My Family and Other Animals


I guess you may have heard me complaining about chickens: http://thingsivefoundinpockets.blogspot.com/2008/04/chickens.html

Sometimes we find a baby chick who has lost her mother. Usually they die, which is sad. A chick will only lose her mother if she is unwell or cannot keep up, so many baby chicks have been "rescued" only to weaken and fail within hours. Once in a while, though, a newborn chick will come home in the sweaty hands of her rescuer and go on to thrive. Our new pet is named Chirpy, and the cats are very interested. Chirpy ate oats and bread all day yesterday, bonded with Max, pooped prodigiously which is a good sign, and Chirped very loudly when she was put to bed in her box. The boys were most concerned: "She is frightened to go to sleep all alone! She needs to sleep with me!" I told them no, she has to learn to go to sleep on her own like a good big chick.



I let Chirpy cry it out. The trauma! The outraged cheeps of a spoiled chick! The knowledge that in the wild she would never sleep alone, and has to learn chicken independence at such a young and terribly fluffy age!



The last chicken we raised successfully (named Pippy: Is there a trend here?) thought that Chas was her mother. She is still very tame, but has raised her own chicks wild which is A GOOD THING. The less chickens in the house the better! Chirpy has definitely adopted Max as her parent, though Mum will be babysitting for Max tomorrow while we are out at school.


I find Max's punk hairstyle very chicken-esque, don't you?


And: How would I make "chickens" clickable in the post, instead of putting the whole link there? I haven't figured that out. Please advise. But I am working out the photo thing! I will have to watermark everything, and hope that someone steals a picture so I can sue them and GET RICH!!!! HAHA!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I sent you an email with text link instructions. Max looks more like Eddie Munster than a chicken with that haircut. Don't tell him.
Theresa said…
I see witchypoo has saved the day with tech support! So no need for me to do it again.

And NAN!! You let the chick Cry It Out????? How could you!
Unknown said…
witchypoo beat me to the punch. Ah, well. When my sister and I were little, there was a squirrel that lived in the big tree in our yard and my Gramps used to feed her. One day, we opened the front door to find four baby squirrels right in the middle of the porch and the mommy squirrel was sitting there, at the edge of the top stair, waiting for us to find her babies. She took off and left us to raise her babies - which we did. We fed the babies from my sisters little doll bottles. they all lived and as far as I know, went on to become respectable members of the squirrel community.
Anonymous said…
I love the kid's hair. And to come here and learn so much about chickens! Bonus!