This is a blog of random thoughts and ideas. This is what we would be talking about, if you were right here with me having coffee on this Saturday. So pull up a seat and enjoy your cup of coffee with me.
Karaoke
I absolutely love karaokeing! (sp?) (it’s not on the spell checker) (so is it even a word) ANYWAYS, last night my honey and I wanted to go play some pool so we went to a local bar. It was crazy busy. Scary busy. It was so tense in the bar I knew there was a fight waiting to happen. So we left. Next.
The next bar had maybe 10 people. And there was a lady on stage handing out mikes to people. KARAOKE! Yay! I don’t need any liquid courage to get on stage and sing. I’m not great, but I feel I can hold my own. I also know what songs NOT to sing. (wish I could say the same for some of the others)
Well because it was so slow there was maybe 6 or 7 people on the rotation and I got to sing 5 songs! It was so much fun. The first song was a duet with my honey. This was his very first time karaokeing and he had enough fun that he put in one other song for him to sing.
All I had was water all night so the party kept going and going. :P We finally get home at 1, and then get on the computer to myspace.com since it has a karaoke off shoot site. Very cool. Needless to say, we’ll go back very very soon.
Bed Head
Seriously. Its sexy.
Actually I usually hate bed head. I think it looks trashy and avoid looking in the mirror. I have naturally curly hair and while everyone wishes they had my hair, I of course wish I had straight hair. When its behaving I love my hair. The other 90% of the time I hate it. It honestly has a mind of its own.
Especially in the morning. Very very scary looking. Usually I avoid looking in the mirror and go straight to the hair tie. So bed head? I don’t get it? Until today. Wow it looks sexy! Maybe its because I didn’t wash my face and I have the “smoky” eyes to go along with it.
I seriously look like Mary Kate (or Ashley) when they did their bed head photo shoot. Let me go find the picture….
Except, I make it look way sexier. (Of course)
Life
Watching life happen around you is so cool. I love watching it. I love watching the beginning and the between. I have chicks that started in little eggs, then mama sat on the nest, 21 days later we have hatchlings, then two days later mama is taking them out in the big world to eat and learn. They are so tiny and learning so much.
This is a small scale of how amazing life is.
I just had to share.
I love watching life.
Chickens
I know what you’re thinking. “Oh no, not that again” Well guess what. This will be educational for you!
I know a lot of my readers don’t know much about chickens. I have to clarify quite a bit, so I’m going to give you a quick run down of chickens. Some you may know, some you may not. So just learn what you can.
Roosters: Those are the boys, they are the pretty ones, the mean ones (not always) the MEN. They mate with the girls, and they make lots of noise. Some breeds more then others. The noise that comes out of them is called crowing, and they don’t just crow at the break of dawn like movies say. They crow for the hell of it, when there is danger and any other reason that they haven’t told me about yet.
Pullets: Pullets are actually the females or also known as hens. These are the ones that lay eggs and become mommies. The don’t have to be nice if they don’t want to be. They are usually the ugly ones. (as my honey likes to put it) So basically if you see a pretty or beautiful chicken (lots of colors and feathers) you can bet that its a rooster, not a pullet.
Dynamics between a rooster + pullet: You need about 10 hens per rooster you have in the coop. Give or take of course. The boys will do a little dance around the ladies when he is horny. Then the chase begins. That actually depends on the time of day. For my chickens, my rooster is more horny in the morning, and the girls are more annoyed in the morning. Come afternoon, they tend to just “get it over and done with” with him.
My rooster takes very good care of his girls. He will find food for them and then call them over with clucking and clucks. He even feeds them out of his mouth. He will almost always let them eat before him, even if it is a worm.
Eggs: Pullets lay eggs when they mature. They can take anywhere from 4-6 months to mature. If a chicken is laying “small” eggs, they aren’t going to grow up to lay “big” eggs. Doesn’t work that way. Just cause a chicken lays an egg does not mean its fertilized. You can eat unfertilized and fertilized eggs, and I bet you would never even notice a difference. I sure haven’t. You check the nest every day to see if there are eggs. Some chickens lay 1 egg a day. Some lay every other day. Some you might only get 2 or 3 a week. Some lay brown eggs, some lay white, some pink, some green and some even blue. Depends on the breed of chicken. They can sit out a few days before you have to refrigerate them.
Laying: Pullets usually run in the nest, cackle a few minutes lay an egg and leave. They don’t hang around and SIT for hours on end. These are the eggs you pull. You’ll go check on the birds and see everyone outside playing and then go in the coup and see 4-5 eggs sitting there, ready to be refrigerated.
Broody Hen: This is when a hen gets the natural motherly instinct to sit on her eggs in order to hatch them. This is the only way you can get chicks in the coop. Not by letting them sit there un-sat. Broody’s usually get very protective at this time. They sit on the nest until the babies are hatched. They usually get off once a day for a little while to stretch their legs, eat and drink and then they are back on the nest. If you have a rooster you can bet that the eggs are fertilized. If you don’t have a rooster, you’re poor hen will be waiting a long time for babies to come. You have to have a boy and a girl to make a baby. (you didn’t know you get a lesson on the birds and the bees did you?)
So what happens if you have a broody hen but no fertilized eggs? Some people break the broodiness. Removing the hen from the nest and putting her in a separate cage or crate. I’ve never done this, but its considered more humane then letting the poor thing sit on a hopeless nest of eggs. Considering being a mama is very draining physically on a girl.
Another thing people do is let her sit on golf balls instead of eggs and when the deadline comes for mama to be hatching eggs, they put day old chicks that they got from someone or the store. Most of the time mama accepts this.
Just because you have eggs doesn’t mean you can have chicks. If a hen doesn’t go broody, you need to get an incubator if you want to grow chicks. Some breeds are more likely to go broody then others. Those tend to be prized possession in the coop. They make great mommies. When a hen goes broody they stop laying eggs. I found this time around that my egg production slowed way down on all the hens because they kind of liked the idea of being broody but then they get off the nest a few hours later. The indecision took its toll on their laying production.
Chicks + Candling: It takes about 21 days for the babies to hatch from the start of a broody hen laying on a nest. Its very cool to watch them develop. Wait. How in the world can someone watch them develop if they are in an egg?! Well its a processed called candling. Where you are in a dark room (or out at night) and use a light to shine through the egg to see in it. You can see heart beat and development. Its super super cool.
A chick will start pecking through the shell at 21 days. It is very important that you avoid helping this process. They need to go through this process themselves if they are to be strong enough to survive in the world.
After the first baby hatches, mama usually waits about another 2 days for the rest of the babies to hatch. Chicks can survive 2-3 days after the hatch without eating, since they were just living in the egg with the nutrients from yolk.
Chicks First Days: After mama finally gets off of the nest the babies follow her everywhere. She teaches them the ropes and shows them the food and water. Its all a very beautiful to watch. You definitely should keep the new chicks and mama separate from the other chickens. The nasty thing called pecking order can be tragic for a baby chick.
Sexing: Some people are able to sex at this time. Most of the time though its a very inaccurate way of finding out. So how do you know if they are boys or girls? Wait. Wait until they develop more. You can probably tell closer to 2 months. Maybe sooner if you really know your stuff. But definitely anticipate a ratio of 50:50 between the boys and girls.
Well I think that is it. I didn’t realize this last subject would turn into a blog! :P I hoped you learned a lot about chickens. Then next time I use some of these terms, you won’t be opening up a new tab taking you to dictionary.com.
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