Angitou gets ready for a haircut |
After we were done and Angitou was back in the coop I decided that my fear of destroying her elegance had prevented me from giving her a proper haircut (um….feathercut) and that I still couldn’t see her eyes! She’ll need a second session, but we will give her a few day—she’s had enough excitement for a while.
Buffy the buff Orpington hen was in desperate need of a pedicure,
so she was the next customer in our spa.
Once again, Kathy held her while I wielded the sharp instrument—this time
a dog nail clipper. Chickens usually
wear down their nails just in the process of walking and scratching, but occasionally
hens will grow their nails so long that they start to curl, which can interfere
with the way they walk. Buffy’s long
nails are probably a result of a recent bout of broodiness—she wasn’t moving
around much when she was sitting on the nest, so the nails just grew. The tricky part about cutting nails is that
if you cut them too short they will bleed, since there’s living tissue, called
quick, inside the near end of the nail.
There are some great tutorials available on the internet about cutting
chicken toenails, including
this one.
The final bit of coop news is that Courtney the Silkie hen has
ditched her teenage Legbar kids—she’s
gone broody and has settled into a nest box 24/7. The Legbars vacillate between happily
spending time out in the run without giving their mom a thought to gathering
around Courtney’s nest box all perplexed and peeping. I’ve also seen one or more of the chicks in
the nest box with Courtney trying to cuddle.
She just sits there and ignores them in her broody stupor. Life can be so cruel!
Today Courtney started broodiness therapy in the broody coop. I put the broody coop right next to the small coop where the Legbars live and they sometimes gather around and peep forlornly to their mom through the fence. It is reminiscent of the scene in Dumbo where Dumbo’s mom gets locked in a cage and Dumbo can see her through the bars but can’t be with her. It is just a little heartbreaking. It is also timed perfectly with the millions of high school graduations around the country where kids are leaving school, home, and mom and dad to go out into the wide world. It is a part of life that none of us can avoid—not even Courtney and her Legbar chicks.
Buffy needs a pedi |
Today Courtney started broodiness therapy in the broody coop. I put the broody coop right next to the small coop where the Legbars live and they sometimes gather around and peep forlornly to their mom through the fence. It is reminiscent of the scene in Dumbo where Dumbo’s mom gets locked in a cage and Dumbo can see her through the bars but can’t be with her. It is just a little heartbreaking. It is also timed perfectly with the millions of high school graduations around the country where kids are leaving school, home, and mom and dad to go out into the wide world. It is a part of life that none of us can avoid—not even Courtney and her Legbar chicks.
Courtney broods
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