A Display of Temper

Everyone has heard the old saying, "madder than a wet hen". Well, naturally, I got curious and had to look up where the phrase came from.  According to my research, hens sometimes get broody and refuse to let a farmer collect eggs. Apparently, the farmer would then throw a bucket of cold water over the bird to shock her out of her moody broodiness. That alone would put me out of sorts, so I imagine an already unhappy chicken would be pretty steamed.

 

This usually calm and sweet lady wasn't wet, but she certainly got her feathers ruffled. I took a few pictures, because while it's common to see the male turkeys displaying their dominance and prowess, it's rare to see a hen fan out her tail and drag her wings in the same way.

 

 

She's a very impressive bird, don't you think?
 

Chicken Thoughts

Driving back from a walk out in the woods with Baloo, I spotted this Rhode Island Red chicken striding across her yard.

She reminded me of my brother's pet chicken (though this one probably hadn't seen the wrong side of a snowbank and probably had all her toes).

Naturally, while I was visiting with my family, we were telling chicken stories. She's still missed and remembered with fondness, that world famous chicken.

World Chicken Day

Today, we commemorate the day back in 2008 when my brother rescued a poor chicken from a snowbank where she was stuck and half frozen.  He tucked her under his coat and brought her home where he and his wife nursed her back to health and adopted her as part of the family.  That lucky chicken lived happily until last winter, when she trotted across the rainbow bridge to join Kizzie, the cocker spaniel she kept firmly in her place in the pecking order.  

  

She loved hugs and kisses.  And lap-sitting.  She enjoyed hanging around with her human (and, dominated the canine) flock.  

So, today we remember the sweet lucky chicken and celebrate her delightful little personality. 

We love our critters, don't we?  They take up residence in our hearts and give us a lot of joy.  

In Memoriam

It is with heavy hearts that we bid the sweet, lucky chicken farewell and post the final chicken update.  She died on Monday morning with a quick flap of the wings to carry her onward.  We will miss her antics and indomitable spirit.

Happy National Chicken Day

It is National Chicken Day today, commemorating 7 years since that sweet bird was rescued from a snowdrift by my brother and brought inside to thaw out by the fire.  She's been the happy house chicken ever since.  As you can see, her sweet home is under construction at the moment.  My brother caught a picture of her watching her mom painting the wall.  

  

The lucky chicken has developed a bit of a limp (she's no longer a spring chicken, after all), but she still gets around pretty well and enjoys her daily adventures.  My brother tells met that she is currently celebrating with a nice helping of corn.  She loves that......  :)

Critter Reports

I don't have a new photo of the Lucky Chicken, since my brother hasn't had a chance to send one to me, but she has made a pretty thorough recovery and has lived to moult her remaining feathers all over the floor and grow a whole new set of them.  Go Chicken!!  

As for Baloo, keep your fingers crossed for him.  He's having blood tests this morning to see if he has to have two more heartworm treatments (Nnnoooooooooo!), or if he's in the clear.  I'm really, really ready for him to be given the clean bill of health so that I can let him have more fun - and I'm sure he is more than ready, too!  

I just love this picture of Baloo - I don't know if I'll be able to get it right or not, but I am going to have to try carving that big old foot of his (the nose, too, of course).  Look for it on an upcoming Stampeaz invoice, if I'm successful!  :)   

Have a Heart....

Protect your pets from heartworms.  It's so easy to prevent and so horrible to have or try to cure!  

This sweet guy is Baloo - he's got a bad case of heartworms and the attempt to cure him might actually kill him.  It has been painful, exhausting and debilitating for him (not to mention emotionally painful and exhausting for me).   He's on week two of eight starting today and I thought I might lose him again this morning when he was coughing, gagging and having spasms.  He's well worth fighting for (and he is fighting for his life with every breath), but it's hard to see so much suffering that could quite easily have been prevented by giving him a single, tasty treat of a pill every month (liver flavor, I think!).  So, please protect your animals from this deadly disease.  If you harbor any doubt about the horror, look it up and read about it - it's seriously ugly.  

Speaking of animals that have been fighting for their lives - the chicken made it through her dog attack and is growing new feathers on her back.   Go, Lucky Chicken!!  Er.... Rooken... Chooster?  Long may she crow!   :)

A Bird in Ten Thousand

What's the title about?  Well, that famous chicken is actually one of a kind, but there is another statistic that applies to her.  Apparently, chickens can rarely (you guessed it, about one in ten thousand) take on the characteristics of a rooster, if they have something happen to their ovaries and the balance of hormones tips into the high testosterone camp. They aren't truly roosters, since they can't fertilize eggs, but they come pretty close. 

When this happens the chicken's comb and wattles grow larger. 

They will grow spurs.  (She has some pretty awesome spurs for a chicken - especially since she's short on toes from her earlier frostbite trauma.)  

And they crow.  She gets up in the morning and gives a very earnest, but not terribly musical, 'cock-a-doodle-do'. 

Even so, she's still the same sweet chicken that likes to sunbathe and take dirt baths.

 She still likes to pose in picturesque locations.

She's very fond of string cheese.
 

 Seriously - she can eat the whole stick!

And she likes a dish of morning tea. 

These are all photos I took while visiting earlier this month, because she has only one tail feather and no feathers on her back right now.  

Here's the update after the dog attack.  The chicken is still valiantly fighting for her life.  Her wounds are very bad, but she's a tough little bird and we hope for the best.  Unfortunately, it looks like there might be some infection setting in where the deep puncture wounds are and it's hard to get antibiotics into her.  My sister and sister-in-law gathered worms and centipedes for her last night and she ate them all, so she still has an appetite, but she's losing weight.  Today, she went out for the first time since the dog attack and got to look under turned rocks and logs for her own tasty bugs and worms.  

Many thanks for the good thoughts you've shared and sent her way.  Please keep them coming - she's a well loved bird.   

Good Thoughts for that Chicken...

I was going to try and post a fun chicken update this week, since I got some good pictures and there's lots to tell.  Unfortunately, I'll hold off for now and hope for the best.  My brother and sister-in-law's pet chicken was attacked yesterday by a dog that was running loose through the yard.  He bit her back and pulled out all her tail feathers.  My sister-in-law had to pull the chicken out of the dog's mouth and she's pretty badly injured, but she made it through the night with lots of ministration, antibiotics and determination.  That's one tough little bird.

So, hope for the best along with me - and if all goes well, look for a chicken update or two.   

Take a Chicken on Safari....

Yes, this is the long overdue Chicken Update.  :)  

The incredibly lucky Chicken is doing well, although she's not really a Spring Chicken any more and has stopped laying eggs.  I guess they only get a certain allotment in over their life span and once they're gone, they're gone.  But, that's okay - she's a happy little bird. 

When I was on vacation and everyone else was taking a nap, the Chicken was acting like she wanted to go out and have an adventure.  One of her favorite things is to go to what we call the 'old bridge site' and have one of us turn over logs so she can find tasty bugs and things hiding underneath.  So, that's what we did.  And so the adventure began. 

First, we had to take a little walk across the wide open grassland and over to the old bridge site to where all the favorite hunting logs can be found.  She's so funny - if you get ahead of her and look like you're going to turn over a log, she comes running and flapping her wings so she won't miss out on any of the good stuff.  

  

Once we get to the logs, she gets in place and when she's ready to pounce, I turn over a log and hold it for her so she can dive in and snatch tasty beetles and delicious centipedes (one of her personal favorites - they're fast, challenging and scrumptious to a chicken - at least that's what I think she's saying....).   It's hard to hold the camera and turn logs at the same time, so I couldn't get a very good picture of her diving for critters - she also moves really fast!

After we turned over all the logs, that little Chicken was still wanting to hunt some more, we ventured into the woods where we found some new logs to turn and she got to go on a bug hunting excursion through the deep 'jungle' grass, into tangles of vines and around gnarled tree trunks.   Brave Chicken on safari....  

 

Of course, after returning from a major hunting expedition, it's important to take a good, long bath.  She's so funny when she does this.  It's almost like she goes into a deep trance state and loses track of time and space.  The practice of Chicken Bath Meditation.

Then, cleaned and preened, she's ready to sit on a friendly lap out in the sunshine and recount the great and glorious escapades of the day.  (Don't you just love the sun shining through her comb?)

So, there you have it.  The Lucky Chicken is still doing well and is absolutely as lucky as ever.  :)

Turning over rocks....

While I'm turning over rocks to try and find a solution for the PZ Kut production problem, I thought I would entertain you about some other rolling stones... The chicken loves it when someone turns over a rock for her so that she can look for tasty morsels that might be hidden underneath. She makes the funniest happy little chirping noises while waiting for rocks to be moved.

Once the rock has been lifted, she gets right in there and looks for bugs and worms to eat, moving really fast so they don't get away. She doesn't miss much!

When she's found everything tasty there is to find (she doesn't like ants), she waits for the process to be repeated, chirruping and talking the whole time.

By Popular Request...

I bring you part one of the long awaited Chicken Update!

First, anyone who has ordered from me this month will recognize this face from the invoice stamp I'm currently using. I was really pleased with how the carving of this portrait came out. As you can tell from the chair rail in the background, she was being a very contented lap chicken -- she really loves to roost in a friendly lap.

Of course, she also tries to do her part in contributing her bit to the household. Here she is hard at work:

Cheeken has a lovely little roost out in a big outdoor cage, but she won't lay eggs out there. She prefers hiding in the dark under the desk in the dining room. I think she also likes to hear people milling around in the building, even though she likes her privacy curtain. She makes some pretty strange noises when she's trying to lay an egg. I wonder if it is uncomfortable, or if she's just giving herself a pep talk!

And isn't that something to be proud of? Don't you think she earned her tomatoes and pears (both particular favorites with her)?

I understand that she's slowing down on the eggs as she gets ready to molt again. Poor, scruffy chicken....

It's That Time of Year Again!

I am about to head out on another grand mushroom hunting adventure with my family, as I do every year around this time (the first reports of mushrooms in our hunting grounds are starting to come in). This means that I will be closing Stampeaz.com for a couple weeks while I am gone. Orders received after 7:00pm Friday May 8th will not be processed until I return from vacation, which will be sometime the week of May 18th. I know it's inconvenient and I apologize in advance for that, but since Stampeaz is a small, one person operation, it's the only way I get to take a break from the daily routine. I will get orders out the door just as fast as I can, once I return.

I've also gotten my stash of clues ready, so I hope to do a little box hunting while I'm away, too. There are a couple pretty close to the cabins, so I should be able to take a side trip or two.

And, of course, I'll be seeing quite a bit of the chicken, so expect a good update when I get caught up with everything!! In the meantime, I will say that I have heard a good story to tide us all over. Recently, while she was out scratching around in the yard looking for tasty bugs and seeds and things, she fluffed up her feathers and chased a pair of wild turkey hens out of her territory. That's one feisty little chicken -- she must have been quite a sight!!

Visits and Gifts...

I'm so excited!! My sister is visiting (also helping me get more organized and catch up at stampeaz.com)! We took inventory today and the numbers in the online store now actually match what I have in stock. Inventory is much easier to take with two people than it is to do alone, so I really appreciated the help!

On the way south, she and her husband stopped by to visit my brother and sister-in-law (and Cheeken and Kizzie) and they were given a gift from Cheeken to bring along with them!! Cheeken has been laying an egg nearly every single day and they are very cute -- little, brown eggs with dark brown freckles on them!! There were a couple new daffodil blooms in the front yard, so I put the eggs into a basket and took a picture with them -- it seemed a fitting image for the changing seasons.


I got a note from my sister-in-law the other day -- Cheeken took her first bath since the warmer weather began to arrive. She likes dust baths, as you might remember from last May. Well, there isn't a lot of dust at this time of year, so she ended up taking a mud bath, instead. I'm given to understand that the feathers caked with heavy, black mud did not do positive things for the freshly cleaned house (nor did they do much for her freshly cleaned and newly bedded cage). Good thing she's such a charming chicken, huh?? Also, her new favorite food is canned pears - she seems to get intense cravings for specific foods when she's in egg production mode! One day she demands tomatoes and the next it's canned pears.

An Overdue Chicken Update...

This is one very lucky chicken! She's had a full year of living the high life down on the river, contributing the occasional egg, keeping everyone company, and providing some laughter along the way.





The chicken's usual domain is the downstairs area -- kitchen and dining areas (very washable carpet and wood floors that are easy to clean when necessary...). She had never tried to navigate the stairs to the bedrooms and living room, but she had once found her way to the laundry room and pantry area behind the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs.

Well, recently she had a bit of a scare. The people of the flock were upstairs when a shadow fell across the windows of her little safe haven and she got frightened enough (probably thinking the shadow portended death from above), to decide she wanted to be with the rest of her flock in the worst possible way!



Wait -- I have to pause in the story... Don't you just love the side-by-side anticipation in that picture?




I have to say I think the little spaniel is better at sharing than the chicken, but they have worked out a pecking order of sorts (the chicken pecks the dog, if she wants the pup out of the way).

Anyway, on with the story... The chicken actually flew up the stairs and into the living room, squawking and carrying on the whole way. When she got there, she dove behind the furniture and refused to come out! After quite a few attempts, my brother finally coaxed her out of hiding and carried her back downstairs, soothing her the whole way as she continued to make noises of distress.



She's not really in jail after her escapades -- it's just her little coop for the night. The dog probably appreciates the break and ability to have the snacks all to herself, though!!

Thanks to Graytreefrog for the recent photos to post with the story. :)

First, the Chicken Update!

Yes, I’ve been back from vacation for a little while, but I am just now getting caught up with things and I’m finally ready to catch up with the blog! Since I have had so many requests for information about the world famous chicken, she’ll be first on my list.

I got to meet her, this famous fowl. For a while there, she had been laying an egg nearly every day and ruling the roost (or at least the cocker spaniel) with aplomb. Then, without any warning, she nearly died (again), when she caught some kind of nasty avian virus or other. My brother stayed up with her for two nights running, force feeding her water and trying to tempt her with tidbits of this and that to coax her back to health and making her get up and move around, even though she didn’t want to budge. He wasn’t about to lose her after nursing her through the whole frostbite episode!! Apparently, she was acting like a boneless collection of feathers on the rug. After a few days of tender loving care, she started to look less limp and showed a little interest in eating on her own again.

By the time I arrived, she was still being fussy about what she wanted to eat. Chicken feed was always popular, but she liked tomatoes and fresh bread much better than cheerios, apples or fish, which had been favorites. She would demand tomatoes and bread, even jumping to snatch pieces from unsuspecting hands.

She finally has a name. Evidently, when my sister-in-law and her younger brother were small, they referred to these feathered farmyard creatures as ‘Cheekens’, with long emphasis on the double ‘e’. So, in honor of childhood antics, she has been dubbed Cheeken. She does exhibit a bit of cheeky behavior, so it’s not entirely out of character!! The poor cocker spaniel gets summarily pecked for straying into Cheeken’s food arena. She may have been particularly ornery because she was still feeling a little under the weather. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. So, they stay on opposite sides of whoever is handing out the snacks at the moment. And I am amazed by how much a chicken can eat!

Cheeken is also very sociable, at least with humans. She follows people around and talks to them constantly. She asks to be let out or in and waits with varying degrees of patience for someone to open a door for her.

She takes her decorative duties very seriously, taking frequent dust baths to keep her feathers shining, preening vigorously and finding particularly picturesque places to pose for general admiration. In short, she is a very entertaining little chicken.

Just as I was getting ready to hop in the car and head home, Cheeken went to her little nest box to try and lay an egg. By the time I made it back to Missouri, I heard that her first efforts since the great illness were shaped badly and had thin shells, but she’s doing fine now and is back to laying an egg nearly every day.

The Chicken Story, Part 3

I talked to my brother the other night. He said there was a celebration in progress and you will soon see why. :) First, here's a nice picture of my sister-in-law hugging the very lucky chicken! Isn't she pretty -- I mean the chicken -- my sister-in-law is pretty, too, but you can't see much of her in this photo! The chicken is very social. She doesn't mind being held and she talks quite a bit as she gently pecks at shoe laces, grommets and anything shiny that might be tasty. I'm looking forward to meeting this character the next time I head north!






Then, of course the great cause for celebration? Well, here it is:





A perfect, brown egg. :) I'm not sure who views this accomplishment with the greatest pride. The chicken's new mom looked up information about chicken frostbite on the Internet and learned that, until the comb was completely healed, the chicken would not lay an egg. Sure enough, the day before she produced this beauty, the last little bit of black icky stuff fell off the chicken's comb.

My sister visited and took lots of pictures, so I should have more shots to share before long. I can see carving inspiration coming my way! Yipee!!

The Chicken Story, Part 2

Okay, it does run in the family -- we all spoil the critters! :)

The chicken is doing well. She has become a regular part of the family. Here she is, stretched out on her side and basking by the fire again with her feet extended toward the stove. This time she is joined by Kizzie the family cocker spaniel. They had a tense moment when Kizzie was trying to be the dominant dog, but the chicken pecked her on the nose and there hasn't been any trouble since! Kizzie learned a new respect for that strange new member of the pack!!

This chicken is seriously into basking -- here she is in a lovely patch of sunlight. Do you think she has bad memories of being cold? I do! I also think that she's a perfect addition to the decor - she matches everything in the room so beautifully, and she looks like she knows it, too!

Kizzie and the chicken are both very fond of Cheerios. My sister-in-law is extremely popular, since she controls the container. However, the chicken has learned which cupboard has the Cheerios box in it and she will stand in front of the door and peck at it to make it clear that it's time for a handout!

Here's another shot of the very attentive pair, this time begging for "o"s from my brother. The chicken is a little hard to see, because she blends in so well with the chair leg. I just think this is so funny! A chicken and a dog waiting for treats, side by side!

The chicken is also very talkative -- the last time I talked with my sister-in-law on the telephone, the chicken was crooning, clucking and carrying on in the background. She seemed to have a very nice little voice, but I understand that she can get quite demanding when she hears my brother get up first thing in the morning. She has very acute hearing (unlike Kizzie, who is a bit on the deaf side), so she wakes immediately and insists on being let out of her kennel to snack and snooze by the fire.

Have you noticed that the chicken doesn't have an official name yet? They're afraid that if they name her it will be all over -- they'll never be able to give her away to another flock! Of course, why would they want to do that anyway??

The Chicken Story, Part 1

A couple weeks ago, my brother saw an unidentified creature in a snowbank by the side of the road. At first, he thought it might be an eagle or large hawk. Then, he saw that it had some sort of crest on its head and wondered what on earth was stuck in that snowbank. It turns out that what he found was a lost and half alive domestic chicken It was many miles from the nearest farms, so who knows how it got there, but the weather was sub zero with a strong wind and the chicken was in a very bad way. So he stopped his truck, picked the bird up and tucked it under his coat, got back in the truck and started for home. On the way, he called his wife and told her about the chicken and asked that she have a landing spot for it when he arrived.

The poor, frozen bird had a comfy, towel-lined box all ready for it in front of the wood stove where he thawed it out and fed it a bunch of bird seeds - his wife took a pair of pliers and cracked some corn for it, too. It ate hungrily and drank water, but its feet and comb were totally frozen and there was a lot of anxiety about whether the bird would survive.

After a few days, this lucky chicken had been given gifts of high quality chicken feed from the local elevator and antibiotics by an area veterinarian. She had baths in Epsom salts, antibiotic laced water and seemed to be coming around a little bit. She began to be able to stand on one of her severely frostbitten feet and then she managed to walk a bit. She is staying in a paper lined dog crate and coming out to bask by the wood stove. The first picture is of the chicken (which we're told is a Rhode Island Red) walking up to the stove and the second picture is of her laying down on her side, extending her feet to the fire to dry them off after a bath in Epsom salts. They're not great photos, since my brother took them and sent them by cell phone, but they do tell the story -- and I love the one of her laying by the fire. She's one lucky little chicken and it looks as if my brother and his wife have a new pet!!