Topic: chickens - babies or layers

[Lil]

LOL Colin, Annie and the toes sounds so funny to watch.

As for mine, they're a lost cause. They are both american cocker spaniels.
Josie is 14, incontinent and has dementia.  She is pleasantly potty and doesn't realise shes lost our reality.  I don't take her to the lotty very often. She wanders off and can't find her way back so end up watching her more than what i'm doing.  Tried her on an extending lead but she sat and chewed thro it.  Shes better at home ;D, annoying the cats!!
The other one Poppy, is 12 and blind.  She is a giddy knickers but the lotty is too much for her.  She gets really disorientated and falls over things, then gets stressed.  In environments she knows, shes great cus she knows her way around but shes never mastered the lotty.  She headbuts the raised beds too ften for comfort (altho still wags the tail during it  and comes to you saying hey look what I've just done, aint that funny :-/)
No, they are better not being around for all the best reasons ;D

[Lil]

LOL  thingyer spaniels!!!! ;D  Now I know what people were on about with the cockerals!! ;D
Never heard the american spaniels called thigyers before!! ;D
I will be laughing about in my sleep....sorry admin, no disrespect n that...just so funny ;D

[Colin_Bellamy-Wood]

Lil, I am so sorry to hear that your dogs have their problems, but I am sure that under your tender care, their quality of life is excellent.

Annie can't go to the Lottie for a while, and hasn't been for over two weeks.   She has a cruciate ligament "gone" in her left knee, and the Vet has ordered complete rest, and toilet walks only.   As we are normally a joined-at-the-hip pair, she has difficutly in understanding why she's left behind, and I feel dreadfully lonely when I'm at the Lottie, and the short journey to and from.    

Got to go - time's nearly up and they'll cut me off - quite painfully I'm sure.

[Lil]

poor annie, I hope she recovers well soon.  Painful things ligaments. I once did the ankle and the pain was sooooooo bad.
Would she settle if  you took her bed on the lotty for her to lay in??  its so hard isn't it because they don't understand why they are being restricted.  Poor little love.

[Palustris]

Hi Lil, my comments about caring for livestock were not intended for you, as it is obvious that you have thought about it.  We do not have dogs, (nobody in the family actually likes them) but we do have cats. (Rat hunters). They ignore the hens, but the thingyerel(sic) has been known to chase them when he is feeling particularly grumpy. You you see them scatter. The hens are also very good at chasing magpies.
One further point of information, if you do have a male and get fertile eggs the normal proportion of male to female is 6m to 4 f. And you cannot have that many males without trouble. We had chicks which matured while we were away on holiday and returned home to find 6 c o c k erels stood on the shed roof giving the neighbours a non-stop concert. The difficulty is that nobody wants males (feathered variety). Have fun anyway and hopefully you will be asking next for egg recipes.

[Lil]

Hi ya eric
Thanks for the advice re males.
I'm not gonna breed.  Have already got one human male, 1 cat male and 2 chinchilla males to contend with....Thats more than any woman can cope with, with out male cockerals as well ;D

The lotty is a strictly all female sanctuary!!! ;D