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bokbokosaurus) wrote2012-11-17 06:47 pm
bokbokosaurus) wrote2012-11-17 06:47 pm
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6 Awful Things No One Tells You About Keeping Chickens, part two
Part one.
3. They look after their weakest like a right-wing politician.
You've heard of the pecking order, which is when you have a top hen and a bottom hen and all the hens in between. The term comes from chickens. The very first thing Dippy did, once they got over the shock of their new home, was to beat the crap out of the others while yelling her head off. When she was reintegrated after her illness? The same. Everybody got their head grabbed and bounced off the floor, except poor submissive Trex, who just got stamped at and flapped at. The second and third hens are usually worse, as they tend to be ruthlessly ambitious, whereas the top hen can be a benevolent dictator if you're lucky. Sometimes they're particularly awful, and have to be separated from the others, or given a cockerel to keep them under control, if local byelaws and your feminist principles allow it.
You do get altruism. Dippy is, as I said, rarely too aggressive towards Trex, as Trex is not a threat to her leadership. Back when Arky was lame and the bottom hen, and Trex was second-in-command, Trex used to stand guard over Arky when she was resting or laying, to protect her from Dippy and Steg. When her leg was healed, Arky, of course, repaid her by stealing her place in the pecking order and beating the crap out of her at every available opportunity.
If a hen is injured, the others will make it worse, hardwired as they are to peck at anything red. It's very important to separate out an injured hen as quickly as possible, or failing that to paint her with dye and Bitrex to disguise the redness and make her taste awful. This does not always work. When I did it with a scratch on Arky's butt, the other three went for her like the antidote was in there. Arky looked at me like I'd done it on purpose.
2. They are perpetually one small step away from cannibalism
As mentioned above, any blood is seen as an invitation to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Being careful about blood, however, does not guarantee your chickens will not turn to cannibalism at some point. It's exacerbated by poor conditions; it's estimated that one in thirty battery hens would be killed and eaten by her neighbours, which is an incident of cannibalism for every five or six cages.
Feather-pulling can escalate into outright cannibalism, especially if it draws blood. Cannibalism is also made more likely by the laying problems worn-out ex-batts tend to suffer from. Prolapses tend to be red and bloody, while a hen who lays a soft- or no-shelled egg will have her butt covered in goo the others want to peck at. (Egg-eating is a form of semi-cannibalism so routine it's barely worth discussing. They eat their own eggs. With enthusiasm. They will come running for an egg you have dropped. You kind of have to get over it.)
Basically, your chickens should be viewed as the normal-looking baddie in a horror film, who can turn into a ravening monster at any time and with no warning.
Horrifying as it is, de-beaking is actually an attempt to reduce the risk of this. It... doesn't seem to work.
1. They will make you feel like a pervert.
Or not. Perverts use the whole chicken, after all.
Almost everything that goes wrong with a chicken seems to go wrong with her vaginabutt. You spend an inordinate amount of time staring at, feeling up, and occasionally pushing entrails back into your chickens' vaginabutts. Because ex-battery hens don't perch much, and tend to shit in the nestboxes they sleep in, they have more skin problems than most around the vaginabutt. It's also a very common area for baldness, and as I said, ex-batts have more laying problems than healthier girls. There is no way not to feel like a pervert at this point.
If you are lucky enough to have fully-feathered hens, the vaginabutt comes as a horrible surprise when you're checking the skin around there. If you have oven-readies, it's just... staring at you. All the time.
3. They look after their weakest like a right-wing politician.
You've heard of the pecking order, which is when you have a top hen and a bottom hen and all the hens in between. The term comes from chickens. The very first thing Dippy did, once they got over the shock of their new home, was to beat the crap out of the others while yelling her head off. When she was reintegrated after her illness? The same. Everybody got their head grabbed and bounced off the floor, except poor submissive Trex, who just got stamped at and flapped at. The second and third hens are usually worse, as they tend to be ruthlessly ambitious, whereas the top hen can be a benevolent dictator if you're lucky. Sometimes they're particularly awful, and have to be separated from the others, or given a cockerel to keep them under control, if local byelaws and your feminist principles allow it.
You do get altruism. Dippy is, as I said, rarely too aggressive towards Trex, as Trex is not a threat to her leadership. Back when Arky was lame and the bottom hen, and Trex was second-in-command, Trex used to stand guard over Arky when she was resting or laying, to protect her from Dippy and Steg. When her leg was healed, Arky, of course, repaid her by stealing her place in the pecking order and beating the crap out of her at every available opportunity.
If a hen is injured, the others will make it worse, hardwired as they are to peck at anything red. It's very important to separate out an injured hen as quickly as possible, or failing that to paint her with dye and Bitrex to disguise the redness and make her taste awful. This does not always work. When I did it with a scratch on Arky's butt, the other three went for her like the antidote was in there. Arky looked at me like I'd done it on purpose.
2. They are perpetually one small step away from cannibalism
As mentioned above, any blood is seen as an invitation to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Being careful about blood, however, does not guarantee your chickens will not turn to cannibalism at some point. It's exacerbated by poor conditions; it's estimated that one in thirty battery hens would be killed and eaten by her neighbours, which is an incident of cannibalism for every five or six cages.
Feather-pulling can escalate into outright cannibalism, especially if it draws blood. Cannibalism is also made more likely by the laying problems worn-out ex-batts tend to suffer from. Prolapses tend to be red and bloody, while a hen who lays a soft- or no-shelled egg will have her butt covered in goo the others want to peck at. (Egg-eating is a form of semi-cannibalism so routine it's barely worth discussing. They eat their own eggs. With enthusiasm. They will come running for an egg you have dropped. You kind of have to get over it.)
Basically, your chickens should be viewed as the normal-looking baddie in a horror film, who can turn into a ravening monster at any time and with no warning.
Horrifying as it is, de-beaking is actually an attempt to reduce the risk of this. It... doesn't seem to work.
1. They will make you feel like a pervert.
Or not. Perverts use the whole chicken, after all.
Almost everything that goes wrong with a chicken seems to go wrong with her vaginabutt. You spend an inordinate amount of time staring at, feeling up, and occasionally pushing entrails back into your chickens' vaginabutts. Because ex-battery hens don't perch much, and tend to shit in the nestboxes they sleep in, they have more skin problems than most around the vaginabutt. It's also a very common area for baldness, and as I said, ex-batts have more laying problems than healthier girls. There is no way not to feel like a pervert at this point.
- Your chickens arrive bald? Nappy cream on the ass.
- Excessive pecking? Happens around the tush. Bitrex and blue dye.
- Mites? Hide out in the fluffy knickers. Dust 'em.
- Prolapse? Comes out of the terrifying orifice. Clean it up and put it back in.
- Egg yolk peritonitis? Diagnosed by groping the backside for swelling.
- Stuck egg or laying internally? Ditto.
- Flystrike? You will spend your day pulling maggots out of the flesh of your chicken's bottom. I am not kidding. And like Pokemon, you gotta catch 'em all if you want your bird to stand a chance.
If you are lucky enough to have fully-feathered hens, the vaginabutt comes as a horrible surprise when you're checking the skin around there. If you have oven-readies, it's just... staring at you. All the time.