5-29-14 – TBT

Posted on by Robyn

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Throw Back Thursday: Chickens.


Back in 2007, after we bought and renovated this house, we got our first batch of chicks from a hatchery. We decided to start them out inside, and we used a blow-up pool as a brooder. We put the pool (and chicks) in what is now the foster room. Raising chicks inside is something I won’t ever do again – the dust was horrifying, and the smell wasn’t much better.


At some point, probably after they put a hole in the blow-up pool which caused it to deflate, we switched them to plastic containers. (We never left the cats alone with the chicks, even though the cats REALLY wanted us to.)


Tommy looks so young!


At some point after that (I think this was 2008 or 2009), Fred bought an incubator, and we hatched some eggs. Mister Boogers and Joe Bob suddenly became interested in the incubator once the eggs started hatching.


New babies.


Baby Rock Star (we didn’t hatch her ourselves, she came from the hatchery. I just happened across this picture and thought it was cute.)


In 2009, this young chicken got caught in the fence during a rain storm. Fred brought it inside and put it in a box under a heat lamp. Mister Boogers was VERY interested.


And then Fred twitched his foot.

(The chicken was fine after a few hours under the heat lamp.)


Jake and Elwood. Not really chickens, but it goes with the theme!


Tommy looks so very pleased, doesn’t he?


This picture is from 2010, and I probably took it right after Fred fenced in the maternity yard. That addition on the side of the coop was originally supposed to be a dog house. George and Gracie slept in it exactly once, right after it was built, and never again (they prefer to sleep outside, near the front of the coop.) So we fenced it in and turned it into a maternity yard for hens who’d gone broody. We’re not planning to let any eggs hatch this year (I don’t think), so we leave the gate open. Last year when we had the meat chickens, the maternity yard is where we kept them once they went outside.

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::thlurrrp::


Bath time for Marshall.


Gilbert, showing Grant who the boss is, and Marshall off in his own little world.


Gilbert, attacking the catnip mat.


Grant and the scratcher.


Grant supervising while Gilbert plays.


Oh, that Marshall. He’s such a NUT.


Silly boys. (Grant on the scratcher, Marshall on the cat tree, and Gilbert’s tail below.)


“Am most displeased with you, lady.”

Honestly, these kittens have so much energy that after half an hour hanging out with them, I need a nap! They are so sweet (and yet such BRATS, with the biting and the climbing up the back of my shirt) that all I want to do is kiss them. They’ll put up with it for a minute or so, but then off they zoom like the wild things they are.

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Several of you have asked about Dennis. Unfortunately, no one has applied to adopt him, and so here he stays with us for now.


“Is snuggle time?”

I know some of you think that we should keep him as a permanent resident, but I truly don’t want another permanent resident. More than that, I want him to go to a home where he won’t get lost in the shuffle.

Right now he gets to run around downstairs all night long. Once it gets light outside and Fred and I are up and about, he finds a place to hide. I don’t think he’s hiding because he’s scared (we can lure him out quite easily with Da Bird or by shaking the jar of treats), but he seems most comfortable in a small, enclosed space. Earlier this week we couldn’t find him anywhere, but I finally located him in the front room, UP THE CHIMNEY.

Not climbing up the chimney like a tiny brown tabby Santa Claus – there’s a ledge at the bottom of the chimney, and he was hanging out there. Tuesday we blocked the opening with a piece of styrofoam cut to fit the space, and he shrugged and went under the couch instead. So the plan for now is that Fred will lure Dennis upstairs around mid-morning and we close the screen door at the bottom of the stairs. Dennis will hang out upstairs until early evening, and once we get the back door closed, he can come downstairs for the night.

I don’t want him downstairs during the day, because I worry that he’ll figure out the cat door into the back yard and I do NOT want him out there.

So, there’s where we stand. He’s doing okay, but HE STILL NEEDS A FOREVER HOME. I’m giving you guys a break (mostly because I want to do a post about Livia this weekend), but if he doesn’t get a forever home soon, you’ll get more Saturday posts about how he needs a home, and asking you to share.

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“WHERE. MAH. SNACK?!” Stinkerbelle gets her morning snack atop that cabinet and she gets mad if she has to wait. BRAT.

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Previously
2013: “Hey look, guys, I can fly. I CAN FLY!”
2012: “What you MEAN I gotta give it back?”
2011: No entry.
2010: No entry.
2009: “Pardon me, ma’am, may I have an ear scratch?”
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.

Comments

25 thoughts on “5-29-14 – TBT”

  1. In the picture “And then Fred twitched his foot.”, who is the kitten in the kitty bed?

    Also, in the picture “Oh, that Gilbert. He’s such a NUT.”….well, I am pretty sure that is Marshall. 🙂

    Stinkerbelle is soooo beautiful that she should NOT have to wait for snacks….just say’n….

    1. Oh, good, I’m glad you saw Marshall instead in that seventh pic. I couldn’t decide if my eyes or my mind was failing 😀

      1. In the picture “And then Fred twitched his foot.”, who is the kitten in the kitty bed? (Inquiring minds want to know.)

  2. I was just thinking to myself that it is hard to remember how small the kittens are without a big cat in the room to compare them with. Then I scrolled to the picture with the catnip mat – and my cats have the very same one! So suddenly it was easy to visualize their relative size.

    1. I always think that I need to take a picture of an adult cat in a basket or cat bed and then kittens in the same basket or cat bed as a size reference! (I still may do that!)

  3. I really REALLY wish I could adopt Dennis. I need a snuggle bug, but I have 2 kitties that would probably kill me if I brought a new cat home. 🙁

  4. There is a very simple way to get a home for Dennis.

    First, apply for an import permit. This may take some months and cost hundreds of dollars.

    Second, fly him halfway around the globe.

    Third, convince a small elderly calico that, contrary to all previous experience, she will enjoy having a new friend.

    Nothing could possibly go wrong.

    1. I’m imagining myself in a foreign country, bending over a tiny elderly calico saying (pleadingly) “But he’s a NICE kitty! He won’t bother you!” 🙂

  6. Maybe it’s me but that incubator looks a lot like a kitty litter I used to have.

    So I’m wondering if the cats are confused as to how they used the litter with that big thing in the middle of it.

    1. Ha – we never had a problem with them thinking it was a litter box. Maybe because there’s a heating fan in it, and a cover!

  7. So funny, “then Fred twitched his foot”, my daughter and I were just talking about startled-cat-reflex-jumps–how on earth you captured that mid-flight, love it!!
    I was wondering who the kitten was, too…
    and while it sounds like Dennis is fitting in, still pulling for his furever home, and Livia’s too.

    1. It’s entirely possible that Fred signaled to me that he was about to twitch his foot, so I was ready to take the picture. I almost never manage to catch that kind of jump with the camera!

  8. I love that picture of young Tommy looking into the plastic container with the chicks. He seems to be contemplating how many “nuggets” he could eat and not get caught! And that picture of him with the chicken hat is priceless! I don’t know what was going through his head at the time, but I’m sure it was equal parts embarassment and disdain. Oh, Tommy. We love you even when you’re fuming!

    Also, Stinkerbelle has such beautiful eyes! Does she get “mad” by meowing insistently, or does she prefer to knock things off shelves or something similar?

    1. She has a very piercing meow when she’s annoyed by the slowness of the humans, and she doesn’t hesitate to use it!

  10. gotta love those pictures where you can catch them in mid-flight 🙂

    That Marshall seems to spend a lot of time in his own little world…haha

  12. I so hope someone will soon realise that Dennis is just the right cat for them. (I also hope they keep calling him Dennis, because Dennis is such a great name for a cat.)
    In that picture of the chicken who got caught in the fence and rained on, the chicken appears to have no head. I therefore believe that a few hours under the heat lamp caused it to regrow a nice new head, and so it was fine.

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