Stop & Chat: September 26

Excuse me if uploading a video doesn't work. It's the first time I've done it through Blogger so I'm not 100% sure how or even whether it works.

This morning started off pretty normal. Sleeping in is nonexistent when you have chickens either in the home with you, or close enough in their coop that you can hear them whilst in bed. The group of chickens we've called 'the babies/bebbehs/baybees' started their screeching right on time between 6:30 and 7:00. We normally let them out around 7:30, after dawn, to minimize predation events. We got dressed for the day and let them out before taking a moment to drink some coffee.

At about 8:00 we went to feed the 'wild flock'. At the property, we have two 'flocks' as we call them. The 'wild flock' (they're not that wild, as time has gone on, but they still greatly dislike being handled or even reached for), and 'our flock' (chickens we have raised or taken in at various stages of their lives to save or tend to for various reasons). Technically I think there are several distinct flocks, due to how the chickens and peacocks separate during the day and interact with each other, but that's a post for another time. 

Since we took in the Cheep Cheeps (a group of formerly 22 five-week old chicks, now 21 chicks) we've been trying to work out a good coop/foraging/enclosed safe space set up since they're too young to fully fend for themselves. We ended up grabbing an older, handmade form of a sort of tractor coop that the old property owner made and removed the rusted, holey floor before putting it on the grass for some nice foraging and daytime adventures. The Cheep Cheeps really enjoyed their day outside. I made sure they had water and plenty of food throughout the day. At the end of the day, when it was bedtime, they were a lot less stressed out and spastic from us handling them than they've been in previous days. We were able to grab them relatively easily, as they kept running up to our hands excitedly. It's been about two weeks, and these chicks are quite old, but I'm hoping they'll become quite tame and able to be handled as they grow up. Not because it benefits them (though it does; handling allows for better health checks), but because I want snuggles, dangit! LOL

Kookie (pronounced just like 'cookie', just a silly spelling) was well behaved today. She let me check on the scratch on her foot. The scratch as far as I can see is just a part of living on a very old farm property, with a rich history (read: glass and chemicals and trash) but I'd still rather it be treated before it turns into a case of bumblefooot. Crumble, Kookie's child (I initially thought he was a rooster, and I call him a he, but I have suspicions he might actually be a she), is his normal snuggly, wanna-cuddle-anywhere-he-ends-up-on-you self. At one point during the day I had crouched down to give them pets and love, and both Kookie and Crumble jumped into my lap and sprawled out until the position was too uncomfortable for me and I had to move.

I cleaned the bin Kookie and Crumble sleep in at night, as well as the bin the cheep cheeps sleep in. Both of these bins sit inside our home, as the cheep cheeps don't have safe space to sleep outside and at this point neither do Kookie and her Crumble. The coop we had originally let Kookie sit in, even while she was brooding over a nest, has been taken over by the Babies, so we need a new coop or even couple of coops to put everyone in. Ideally I'd love to make one coop and run big enough to fit an army of chickens, but between prices, our time, and our resources available, we may end up repurposing a lot of the old and semi-worn down coops and runs that the previous owner left for us. Let's be real, regardless of the circumstances, I'm going to make sure everybody is as happy and healthy as we can reasonably ensure.

I would say that's enough about chickens for the day, but in an honest sense chickens and peacocks are all I have going on in my life for 90% of the time. I feel sorry for anybody who asks for an update on my life, because all I will talk about is chickens. In the past year and change, they've pretty much taken over my life. 

On the UO front, I've done some plant tending and spell scroll crafting, but nothing else was done. I've been stuck in a never ending migraine due to the weather, so the majority of my day outside of chicken-related things was spent laying down in bed with the blinds closed and a blanket over my head. I did successfully take a two hour nap, which helped me have the energy to wrangle the Cheep Cheeps into their night time bin, but I'm still struggling with the pain, confusion, and general brain fog that comes with migraines. 

For dinner, I made some beef stroganoff. I haven't eaten it yet, so I don't know how it turned out, but apparently it's better than other beef stroganoff we've made before. I wasn't particularly hungry, so I've packaged up my serving to eat tomorrow.

I think that covers everything for today. Nothing super extreme or eventful for me, but still a busy day nonetheless. I'm not used to other beings needing and wanting my attention for so much of the day, and I'm still in a place where I feel useless and unproductive if I've let chicken snuggles/care take up too much of my day, but overall I know logically I had a fairly eventful day.