I didn’t want to put this in the pet thread and bring everyone down.
I went to lockup the coop last night and found one of my birds had died sometime during the day. She was the head hen and I liked her a lot. I take apple cores out to the flock and she loved the seeds, so I always tried to save a few for her. She ate them right out of my palm.
So long Shirley!
I’ll try to get some pictures in here later today.
Sorry to hear that, Tim. Was this the one that was getting pecked by the younger ones?
Nope, Bob is still soldiering on.
We came up with a strategy to deal with Bob getting attacked. One of our neighbors suggested we pull the younger ones out–one at a time–and keep them separate for a bit. We did that and it seems to have helped. The really brazen attacks (feet first lunges, etc) have stopped, but Bob is still at the bottom of the order.
Surely/obviously that’s not safe.
Safe? I don’t think apple seeds will harm a chicken.
I think amandachen is referring to the fact that apple seeds contain cyanide. From what I understand, you’d need to grind up the seeds for any toxin to be released and be harmful. Chickens aren’t going to have that capacity, it’ll pass through their system.
EDIT: I guess they actually contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide when coming into contact with a human’s digestive enzymes. But either way, I’m pretty sure they need to be ground up to have any effect. And if not, I don’t think Shirley would have survived an encounter with them. :)
You know chickens have gizzards?
Yes I’m aware. I’m also aware of chickens that eat dozens of fallen apples off the ground and are fine.
This is a thread about someone who lost a pet. Can we be socially retarded somewhere else, please?
Huh. I didn’t realize. Well, Shirley sure liked them and she had a reasonable life span, so I think you’re right.
Even better, now l like Shirley a little bit more, because she wasn’t a teetotaler about her poisons.
Can we stop using this phrase, please?
(no comment on the other content/intent of the post it came from)
As someone who wished he had more animals around him, it’s quite amazing to see pictures of a baby chicken and the grown animal it became.
I lost my cat late last year. He had been staying at my parents forever, firstly because he hated my own house when I moved out of my parents. His departure is a weird echo to a whole lot of weird and not happy things happening around here, but I like to think he had the best death possible: coma induced by liver failure. He departed very peacefully, seemingly, sleeping in his favourite cardboard.
Here he is, beating me at one of our many games of go.
He was a stray cat. He was insane. Absolutely crazy. My parents had doubts he even cared about their place at all, until one day he fell from their balcony and disappeared… to be heard meowing during the night in front of their door, managing to make his way back inside the building, to their appartment, Lord knows how.
They miss him so much. Me, I’ll stick to my nonchalance instead of thinking too much.
Thanks for the head’s up.
Here is the general consensus from backyard chicken owners on apple seeds:
Apple seeds contain cyanide, but not in sufficient quantities to kill.
I like to think he just broke out for a night on the prowl.
There ought to be a rule in board games that you can’t jump up on the board and swish your tail around and knock over all the pieces. Humans just can’t compete against those tactics.
