doesn’t need that much ammunition unless there’s a threat. Or if they’re the threat.” 

Mila grins a little at his words, literally borrowed from herself as they sat hiding in the bushes earlier. 

“Okay-” Rick’s eyes wander around the gathered group as he contemplates Daryl’s words. “Gotta stay watchful from now on. If there’s another group out there, heavily armed, we’d better lie low.” The voice is calm but his eyes express something else. “We put out extra guards.” He turns his gaze downwards to Mila who has squatted down on the ground next to Juri. He has returned to his chubby street crayons and is in full action to draw a happy tree with red apples. “You sure you’re alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Go to see Denise, just in case.” It’s not an order, but he says it firmly. 

“I’m fine.” Mila emphasises and gets up. “Bit bruised, but I’ll be okay.”

“You’re bleedin’.” The sheriff nods and Mila looks down at her hand, that’s stained with blood. Her hand seems fine but her elbow does actually feel a bit sore. Rick smiles faintly at her and Daryl. “Make sure to patch that up.” 

Then he turns and walks, with swaying cop-hips, towards the construction site at the wall.

“Good to have ya’ back.” Aaron smiles at them, then turns around and scurries after Rick.      

Mila looks at Juri, completely rapt in his crayons and has forgotten that she’s even there; she’ll have to show him the things she got for him later. She then shifts her gaze to Daryl, who gives her a searching look.

“What?” 

”Come on, ya’ need to be patched up.” He says. 

”It’s a flesh wound.” Mila replies snappy. 

”Those can get pretty nasty.” Michonne shrugs with an amused grin. “You heard the sheriff.”

“Thought you were the sheriff in your relationship?” Mila replies surly.

“Well then you should really listen to my advice.” The athletic woman in front of her winks at her. “Two against one, Jersey. Three, if Dixon’s on our side.” 

“Bozhe moy, since when did you two turn all mother hen on me?” Mila rolls her eyes at her fierce friend and her beloved, broody archer. Then her eyes wander to the crossed swords sticking out from behind Michonne’s back. “Going somewhere?”

“A run.” Michonne shakes her head with a smile. “You’re not invited.” 

“Fine, I didn't even want to go.”

“Sure.” Michonne gives her a soft, loving pat on the shoulder before starting to walk toward the gate. “Take care of her, Dixon.” She calls over her shoulder before turning round the corner. 

Mila rolls her eyes and sighs. She’s fine! 

“Hey, you're back!”

From the direction of the small hospital building, Glenn and Maggie come walking towards them, hand in hand, looking very much newly in love.

“How’d it go?” Maggie asks when they’re gathered around Juri’s drawings. “Looks like ya’ been stuck a dryer.”

As quickly and undramatically as possible, Mila recounts what happened during the run once again. But when Maggie and Glenn also say that she really should look over her arm, just in case, she sighs.

“You can’t be serious?” She laughs. “Once again, for the hundredth time, I’m fine.”

From his spot on the ground Juri nods in agreement; with a clever look he signs to her that he always must be examined after he’s fallen, so why should she not do the same? She smiles in response, but inside her head Mila curses herself for having brought up such a smart little person, too smart sometimes and absolutely way more clever than herself at that age. Who the heck was that guy she had a one night stand with, Einstein? However, that decides the matter.

“We’ll keep him company.” Maggie smiles and squats next to Juri. “Right?”

Juri nods with a grin and Glenn sits down at his other side, picks up a crayon and asks for instructions for what he should draw. Juri, excited by all the attention he’ll be smoldered with, waves at Mila to ‘go away, mommy’. Right now he wants to be at peace with his babysitters and draw. 

“Hear ya’ kiddo.” Daryl winks at Juri and steers Mila towards the porch, up the stairs and into the house.

The downstairs is empty and quiet, everyone’s out doing their thing. He leads her on, up the stairs and into the bedroom, where Mila sits down onto the bed and Daryl starts to look for something to patch her up with.

“There’s bandaids and stuff in the cabinet.” Mila calls when he starts to rummage around in the bathroom. “Top shelf.”

She stretches out her arm a little and feels a stinging, aching sensation shoot out of  her usually fine elbow. She managed to hit every goddamn nerve it feels like, but at least it doesn’t seem to be broken. Daryl returns with a towel and the first aid kit box, filled with bandages, plasters, scissors and tape and sits down in front of Mila, in the chair she uses as an extra wardrobe.

”Get that off.” Daryl nods at her leather jacket. 

Once again Mila sighs, but does as she’s told; she swears as she pulls her arm out of the jacket, exposing a laceration on her elbow. The skin is cracked and the dried blood has stuck towards the satin lining of the jacket. 

“Gotta clean that up.” Daryl looks around the box. “Some alcohol or somethin’-”

“Under the bed.” Mila says and scratches her nose. “There’s a bottle in there somewhere.” 

Daryl leans forward, his head touches her knees as he puts his hand under the bed. When he sits up again he’s got a bottle of vodka in his hand. It ain’t the first time she has cleaned bruises and wounds with booze, especially vodka; might be an illusion but it somehow feels like they heal faster after a lavish splash of Russian Standard.

”I’m fine.” Mila repeats with emphasis, as Daryl places the towel on his knee and shakes the liquor bottle. “Really.”

”Bite the bullet.” Daryl removes the lid from the bottle. “It’s gonna sting.” He grabs her arm, turns it upwards over the towel and pours the clear liquid over her cracked elbow. Mila flinches and twitches, swears as nasty as she possibly can in both Russian and English. ”Quit squirmin’!” reluctantly Mila quits squirm, jibbers in Russian as reply. ”Well ya don’t want it infected do ya?” Daryl says, almost commanding. ”Hold still, christ.”

Mila lifts her eyebrows. Woha, did he actually order her something? It might be the adrenaline rush, or the fact that they didn’t finish what they started earlier at that chair in the store, but it’s kinda rousing.  

“Fine.” She mutters.

“Sorry.” Daryl murmurs. “Ya’ flunder about like a fish on dry land.” 

“No offense taken.” Mila says, listening with half an ear, while feeling her body temperature increase and her breasts tingles pleasantly. Despite the injured elbow she definitely has to end what they started, pronto, or she might explode!   “Sorry too ‘bout before.” He says. “Droppin’ ya-”

“That wasn’t your fault.” Mila interrupts. “Just- don’t. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

The fact that he’s so terribly caring doesn’t calm her arousement for a second. Daryl wipes the wound with a piece of bandage, then tosses it on the floor before he starts to wrap her elbow tightly with the rest of the bandage. 

”There. As new.” He throws the towel into the bathroom. “It ain’t broken at least.”

”Ten points in nursing.” Mila looks at the bandaging and the corners of Daryl’s mouth turns upwards slightly, in a so called smile. 

He stands up, ready to put away the first aid kit, but he pauses when he meets Mila’s eyes. 

“What?” 

”How long we got before they’ll look for us?” Light as a feather, Mila lets her fingers caress the crotch of his pants. ”Glenn and Maggie-”' Judging by the impressive effect her light touch has, she comes to the conclusion that he didn’t feel completely done over at the mall either. She bites her lower lip, smiles. ”You heard what they said. Take good care of me.”

He groans faintly, but doesn’t seem entirely sure about her suggestion, throwing glances towards the window before seemingly making his mind up. Softly he shuts the bedroom door, before shifting all his attention at her. He drops the first aid kit on the bedside table, then digs his hand into her tousled hair, bends down and gently, hesitating, presses his tongue into her mouth. Mila can’t evade to let out a moan as she feels his twirling tongue softly exploring hers and pulls him closer. Without breaking the kiss Daryl puts a strong arm around her waist, lifts her from the bed and sinks down on it himself. Gently he backs her up towards the bed frame, continues to explore her body with his free hand as she starts unbuttoning his shirt. 

“What about that dress?” He groans.

”You really think we have time for that now?” Mila pants with a smile through their frantic kissing, wishing more than anything that they’d had at least an hour for themselves.  

“Shh.” Daryl says husky through their kissing. “We’re wastin’ time.”

If he says so. Mila breaks the kiss by the time she’s done with the worn shirt buttons and rips the dark fabric apart, while Daryl lifts her t-shirt and bra over her head, exposing her breasts. His lips travel down to her neck and they once again fall down onto the bed. As their bodies collide she feels his erection banging through the pants for attention. They start a frenzy undressing process, ripping clothes from each other while unbuttoning and unzipping pants. Cargos and jeans are thrown on the floor as well as a pair of lace underwear. Despite being horny to the point of not feeling anything else than that, Mila still notices, when she lies there all naked, that she’s more bruised than she thought. She was maybe lucky after all. 

”That’s five.” While placing his hand between her legs, Daryl starts to fondle her, biting her lower lip. 

”Thought you didn’t keep time.” Mila teases and lets out a moan when the touch of his hand sends shivers from the tip of her toes to the top of her head. 

He pauses, holds himself up with the elbow and looks at her as he nudges his knee in-between her legs. Mila eagerly pulls him towards her, expresses with all of her being that she needs him now, badly. He adjusts himself and smoothly enters her body. With a moan, Mila closes her eyes and bends her head backward to the headboard as he reaches her core. She lifts her leg, wraps it around him, allowing him to reach even deeper as she pushes him closer.

“Oh shi- yes!” She exhales in something between a moan and an ecstatic laugh. 

Daryl digs his feet down the soft bedspread and continues, deep and determined, to move his hips, thrusting into her; his eyes are fixated at hers, hazy with pleasure, growing more desperate for each second it seems. He puts his hand on her left shoulder, uses it as a leverage to get even deeper.

”Oh my god” Mila gasps and stretches her neck backwards while fumbling with her right hand, doesn’t know what to hold on to, until she grabs a hold of the sheet. ”Oh shit!” 

This is way better than doin’ it on a lousy chair in an abandoned, almost pitch black mall, she manages to think in between the thrusts that make her eyes roll back in her head with pleasure. With a firm grip round her thigh, not decreasing the pace, Daryl lowers his head, rests his forehead against hers. 

“I love ya’” He pants husky in a low voice. “I fuckin’ love ya’”. 

The impact of words; She feels a rush of delight flow throughout her entire body, her pussy contracts and she closes her eyes, clings to the sheets to the point of her knuckles turning white as she reaches the peak. He releases himself into her with a loud groan before burying his face into her neck with a last deep thrust. 

”Shhh-” Mila hushes, very vaguely and not very convincing; her voice being slightly louder than a whisper and it breaks as Daryl pushes his hips into her again, really cementing himself into her core.

Daryl gets up on his elbows and looks down at her, the long brown bangs wet with sweat. 

”Ya’ think you’re the one to hush?” He pants and swallows.

Before Mila answers, they both turn their heads to the left, as the door knob rattles and is turned. The door opens and Glenn’s face turns from its usually relaxed state to pale as the bed sheet and his eyes widens to double their size.  

“What the-” Glenn’s pale face turns red in merely a second. He swears and throws up his hands in front of his face. “Fuck- shit-”

“What the heck’s wrong with ya!” Daryl barks, somewhat pantingly, at Glenn, while Mila covers herself as best as she can, unable to utter a word. “The fuc- get outta here!” He scoffs and waves his arm at Glenn who almost falls backwards as he stumbles out in the corridor again, while searching for the door handle with closed eyes. “Fuckin’ hell!” 

The door slams shut and Mila feels a burst of hysterical laughter build up inside her body, but she does her best not to start laughing; Daryl looks anything but amused. 

“I didn’t see shit, man! I swear!” Glenn calls through the shut door.

“Don’t ya’ fuckin’ knock before opening doors!?” Daryl once again barks, angry to the point of him almost shivering. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Son of a-” 

“Yes- no, I mean yes!”

“Well why the fuck didn’t ya do it ya moron?!”

“I- I…” Glenn clears his throat. “Sorry, man. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah ya’ better be-”  

“We- eh, we’ll set up for dinner over at the wall.” Glenn continues, in an attempt to sound just as usual, only slightly more high pitched. It doesn’t really work. “Some of the others have started to prepare soup...”

Daryl’s about to climb out of bed and, in all his naked sweaty glory, rip the door open and ask Glenn to beat it. But Mila digs her fingers into his strong, tensed arms and prevents him from going anywhere.   

“That sounds- great! Great.” She hollers towards the door, in an attempt to ease the strained situation. “We’re on our way.”

“Ouch! Ya’ have bony sharp fingers.” Daryl exclaims, while hasty walking footsteps on the other side of the door, tattles that Glenn has fled the field, downstairs. “Great!” Daryl sighs. “Just fuckin’ great.”

“I think we did pretty good, loverboy.” Mila grins. “If you’ll excuse, I and the rest of that bottle of vodka have to take a shower.”

[scribefindegil]

not to give you a task so feel free to ignore if it isn't vibing, but i got a wizard whose familiar is a chicken and they are very much like "I Will use this Chicken,,, for Therapy" so what breed (??) of chicken in your opinion holds the most potential for therapeutic rubber ducking with a side order of soft and warbling. jklhgfl okay hope you have a nice day !!

oh! what a fantastic question!!

there are so many chickens that would be good for this (especially since the fact that it is a magically summoned friend gives you a little wiggle room on temperament) but here are some initial Thoughts:

Buff Orpington!

[x]

Big!! Soft!! Cuddly!!! They’re such sweet birds and are one of the most commonly recommended breeds for pet chickens because they’re very gentle and good with kids. They have so much fluff and are good for petting (if your party gets cold, your wizard can slip their hands under their familiar’s wings where it is both very soft and toasty warm!) No picture ever does justice to what a beautiful soft gold color they are in real life. Understanding eyes. 10/10.

Sebright!

[x]

Does your wizard want a familiar that is REALLY TINY so they can cradle it in one hand? A chicken that is kind but also will understand the depths of your anxiety?? A sweet little bird with a high fashion feather pattern (they come in golden-laced too!) Sebrights are bantams so they are much smaller than most chickens, but they are just as full of softness and love! 

Cochin!

[x]

Look at these birds. They’re so fucking round. The epitome of “shaped like a friend.” They have FLUFFY PANTS and the poofiest feathers and they come in a bunch of different colors if your wizard wants to co-ordinate. Also they’re really sweet and friendly! Prone to broodiness, which can be a detriment if you’re looking for a laying hen, but for a familiar it just means that sometimes you get to vent about your problems to the absolute most spherical chicken you will ever meet. Just the best little rage orb. Normal familiars can’t take the Attack action but if anyone messes with you they just might try. Will probably decide you are its baby.

Wyandotte!

[x]

Another large and friendly breed! Don’t have those cochin pants so they’ll have an easier time keeping up with you in difficult terrain. Come in a bunch of different colors. Cold-hardy for those frigid dungeon environments!! Calm dispositions. Also very round and good for cuddling!!

Good luck! I support your wizard and their therapy chicken so very much!!

[feathers-scales-and-tails]

Danish land hen! If you can find enough info on them

I do actually know about these! I’ve been researching breeds from all around the world to make a video, and these are of course Denmark’s lovely breed. This got long I’m sorry, but since info is hard to find on these guys why not take the opportunity?

History:

They’re an old endangered breed, bone remains from an Iron Age ash grove and various scripts suggest they could be almost 2,000 years old! In 1875, the breed was in serious decline due to cross breeding with imported breeds for higher egg production, but breeders began preservation of the pure Danish Land Hens in 1879 and their population began to increase. The Landhønseringen Association (their breed club) was formed in 1878, and the first standard of perfection for this breed was published in 1901. Since then, dedicated enthusiasts have preserved this breed.

Temperament, health, and use:

Danish Land Hens are an active and hardy breed, good foragers, and have a good feed to egg conversion rate. They’re great producers of large white eggs. This breed does go broody and make good mothers, however they’re very seasonal and usually won’t brood until Spring. They’re generally described as a flighty and timid breed, they can fly very well and might take off into trees when startled. An interesting characteristic of this breed is that they’re incredibly disease resistant, and this is why there’s conservation efforts in place to preserve this great heritage bird. Males weigh 2 Kg, while hens weigh 1.75 Kg, making them a lightweight breed similar in size to the Hamburg.

Breed standard:

This is an extract from the Scandinavian Poultry standard describing this breeds standard of perfection.

“Body: roller-shaped and tightly closed.

Head: medium in size.

Face: smooth, free of feathers, down or wrinkles

Eyes: full-bodied and lively, reddish-brown.

Beak: medium-long, powerful and slightly curved

Comb: single upright, almost small. 4-6 well-shaped, slightly posterior pointed teeth. The comb should go well back over the neck and rise from it in the upward direction.

Earlobes: small almond-shaped, smooth and fine, white in colour.

Wattles: barely medium-sized, with fine tissue, broad and beautifully rounded.

Neck: medium-length, towering with a full-length hackle that falls well over the shoulders.

Back: wide, slightly sloping towards the tail.

Saddle: plentiful, medium length, should cover the wingtips.

Tail: quite high, but must not form an angle of more than 60 º. The amount of cover feathers must be abundant and they must be well developed and well curved. Sickle feathers powerful, wide and beautifully curved.

Wings: strongly developed, must be worn well up, but not horizontally, and held close to the body.

Chest: broad and well-rounded.

Thighs: firm and well developed.

Legs: grey, medium length and with fine scales.

Toes: 4 well spread.”

Faults for this breed are listed below:

“too slender spliced ​​body, white in the face on older cocks, completely or predominantly very red in ear discs, yellow or yellowish barrels, lack of size”

They come in the colour varieties brown, white, black, silver duckwing, gold duckwing, and something called ‘gray board’ (gråtavlet) I have been unable to translate correctly.

Here are two standard of perfection paintings, brown and black variety.

There is a rare bantam variety named the Danish Dwarf Land Hen, with cocks weighing 800 g and hens 700 g. They should meet the standard for the large fowl, just scaled down. Here’s the standard drawing for them

All information is from the club website, which is in Danish so requires translating if you’d like to read.

http://danskelandhøns.dk/index.htm

Overall they’re an old, heritage breed which I think is very neat. It’s great to learn how breeds were developed in different countries, and I think it’s important to preserve these important parts of domestic livestock history. Personally? They’re not in simply based on the fact they’re often timid, I prefer birds who like to interact with me, but I do still think they’re a lovely breed and great effort to all the Denmark breeders for preserving them this long.

[matildainmotion]

Rejection, Failures and Fxck Ups – A New, or Very Old, Approach to Loss and Losing

          “It’s okay to make mistakes – that’s how you learn;” “It’s the taking part that counts -the playing, not the winning;” “If you can learn to lose that will be a huge achievement.” I hear myself saying these and similar truisms when my daughter comes last in a race with her impossibly long-legged brother, or breaks a cup, or spills her drink, or when my son’s carefully planned prank goes awry, or the drawing he is trying to do does not come out right. In such moments of acute vulnerability my daughter howls – a cry of deep and terrible anguish, that can go on for a great many minutes after the original loss. I noticed even when she was a baby that falling, for her, was failing, an injury not so much to her body as her soul- as if the ground had deliberately struck her, undermining her upright dignity. My son, on the other hand, does not howl, but rather bares his teeth, makes fists, swings punches at me or anyone else who might have witnessed and therefore in some way contributed to his sense of failure. In both instances, when they weep and wail, gnash teeth - because on a child-scale their circumstances seem serious and awful - I have comforted them and then come out with some version of the above statements. They are trite but I have believed that the basic message – ‘it’s fine to fail’ – was a sound one. At least, that’s what I thought until last week.

           Last Friday I experienced two forms of failure which, on an adult-scale, were really very minor. One was the culmination of a writing competition, run by a literary agency – the prize: mentorship and representation. I had not entered it to win – I had entered it in order to have a focus, a deadline, to practice submitting my fiction, rather than hiding with it in a secret corner. The winners were due to be announced on Friday. Despite being clear my primary motivation for entering was not winning, despite being certain I would not be selected, come Friday morning I was nervous. I was checking Twitter for the announcement and felt a strange mix of repulsion and respect for those on there who were frank enough to tweet, with nail-biting gifs, about their angst, their aspirations, their hope. Hope - Dickinson’s feathered thing but, despite the feathers, the only item not to fly out from Pandora’s box- a quiet, little creature with wondrous and terrible tenacity. On Friday I wanted to get the damn thing out of the box. I wanted it to fly away. I tried hard to shake it loose - it wouldn’t budge. I was feeling hopeful.

           Meanwhile, down the hill, at our allotment, there were some other little things in a box, that did not yet have feathers, only fluff: chicks. I hadn’t been hopeful about the eggs. We had collected them from a faraway farm – in theory they were fertilised but the woman who sold them to us did so for half price because, she said, “It’s late in the season and I can’t be sure. I’ll give you a variety to give you a better chance.” And then, on top of that, our broody hen (the Star Wars-inspired ‘Princess Layer’), at first rejected the pale blue ones that did not look like hers, and only later started sitting on them, so I thought they had probably got too cold and nothing was going to hatch. But Thursday morning, four weeks after she first went broody, sitting day in day out in the dark of the nest box, I lifted up the Princess and lo and behold there was a broken shell, and a tiny, wet, cheeping chick. Friday morning, after checking Twitter, I pedalled down the hill to the hens. Chick number one had fluffed up to full yellow cuteness and been joined by chick number two. Little wings, dark eyes, pale pink claws. I thought that was it, and began to take the other eggs, the pale blue ones, away. But as I lifted an egg, I saw a black spy hole in its shell, and behind the hole – motion - someone inside. I felt small, in awe, as if whoever was within knew things I didn’t, couldn’t. Breath held, heart fast, I put the eggs back. Here was hope in action. An actual hatching - the Easter pinup – the most famous of images for spring, for life returning.

           By Friday evening I had not won the competition and the chick was dead. It had hatched after hours of work – who knew hatching could be so like a human labour in its length and intensity? Yet it had managed, had come out whole -a bold bundle of breath, blood, beak, incontrovertible evidence that whichever came first – chicken or egg – the result was the same: life. But then it had been weaker than the others, who had had a head start, and the broody hen was growing restless – when I came back to check on them before bed, I found it lying, limp, still warm, thin eyelids down, little claws unclenched, half buried in the straw. If I had come earlier, if I had separated it, if I had cleared out the straw…maybe it would have lived.

        I have been very lucky – I have never had a miscarriage or a still birth. This was only a little chick. Nonetheless I felt broken. I tried out the truisms that I have used on my children a thousand times - they did not cut it. Worse than that – they seemed offensive. I wanted to howl like my daughter, and rage like my son. They knew something I didn’t. Just like that chick did. So I gave up trying to teach my children how to lose with grace and decided to consider instead what I might learn from them.

           My son goes from one obsession to the next, as many children do, but he does so with particular, on-the-spectrum intensity. Feb to April was My Little Pony. April to June was Beast Quest. He is now onto the Greek myths. To be fair there is some consistency through this- believe it or not both My Little Pony and Beast Quest draw heavily on Greek mythology for inspiration. This is the first time his obsessions have overlapped with mine - in my writing I am also working on a Greek myth. What strikes me as I study the stories through my son’s eyes is that they are full of characters, divine and mortal, who fail, fall and fxck up royally, who lose face, lose their lovers and their loved ones, and that when they do, they are terrible losers. The heroes and heroines in these myths don’t hold back on their howling and their raging. They cry for weeks, years even. They cry so hard they change shape or change the world around them. They swear vengeance for their losses, plan awful punishments, wage long and horrible wars. No one tells Hector, Achilles, Paris: “Never mind mate – it’s the taking part that counts.” Now I am not proposing to use the ancient Greek myths as a new model for mothering, but there is something relieving about their heroes unashamed and often moving melodramas, about their sense of seriousness and ceremony. Inspired by these myths, my son held a burial for the chick, by the raspberry bushes on the allotment. He knelt and said a prayer to Zeus, and then to Hades and Persephone, asking them to welcome the little creature when it arrived with them, to let it fly free. This was after he had railed at me for an hour – crying, shouting, trying to punch me, beating the wall, accusing me of murder – full on, proper grief, worthy of those ancient Greeks. It struck me I could have done the same with my writing disappointment: printed out the webpage announcing the happy winners, then wept upon it bitterly. Built a ceremonial fire, burnt the paper, whilst sending off my prayers for the Herculean stamina and strength required to keep writing. What I’m trying to say is that I’m aware I have been guilty of that crime our culture commits daily- tidying disappointment and loss away too quickly, making it constructive, sidestepping the difficulty, heading straight for claiming: “I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m fine. I’m over it.”  

           In the modern mythic classic, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, written by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, a book more befitting my daughter’s than my son’s age bracket, each time the children encounter a new obstacle in the landscape – long grass, mud, a river, a snowstorm- they chant:

We can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh no! We've got to go through it!

This is the insight that my children, a small chick and some Greek gods have reminded me of in the last week: you’ve got to go through it. Not over it, not under it, not round it, but through it. I did know this before – I know how excruciating it is when someone tries to teach you a lesson, give advice, instead of being present with the pain of where you are. But I had not recognised the extent to which I have been doing this with my children, because their losses seem so slight, so trivial when I hold them up against the stark losses in the world. I see now that I’ve been getting everything the wrong way round: I’ve been comparing the children’s worries to the world’s, instead of the world’s worries to theirs, instead of recognising that they hold some wisdom that I and the world need now. Ours is the age in which it is clear that we have made some cataclysmic mistakes, that we keep making them, that we are a generation of losers and those that come after us will inherit a whole lot of loss. There is no way round it. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. A global pandemic. Racial injustice. Climate change. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it! This means weeping for weeks. Howling for months. Raging for years. But doing so consciously and creatively. When my children do this, I think they are rehearsing themselves, rehearsing me. This is not about being hopeless. I believe that going through it, with full feeling and ceremony, is the most hopeful thing we can do – the thing that will earn us feathers. Maybe we can weep enough to change ourselves, a metamorphosis as marvellous as that of a Greek god.

           To go through it, there are some things we are going to need. Two of these things are the stuff of the gods: care and creation, or, to use other words, mothering and making. In all myths, in all traditions, this is what the gods do- they make stuff and they look after stuff. The two go together: we look after things because we made them, and we make things because we care. Arguably ‘Mothers Who Make’ is a terrible tautology, and caring and creating may even be the same – they both involve a kind of holding. When the chick died, I had to hold my son while he tried to hit me. Later I had to hold a ritual with him. At a time when all the theatres are closed, it seems to me, we need theatre more than ever. Be it online or outdoors, we need to build symbolic fires, stages to hold our grief, our rage, our fear, our hope. We need to perform these things- it is what will get us through. Secret creations and collaborations got people through the concentration camps. The late and legendary civil rights activist John Lewis said: “If it hadn’t been for music, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings.” Art is not a luxury, a nice diversion – it is the way through, not round.

           So, what will I do next time my daughter falls over, or my son messes up his drawing? I hope I will pause and consider this: maybe there is a point to crying over spilt milk. Maybe next time it spills we will weep the same weight in tears as the milk that is pooling, white, across the kitchen table. Maybe we will lie in it, mop it up with our clothes, then run outside and do a dance to the milk gods, to celebrate the milk and say sorry for its loss, and then we will run to the river, dive in, wash our clothes and ourselves, while we sing a song of cleansing, and then we will walk back, dripping new. I am playing with this so as to bring it home to myself, so that when the next rejection, mistake, failure, loss befalls me or the children, I have the courage not to mop it up too fast. Instead of my teaching them to lose with acceptance, I hope that we may discover together how to lose with passion and imagination.

           So, here are my questions for you for the month of August (coming to you at the end of July): Tell me about your rejections, your failures, your losses- your own? your children’s? What do you do when loss comes? Do you weep? or rage? or both? Can you do so more, as if you were inside a Greek myth, do so consciously? And what ritual, ceremony or creative act can you perform to get you through it? What can you do to earn your feathers?

[veronicafoaleessentials]

Freshly poured Saffron and Cedar soap, with a hint of Patchouli. This is part of my vegan line, made with almond and coconut milk, along with raw shea butter and gorgeous olive oil. This week is shaping up to be busy. I have an event coming up on Sunday, and still need to make lip balms, and shrink wrap soaps. My chicken shed needs a good clean out in preparation for new chickens, and thankfully school is back, so I can achieve all of this without children underfoot. Working from home gives me fabulous flexibility, but it also means sometimes it feels like I never clock off, or like nothing ever gets my full attention. I am incredibly excited about new chickens though. Our current bantam pekin chickens are elderly, and poor layers. They lay six eggs and then go broody for weeks. They're fantastic mothers, excellent bug control, and very cute, but they're not eggy girls, and I want eggs. I adore egg yolk in soap, and when I do use yolks, I only use free range eggs (currently supplied by a family friend). So we have new hens organised. I can't wait.

[countrymadefoods]

Pig and Hen Tattoo Ideas

Why is 2019 the Year of the Pig? How the Chinese zodiac’s 12 animals were chosen

“According to legend, the heavenly Jade Emperor wanted to segment time into cycles of 12 years with an earthly animal guarding each cycle. He sent word that the fastest animals to reach the Heavenly Gate would be chosen, ranked accordingly and have a year in the cycle named after them. Sensing an opportunity, the animals raced against each other to win the emperor’s favour.

The goat, monkey and rooster arrived after crossing the river on a raft they had built together, taking eighth, ninth, and 10th places respectively. The dog was a late 11th having stopped to enjoy a bath in the river, and the pig, who had stopped for a nap, sauntered in for the 12th, and final, place. There are many versions of the legend but they all agree the rat made sure the cat did not finish the race by either tricking him into sleeping through the event or by pushing him into the river. Due to the rat’s treachery, the cat failed to finish and was not recognised in the zodiac. Naturally, the cat never forgave the rat and Chinese legend holds this to be why they are natural enemies.”

(via Why is 2019 the Year of the Pig? How the Chinese zodiac’s 12 animals were chosen | South China Morning Post)

Watermelon-fed, $350 chickens in diapers bring the farmyard to the Bay Area

“According to a new report that credited the Mercury News with spotting the emerging Silicon Valley backyard-chicken trend back in 2015 — before it was co-opted by wealthy poultry-poseurs.“In the Bay Area — where the nation’s preeminent local food movement overlaps with the nation’s tech elite — egg-laying chickens are now a trendy, eco-conscious humblebrag on par with driving a Tesla,” the Washington Post reported last week. These days, Bay Area chicken-wrangling hobbyists are spending as much as $350 for a bird, $20,000 for a high-tech coop and $225 an hour for a “chicken whisperer” consultant...“It’s not uncommon here to see chickens roaming in their owners’ homes or even roosting in bedrooms, often with diapers on.”

”As might be expected from chickenists and chickenistas in the tech capital of the universe, housing backyard birds here is often not a matter of hammering together scrap lumber and metal screening. Coops may feature solar panels, automatic doors and “video cameras that allow owners to check on their beloved birds remotely.” A Redwood City chickeneer told the paper he used an app on his smartphone to control his coop’s temperature, ventilation and lighting. The man is fond of sharing videos of his birds, and particularly recommends the bed-time action when they “jostle for position before settling down.”

“Pampering, naturally, is called for...gives him a weekly bath, followed by a blow dry “which he LOVES”...“Despite their relative privilege, even these chickens are circled by predators like hawks, coyotes, raccoons and bobcats”...And there can be hazards specific to chickens living in wealthy enclaves. One “beloved” bird ventured into a Marin County backyard pool, with fatal consequences.”

(via Melon-fed, $350 chickens in diapers roam Bay Area yards | Mercury News)

Silkie Chicken: All You Need To Know

“It is believed by some that the Silkie dates back as far as the Chinese Han Dynasty, in 206BC. The Chinese name for the Silkie is wu-gu-ji – meaning black-boned. An alternative name for this bird is the Chinese Silk Chicken...It was first mentioned by Marco Polo (around 1290-1300) on his remarkable journey across Europe and the Far East. Although he did not see the bird, it was reported to him by a fellow traveler and he reported it in his journal as “a furry chicken”.The Silkie made its way westward either by the Silk Road or by the maritime routes, likely both.” 

The next mention we have is from Italy where Aldrovandi in 1598 speaks of a chicken that has “fur like a black cat”. When the Silkie was first introduced to the European public it was said to be the offspring of a chicken and a rabbit – a not so unbelievable thing back in the 1800s! Many unscrupulous sellers sold Silkies to gullible folks for curiosity and it was used as a ‘freak show’ item in travelling side shows and exhibited as a ‘bird-mammal’.”

”They have oval shaped turquoise blue earlobes and dark colored wattles. Their beak is short, quite broad at the base, it should be grey/blue in color. Eyes are black. As for their body, it should be broad and stout, the back is short and the breast is full. They have five toes instead of the usual four found in chickens. The outer two toes should be feathered. The legs are short and wide set, grey in color.

Their feathers lack barbicels (those are the hooks that hold the feathers together), hence the fluffy appearance. The main feathering looks just like the under-down of regular chickens. The fact that the feathers do not hold together means a Silkie cannot fly. It also means that the feathering is not waterproofed and so a wet Silkie is a pathetic sight to see. If they do get significantly wet, they need to be towel dried or even blow dried – which they enjoy if it is done on a regular basis.”

“As for their temperament, silkies are known to be calm, friendly and docile – even the boys. It has been recorded by several people that the roosters will ‘tid-bit’ for the chicks! This docility can lead to them being picked on by other more ‘pushy’ flock members. 

Despite their fluffy feathering they do tolerate the cold fairly well – wetness is something they cannot tolerate. If your climate is very cold in the winter, they would benefit from a little supplemental heat. They are content to be confined, but if allowed to free range are great little foragers. The area in which they forage should be a ‘safe zone’ since they cannot fly to escape predators. Silkies are more renowned as being pets, brooders and ‘ornamental’ birds...Silkies are quite robust and will usually live for 7-9 years, longer with lots of TLC!”

”A Silkie is the ultimate in kids’ chickens. They are cuddly, fluffy and tolerant, love sitting in your lap and even enjoy cuddles. They are a very friendly, calm and docile bird and interact very well with people – they will follow you around and ‘talk’ to you. This docility can lead to them being picked on by more aggressive flock members, so try to keep an eye open for bullying.

Silkies are notoriously broody – the standing joke is that a Silkie can hatch a rock! They also make great mothers. Many folks keep Silkies in order to hatch out other eggs. A Silkie in ‘broody mode’ will usually accept any and all eggs (including duck) placed under her. If you live in an apartment and want to have chickens as pets, the Silkies are a very good fit since they are pretty quiet too.”

”The Silkie chicken always brings a smile to peoples’ faces. This ‘odd-ball’ and slightly unusual bird is certainly a crowd pleaser! Although they won’t keep you in eggs, they will supply you with lots of love, smiles and cuddles. When they become bonded to their owners they can be described as ‘dog-like’ in their devotion. They will follow you, talk to you, check out what you are doing and ‘help’ too!...All in all, these funny little birds are a joy to have and give much pleasure to their owners.”

(via Silkie Chicken: All You Need To Know | The Happy Chicken Coop blog)

What is "silke"

“n. (obsolete spelling of silk English)”

silk (n.)

“ c. 1300, from Old English seoloc, sioloc "silk, silken cloth," from Latin sericum "silk," plural serica "silken garments, silks," literally "Seric stuff," neuter of Sericus, from Greek Serikos "silken; pertaining to the Seres," an oriental people of Asia from whom the Greeks got silks...Chinese si "silk," Manchurian sirghe, Mongolian sirkek have been compared to this and the people name in Greek might be a rendering via Mongolian of the Chinese word for "silk," but this is uncertain. Also found in Old Norse as silki.”

Lavender Japanese bantams

Japanese Bantams

“Japanese (or Chabo) Bantams are real show birds and go back a long way in history. It is thought that they first arrived in Japan from China in the early 1600’s when they started to appear in Japanese paintings. In Japan, they are called “Chabo” which means “bantam” or “dwarf” in Japanese but is also the old Japaneses name for South East Asia. They are thought to have reached the UK in the 1860’s.”

”They are a true bantam which means they don’t have large fowl counterparts and are very distinctive with very short legs and very long straight vertical tail feathers with a relatively large comb and wings that are held low, touching the ground. Japanese Bantams should be kept inside on clean, dry bedding in all but the best weather to maintain good feather condition. Feathers (especially white) will stain easily on the wing tips that drag on the floor if let out in the wet.”

(via Japanese Bantams | Poultry Keeper)

5 Reasons to Love Sebright Chickens

“Sebright chickens are unique and exotic looking ladies with sweet temperaments and a penchant for curiosity. In the early 1800s Sir John Sebright - a member of the British Parliament and avid animal keeper - set out to create his vision of the perfect chicken. The resulting fantastically feathered fowl was the Sebright bantam and these small but perfectly formed birds became popular with highfalutin poultry fanciers across the British isles and beyond.

Sebright chickens are a sight to behold and a wonder to watch. These pretty birds, with their wonderfully patterned plumage and delicate features, make an exotic and unique addition to any backyard flock. Sebright chickens have small and compact bodies with short backs and prominent breasts, sporting perfectly preened gold or silver almond shaped feathers that are delicately laced with bold iridescent black...If you are looking for a backyard chicken to admire, the Sebright chicken is a mesmerising choice.”

“Not all bantam chickens are created equal. Bantam breeds can be categorized into two types - true and miniature standard. Miniature standard bantams are chickens that have been bred to be smaller versions of their larger chicken breed namesakes but true bantams have been developed as unique breeds that have no standard sized counterparts. Sebright chickens are one of the oldest recorded true bantam chickens and these adorably small birds are often a favourite with exhibitors and hobby keepers due to their unique appearance. The Sebright bantam diminutive size and distinct colouration and patterning make them a delightful and space saving spectacle to have in your flock. If you have a small backyard, Sebright chickens truly are the chicken of choice.

While some poultry enthusiasts keep a backyard flock as a source of fresh eggs, there are those who insist no coop is complete unless it’s full of fancy fowl to admire. If you are looking for a chook that will give your chicken run an exotic feel, the Sebright chicken is just right. These avant garde girls shouldn’t be relied upon to provide a regular bounty of eggs - they are more interested in foraging and curiously eggs-ploring their backyard kingdom than laying... Not only individuals in their looks, Sebrights are keen to stand out in the crowd when it comes to temperament and behaviour too. Given the opportunity, these fiercely independent chickens go off the beaten path, strutting self-importantly through the garden and preferring to roost in trees when the sun sets on their day. To ensure the Sebright chickens’ freewheeling nature is safely contained it is necessary to have a tall fence or secure chicken run, as these hens are quite skilled flyers.”

“If you want to keep a small flock of pretty and playful birds the Sebright is a great choice. These beautiful bantams prefer the company of one or two chicken friends and while independence is important to the Sebright chicken, that doesn’t mean they are cold hearted! Sebrights are well known for being sweet and inquisitive birds. True, they are not as cuddly...but these girls are unassumingly friendly, giving out enough love but never cramping your style. If you’re not one to smother your pets in kisses, but still enjoy delightful interaction on a daily basis, the Sebright is the perfect pet for you. Much like any shy chook, you can establish a firm bond with Sebrights by giving them some delicious mealworms or other tasty treats. They will delight in receiving gifts from their keeper but unlike other breeds, Sebrights won’t overwhelm you every time you walk out your backdoor.

The Sebright is not interested in raising baby chicks or anything associated with motherhood. Why sit on a nest all day when you can be egg-sploring the garden and quietly roosting on out of the way branches? Heaven to a Sebright is a day free of parental responsibilities, an open schedule to fill with whatever takes their fancy...Sebright chickens are perfect poultry pets for a keeper who is as happy to admire their girls in the garden as they are to interact with them. Sebright chickens are a breed with personality and need a coop with character. If you’re thinking of starting your own flock of sweet Sebright bantams be sure that they have a secure and safe space in which to egg-splore.”

(via 5 Reasons to Love Sebright Chickens | Backyard Chicken Coops)

Green Envy: The Fanciest Chicken Coop in the World

“Neiman Marcus has you covered with a veritable Taj Mahal for fowls. The Heritage Hen Mini Farm comes with a $100,000 price tag, and is one of the high-luxe items featured in the retailer’s famously opulent 86th edition of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book.”

“This “Beau Coop” as Neiman Marcus calls it, features a multi-level roost for your uptown chickens and a chandelier to remind them there’s no place like home. There’s also a library stocked with chicken and gardening books for the chickens’ pet humans to enjoy.”

(via Green Envy: The Fanciest Chicken Coop in the World | HGTV)

11 Doggie Mansions That Will Make You Re-Evaluate Your Life Choices

“This Victorian-style doggie mansion cost a cool $20,000 to build. It’s home to three fabulous dogs, Chelsea, Darla, and Coco Puff. The home is a smaller version of the owner’s historic Victorian home. She commissioned the project after an owl almost kidnapped one of her Pomeranians. The structure is large enough that she can enter and visit her canine neighbors.”

(via 11 Doggie Mansions That Will Make You Re-Evaluate Your Life Choices | Bark Post TV)

Housing Your Pigs

“There are many options when it comes to the way that you house your pigs. There is no right way or specific materials that you must use. You can be as creative as you imagine or as simple as you wish. Be sure to incorporate things such as toys or other items for enrichment to ensure happy and active pigs...Shelters should be free from extreme drafts and protect from rain and sun. They should allow enough space for your pig/pigs to turn around and comfortably stretch if necessary. If pigs are housed in multiples, you should have enough shelters for each individual pig or the shelter used should be large enough for multiple pigs needs.”

(via Housing Your Pigs | American Mini Pig Association)

[urban-homesteading]

Making Money from a Mini Farm: A Series

Selling fertilized eggs

Step one: Chose what you are going to sell

If you are selling fertilized eggs, then all you need is a flock of hens and the appropriate number of roosters.  But non pure bred eggs will bring a very low price and you might only be able to sell small numbers of these eggs.  It is much better to chose a breed of chickens and then keep only those in your flock.  Although you could always keep more than one breed, that would necessitate confining your chickens, which is not something I recommend.

 Rarer breeds and colors will bring more money. Shipping eggs is pricey, so you will need chickens rare enough to make it worth it for your buyer.

Step two: The legalities

Your flock must be certified by the National Poultry Improvement Plan for you to legally ship hatching eggs. Most states also require a health permit as well as pullorum and typhoid testing. Talk with your county extension agent or your state’s NPIP representative to find out what you need. There are hefty fines for illegal egg peddling, so don’t omit this step!

Step three: Marketing

If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of shipping, sell locally. Pin notices on bulletin boards at veterinary offices and feed and farm-supply stores, and take out classified ads either in newspapers or online—such as Craigslist (Facebook often does not allow the sale of any animals).

If you’re willing to ship eggs, list them at online poultry auctions, such as EggBid, FeatherAuction.com and Rare Breed Auctions. You can also sell eggs at eBay and Amazon. There are several hatching egg groups at Facebook worth investigating, as well. While you’re there, run a search for Facebook groups devoted to the breeds you’re selling. Join and find people interested in buying.

When you place ads, be very explicit about what you’re selling. Point out how many eggs you’ll send. Eggs are usually sold in groups of 6, 8, 10, 12, 24 or 36. You can also include extra eggs to offset any eggs damaged during shipping. Including extras at the rate of one extra per six eggs ordered is a good idea: Seasoned buyers expect it, and it promotes good will. If you don’t plan to send extras, say so.

Hatching eggs are normally sold without guarantee. Even if you send fresh, fertile eggs, they can easily be damaged during shipping or your buyer may not incubate them correctly. Buyers usually expect a 40 to 80 percent hatch from shipped eggs.

Step three: Gathering your precious cargo

Washing eggs removes their protective bloom, so keep them clean by lining nest boxes with plenty of bedding, changing it as often as needed and collecting eggs several times a day. Carry eggs gently to the house. A towel-lined basket is good for this. Sort the eggs and store the ones you’ll sell as hatching eggs large-end-up in a clean, closed carton between 55 to 70 degrees F and at roughly 75 percent humidity.

You’ll need a hygrometer to make sure your room’s humidity reading is in or near the ballpark. Pick one up at a drugstore or online, and follow the instructions. It’ll show your room’s humidity level as a percentage. Boost the humidity, if necessary, by placing a small bowl of water beside the carton. Elevate one end of the carton by slipping a book or block of wood under it. The following day, move the book to the other end, alternating ends until you ship the eggs. This keeps the yolks from sticking to one side of their shells.

When sorting, set aside well-shaped, average-sized eggs as hatching eggs. Avoid large eggs that might be double-yolkers—these rarely hatch—and unusually small eggs, as they tend to produce small, weak chicks. Remove any with bumped, wrinkled or otherwise flawed shells and any with hairline cracks. A tiny amount of soiling is usually acceptable, but it’s better to send clean eggs. Remember not to wash them, though!  You can use a soft bristle tooth brush to gently brush at any crusted dirt, but only give a couple of swipes as to protect the bloom.

Step four: Shipping

Once you’ve sold your eggs, package them carefully and don’t skimp on wrapping material. Many shippers favor bubble wrap and shredded paper. They carefully wrap each egg in bubble wrap, leaving the ends open for air circulation, then pack them in a mailing carton with lots of shredded paper cushioning in between.

Eggs can be packed in any type of cardboard carton large enough to allow for plenty of cushioning material, but it’s hard to beat flat-rate priority boxes from the U.S. Postal Service, which ship to any state at any weight at a fixed price. They’re sturdy, free and sized exactly right for most shipments. A medium-size box is great for up to 15 eggs and costs about $14 to mail; the large flat-rate box holds up to two dozen and ships for about $19.

It never hurts to package incubating instructions in every package. Shipped eggs should be rested for 24 hours at room temperature before being placed in an incubator or under a broody hen. A good way to handle this step is to print copies of a university-generated bulletin about incubating chicken eggs and tuck one in each box.

The USPS is the only carrier that ships hatching eggs, so plan to mail your package via priority rate or, if the buyer chooses to pay extra for shipping, overnight mail. Write “Fragile—Hatching Eggs” somewhere on the carton and also “Do Not X-Ray,” as the postal X-ray machine’s rays could affect the hatchability rate. Ask your buyer if he or she wants the post office to hold the eggs for pickup rather than exposing them to a bumpy ride in the carrier’s delivery vehicle; if so, mark the carton, “Hold for Pick-up: Call (your buyer’s phone number).”

Contact your buyer to let him or her know the package is on its way and provide the tracking number from your priority mail receipt. Ask them to contact you when the eggs arrive and again after they hatch.

[econovus-blog]

We have 7 lovely chickens, two were given to us as they kept running away from their previous home (Janey and Mings), one was a gift from my other half (Freckles), she was part of a pair, but the older chook passed this last month, then I have four that we hatched from eggs cared for by Freckles, I was supposed to be hatching them for a friend, but fell in love with the little puffy chicks and he kindly let me keep them. The hatchlings are two Australian Langshans (black with feathers on their legs), Snowy and Nigel (thought she was a boy until she laid an egg and she is the most independent of them) and two mixed (friend expected them to be brown  Hamburghs but they are definitely mixed with something) Caramel and Polly.  Polly has always liked perching on my wrist to get a head scratch and some seed, hence the name, like a pirate bird.

Hatching them was interesting. I was given 9 eggs in total, 5 live hatched, 1 didn’t make hatch and one egg, fertilsed but did not develop, two candled clear (unfertilised). One that hatched was a rooster, we named him Egor as he was very oddly shaped and thought he looked more like a bush turkey than a chook. Once he began crowing he was moved to a friend’s farm as we could not have him here. Freckles, mum-chook, was a great broody, turned the eggs regularly and looked after the chicks. I had put in fresh food (seed mix) and water in the cage for her, once the chicks hatched they were all eating the seed mix and drinking within 20-40 mins of being born. I gave them a lot of fresh plant matter, fruits and vege. Bananas were their favourite, they still are. Especially Nigel, she would do almost anything for some banana.  Once Freckles started to show signs of wanting to get up and forage I would get her out of the smaller cage (we put it on the ground in the main cage so the little ones and big ones socialsed with each other without the danger of aggression) each morning so she could do her thing but stay close to the little ones, she would call out when she wanted me to put her back in.  Once they all got a bit bigger and couldn’t fit through the mesh, I moved them to a larger cage, still within the main pen, again getting Freckles out each morning and putting her in in the evening so she could keep the little ones warm.  They all seemed to grow well and were quite content. Little Nigel had a slightly odd eye at birth, possible pressure point during development. And as she grew up we could see that her pupil stayed quite small, it did dilate but not by much. It did not stop her, she was the first to fly out of their nursery cage and the first to go and challenge one of the big chooks for her banana.

I never put them on chick starter, or had any special meal for them. I made sure they had full access to soil, grubs from my garden, seed mix, fruit and vege scraps and fresh water. 

That was two years ago. The little ones grew well, and are very active and happy. The girls are great at eating all our scraps, trimming the grass down (never have to mow where they have been, or fertilise) and producing beautiful eggs. 

I do not clip their wings, they have never left or tried to, even my two little adopted escapees. We have carpet pythons in the area so I always want them to be able to fly away if they need to. The local bush turkeys like to come and hang out, the tiny little babies even sneak into the cages just before door lock and sleep in the bottom. They are very cute and my chookies do not mind having them about. We had a big one that tried getting aggressive towards the girls, however they ganged up on him, and I hosed him with tank water when he was about, he has not come back in the yard after a couple of weeks of chasing.

I keep them healthy with fresh food, clean out their houses weekly and use diatomaceous earth on them and the cage/nesting boxes to keep lice and mites at bay, especially with the visiting wild turkeys bringing their little bodies into the hen house.

Oh and plus the girls make great fertiliser for the garden.

[thereachick]

If it’s not one thing with these chickens, it’s another.  And this is shaping up to be a busy week for my little flock of 40.

I’ll start with this little piece of precious fluff.  Because, really, doesn’t that face just make you want to saw “awwwww!”

A few weeks ago, I had two broody hens.  Claire, one of my veteran broody’s from last year, and Tweety, my small Buff Orpington and a new broody.   I gave them each 3 eggs.  Claire, some barred rocks, and Tweety, some Buff Brahma’s.

And then a week after I gave them their eggs, went into the hospital for my surgery and have been limited to light duty.  Somewhere in there, no one candled the eggs to see what was going on.  Today is Hatch Day, and it is nail biting all the way around because I don’t know if any of the eggs (except this one, obviously) will hatch.  None of Claire’s eggs have hatched yet, but yesterday, Tweety was blessed with this sweet little Brahma.

No other eggs have hatched, but neither hen seems ready to give up the nest, so I won’t let myself worry until Saturday morning.

HOWEVER, the addition of a new little baby has brought out a different Worry, one which will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

Rapunzel tried to attack Tweety’s baby, in a similar fashion to what she did with her own.    She forced her way into Tweety’s nest and began going after the baby, lunging at it even when it was under Tweety.

Both the kids and I removed her and she went back to try again.

The last time, we put her in the Broody Jail, and there she is going to stay until DH comes home this weekend.   After that… well, I can’t have a hen who will attack and harm babies.   If she was just doing this to her pwn babies, we wouldn’t give her eggs.  But attacking other hens’ babies is an entirely different thing.  It means no babies are safe.

And right now, I have Claire and Tweety to worry about… plus Pavelle thinks she wants to go broody again is in a pre-broody stage right now.   And Eugenie (Claire’s little snowball from last summer) is 98% definitely broody now, and will be worse by the time Rapunzel gets out of the Broody Jail this weekend.

(I was planing on putting Eugenie into broody jail tonight, after we integrate the Brooder Bunch, but now that’s not going to happen and it’s all Rapunzel’s fault.)

But Rapunzel will not be released back into the flock.   I’ve made the decision that DH needs to send her to Freezer Camp.   I can’t rehome her, because if anyone else tries to have chicks around her, or gives her eggs (Buff Orpington’s are supposed to be good broody mommas, after all) then she will do the same thing to them.   I couldn’t ethically do that to some innocent person, so Freezer Camp is the only viable option.

Chipmunk

Bella (formerly Goth Chick) and Winnie (formerly CW)

Rachel (theBrahma), with Cutie and Roxie (formerly Rocky)

Chipmunk inside the coop, checking things out.

Winnie meeting Dots. He was nice to her and offered her food.

The babies in the brooder are 6 weeks old, and mostly feathered out.  The Brahma,whom we have decided might be a hen are calling Rachel, Cutie and Grumpy and the only hold outs, but they have enough feathers to be okay.  They don’t sleep under the brooder lamp anymore anyway, and also, they are all getting HUGE.

What you see in the above pictures represents their last day in the brooder box.   It’s raining, so they didn’t go outside.  But tonight, after everyone is sleeping, the kids and I will sneak them into the coop and put them on roosts.  When they way up Friday morning, they will be a part of the flock.  As you can see,Dots already likes Winnie.  He was very kind to her.

I think it will go well.  All of the nice days, the babies got to be int heir playpen and the rest of the flock got to see them and know they were there.  It will be an adjustment, but it should work out fine. .

      Hatchings, Integrations, Broodies and Hard Decisions If it's not one thing with these chickens, it's another.  And this is shaping up to be a busy week for my little flock of 40.

[josephkitchen0]

How Do Chickens Mate?

“How do chickens mate?” might be a question you have when you first keep a rooster. And it might seem a bit disturbing at first if you have not witnessed a rooster pursuing an available hen. The rooster has many amazing skills and benefits that he will bring to the flock. Being a gentle suitor is not one of his skills. When a rooster notices a hen nearby, quietly doing her thing, scratching and dust bathing, he swoops in for the action.

How Do Chickens Mate?

It seems that the rooster loses all sense of decent behavior as he tackles his love interest. Mounting her back he uses his feet and toes to grasp her wing and shoulder area. He will grasp her neck or head feathers with his beak, often pulling the feathers out entirely. This causes her to crouch into a submissive pose that enables the rooster to successfully transfer sperm. Roosters don’t  have a penis but they do transfer sperm in a similar way by touching the cloaca of the chicken.  The whole act takes seconds. The hen is freed. She will shake her feathers out and go on about her business as if it didn’t even happen. The rooster, eager to show anyone watching, will almost immediately begin looking for his next victim. When you think about and witness the answer to how do chickens mate, you will come to the conclusion that the rooster is a barbarian! In many ways, your rooster will act like a caveman. But despite his lack of skill in the romantic arts, your rooster has nothing but the best interest of his hens in his mind.

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The rooster will put aside his thoughts of how do chickens mate if he senses any signs of danger in the area. He will scan the sky frequently, looking for aerial attack threats. While his harem of hens quietly eat grubs and grain, he will stand at attention nearby, always looking for a threat to enter the area. If he senses a problem, he will quickly signal the hens to run for cover. And often he will run for cover while he is calling to the hens!

Rooster Feet

The feet and spurs on a full-grown rooster are his lethal weapons. Hopefully, he doesn’t use them against you. They are quite dangerous if they want to be, and a rooster attack on your own property should not be accepted. Roosters that attack other chickens is also unacceptable. The behavior can be tamed. Aggressive roosters are dangerous to you and the other animals on the farm. A well-behaved rooster will have the talons and spurs ready to use to defend the flock if a chicken predator invades the area. Often a rooster will sacrifice himself as he defends the hens. It is sad to see, but that is the nature of it. We like having multiple roosters on our farm for this reason. They will step up and defend the flock if we are not around.

Adjusting the Ratio of Hens to Rooster

The optimal ratio, to avoid over mating the hens and wear from treading, is eight to 12 hens per rooster for regular and heavy breed chickens. If your rooster has to service a lot of hens, the fertility rate for the fertilized eggs may be low. If you have too many roosters in the flock, fertility might be low due to the infighting between the roosters.

Crowded conditions, stress, old age, weather, injuries, low nutrition, and age of the breeding hens and roosters all affect the fertility of the eggs. Some farmers will rotate roosters or groups of hens among more than one rooster. Chickens often have pecking order disputes. Even the best backyard chickens will get into chicken fights and territory disputes. Broody hens can get particularly testy and ill-tempered. If you have more than one rooster, the boys may have territories and special hens that they consider theirs. When the rooster tries to mate with a hen that is not “his,” often a rooster fight will break out. This can be severe, or minor depending on many things. When one rooster tries to take over the flock, the fighting can become life-threatening to one rooster. At this point, you may need to make arrangements to separate the flock into two groups or give one rooster to a new home.

Rooster Damage

The drawback when keeping a rooster in the flock is rooster damage on the hens’ backs. This damage is from the treading the rooster does to remain on the hen’s back. The feathers on the hen’s back are slippery and to remain in position the rooster has to continually re-grasp the feathers. Often, this results in the hen losing feathers. If your flock ratio of hens per rooster is not optimum, the hens will show treading wear. The bare spots on their backs, head, and wings can become sore, red and even infected if action is not taken. The toenails on the rooster can be trimmed and filed down to a round shape to keep the damage minimal.

We had to get hen saddles for a number of our hens this year. Some are not very good at keeping the saddle on, and other’s seem to think it’s helping to wear it rolled up!

One way to help a hen protect her back is to have her wear a hen saddle. Also called an apron or jacket, the hen saddle is worn over the hen’s back, with elastic straps around the wings to hold it in place. In some patterns, a strap goes around the neck, also. Hen saddles are not intended to be worn year round. Use them as needed to protect the hens before the damage occurs or until the skin heals and feathers have regrown.

Once you understand the answer to, how do chickens mate you can come up with solutions to the feather loss in your hens. The following patterns and instructions will help alleviate the damage caused by the roosters.

The following instructions are for making a very simple hen saddle.  After testing out a few purchased hen saddles on my hens, I have come up with my favorite method and pattern. Additionally, with a copy machine, you can shrink or enlarge the pattern and still keep the proportions. This pattern fits most standard size egg laying breeds. For larger breeds such as the Brahma, you can lengthen the pattern some to account for the longer back on the hen.

The following pattern is printable for your convenience.

hen-saddle

For a step by step photo tutorial please visit this post.

  Here are the Instructions for Making a Simple Hen Saddle that I Tried Previously

Materials (This is for a full-size laying hen. This is a large pattern for a large hen. You can easily downsize the pattern by using an 8 x 8 square or smaller to start with. Adjust the other measurements slightly.)

9 x 9-inch piece of heavy cotton, or baby flannel.  The baby flannel will not fray much and a lightweight fleece will work for this too.

Use pinking shears around the edge of any cotton fabric.

Sewing needle and thread or a sewing machine (There is very little sewing to this project so it is possible to make this without a sewing machine.)

1/4 inch elastic (12 inches per saddle)

I decided to come up with a method that could be made from scraps, and easy to stitch up in no time.  If you don’t have scrap fabric you can probably acquire a few pieces from anyone who sews or check the bargain bin at a local fabric store for remnants.

If you love your roosters, take heart. The overly amorous roosters calm down after the first or second year. They settle and while they still pursue a pretty hen, they aren’t as aggressive about it.  Have you used hen saddles to protect your hens?

How Do Chickens Mate? was originally posted by All About Chickens

[josephkitchen0]

How Do Chickens Mate?

“How do chickens mate?” might be a question you have when you first keep a rooster. And it might seem a bit disturbing at first if you have not witnessed a rooster pursuing an available hen. The rooster has many amazing skills and benefits that he will bring to the flock. Being a gentle suitor is not one of his skills. When a rooster notices a hen nearby, quietly doing her thing, scratching and dust bathing, he swoops in for the action.

How Do Chickens Mate?

It seems that the rooster loses all sense of decent behavior as he tackles his love interest. Mounting her back he uses his feet and toes to grasp her wing and shoulder area. He will grasp her neck or head feathers with his beak, often pulling the feathers out entirely. This causes her to crouch into a submissive pose that enables the rooster to successfully transfer sperm. Roosters don’t  have a penis but they do transfer sperm in a similar way by touching the cloaca of the chicken.  The whole act takes seconds. The hen is freed. She will shake her feathers out and go on about her business as if it didn’t even happen. The rooster, eager to show anyone watching, will almost immediately begin looking for his next victim. When you think about and witness the answer to how do chickens mate, you will come to the conclusion that the rooster is a barbarian! In many ways, your rooster will act like a caveman. But despite his lack of skill in the romantic arts, your rooster has nothing but the best interest of his hens in his mind.

Ready to Start Your Own Backyard Flock?

Get tips and tricks for starting your new flock from our chicken experts. Download your FREE guide today! YES! I want this Free Guide »

The rooster will put aside his thoughts of how do chickens mate if he senses any signs of danger in the area. He will scan the sky frequently, looking for aerial attack threats. While his harem of hens quietly eat grubs and grain, he will stand at attention nearby, always looking for a threat to enter the area. If he senses a problem, he will quickly signal the hens to run for cover. And often he will run for cover while he is calling to the hens!

Rooster Feet

The feet and spurs on a full-grown rooster are his lethal weapons. Hopefully, he doesn’t use them against you. They are quite dangerous if they want to be, and a rooster attack on your own property should not be accepted. Roosters that attack other chickens is also unacceptable. The behavior can be tamed. Aggressive roosters are dangerous to you and the other animals on the farm. A well-behaved rooster will have the talons and spurs ready to use to defend the flock if a chicken predator invades the area. Often a rooster will sacrifice himself as he defends the hens. It is sad to see, but that is the nature of it. We like having multiple roosters on our farm for this reason. They will step up and defend the flock if we are not around.

Adjusting the Ratio of Hens to Rooster

The optimal ratio, to avoid over mating the hens and wear from treading, is eight to 12 hens per rooster for regular and heavy breed chickens. If your rooster has to service a lot of hens, the fertility rate for the fertilized eggs may be low. If you have too many roosters in the flock, fertility might be low due to the infighting between the roosters.

Crowded conditions, stress, old age, weather, injuries, low nutrition, and age of the breeding hens and roosters all affect the fertility of the eggs. Some farmers will rotate roosters or groups of hens among more than one rooster. Chickens often have pecking order disputes. Even the best backyard chickens will get into chicken fights and territory disputes. Broody hens can get particularly testy and ill-tempered. If you have more than one rooster, the boys may have territories and special hens that they consider theirs. When the rooster tries to mate with a hen that is not “his,” often a rooster fight will break out. This can be severe, or minor depending on many things. When one rooster tries to take over the flock, the fighting can become life-threatening to one rooster. At this point, you may need to make arrangements to separate the flock into two groups or give one rooster to a new home.

Rooster Damage

The drawback when keeping a rooster in the flock is rooster damage on the hens’ backs. This damage is from the treading the rooster does to remain on the hen’s back. The feathers on the hen’s back are slippery and to remain in position the rooster has to continually re-grasp the feathers. Often, this results in the hen losing feathers. If your flock ratio of hens per rooster is not optimum, the hens will show treading wear. The bare spots on their backs, head, and wings can become sore, red and even infected if action is not taken. The toenails on the rooster can be trimmed and filed down to a round shape to keep the damage minimal.

We had to get hen saddles for a number of our hens this year. Some are not very good at keeping the saddle on, and other’s seem to think it’s helping to wear it rolled up!

One way to help a hen protect her back is to have her wear a hen saddle. Also called an apron or jacket, the hen saddle is worn over the hen’s back, with elastic straps around the wings to hold it in place. In some patterns, a strap goes around the neck, also. Hen saddles are not intended to be worn year round. Use them as needed to protect the hens before the damage occurs or until the skin heals and feathers have regrown.

Once you understand the answer to, how do chickens mate you can come up with solutions to the feather loss in your hens. The following patterns and instructions will help alleviate the damage caused by the roosters.

The following instructions are for making a very simple hen saddle.  After testing out a few purchased hen saddles on my hens, I have come up with my favorite method and pattern. Additionally, with a copy machine, you can shrink or enlarge the pattern and still keep the proportions. This pattern fits most standard size egg laying breeds. For larger breeds such as the Brahma, you can lengthen the pattern some to account for the longer back on the hen.

The following pattern is printable for your convenience.

hen-saddle

For a step by step photo tutorial please visit this post.

  Here are the Instructions for Making a Simple Hen Saddle that I Tried Previously

Materials (This is for a full-size laying hen. This is a large pattern for a large hen. You can easily downsize the pattern by using an 8 x 8 square or smaller to start with. Adjust the other measurements slightly.)

9 x 9-inch piece of heavy cotton, or baby flannel.  The baby flannel will not fray much and a lightweight fleece will work for this too.

Use pinking shears around the edge of any cotton fabric.

Sewing needle and thread or a sewing machine (There is very little sewing to this project so it is possible to make this without a sewing machine.)

1/4 inch elastic (12 inches per saddle)

I decided to come up with a method that could be made from scraps, and easy to stitch up in no time.  If you don’t have scrap fabric you can probably acquire a few pieces from anyone who sews or check the bargain bin at a local fabric store for remnants.

If you love your roosters, take heart. The overly amorous roosters calm down after the first or second year. They settle and while they still pursue a pretty hen, they aren’t as aggressive about it.  Have you used hen saddles to protect your hens?

How Do Chickens Mate? was originally posted by All About Chickens