Why Yes, I AM A Bird Brain!

and proud of it!  It's apparently an inherited trait as I am the fourth generation that I know of.  My mother, grandmother and great-grandfather all bred canaries.  My mom still does at age 82.  I love the song and variety of color/styles they come in.  Though I have published several articles on their breeding and care (that I plan to attach to this blog soon), I don't have canaries as they are pretty fragile for our family lifestyle:)

So, I have a 50 year old Mexican Red-Headed Amazon parrot named "Rex," short for "Memorex."  The bird has never said one word and I've had him/her since 1984.  Audra has a pair of Lovebirds and has apparently inherited the "Bird Brain" gene.

There will be several posts with stories about all of the above, but right now I want to write about "The Care of Backyard Chickens" because people ask me how I take care of my girls and work weird hours.

This is Penelope, a White Cochin hen who is 2.5 years old.  She stays looking like this without ever having had a water bath.  (They don't like them!)  Believe it or not, they take dirt baths and should always have a "dirt pool" available with a special mix of dirt (see below.)

I only have nine hens, so they aren't much trouble (or I should say work, they can get in plenty of trouble!)  They have minds of their own, albeit chicken minds...

First, I don't really care about the eggs.  They are a nice by-product, but the main reason I have them is because they are funny, pretty and way easier to take care of than even one dog!  I don't add extra light in the Winter to get them to produce because I want them to use their reserves for toughing out the cold.  I will turn on a regular light during the day if it's below 20 degrees to help heat their house enough for the water to not freeze.  I have an anti-freeze tray, but it's too big for the spot and gets in the way.  You could also get a waterer that doesn't freeze.  I bring the waterer into the garage at night because they don't drink in the dark.  That way I am forced to change it every morning.

Most chickens can winter just fine if they have unlimited access to water, a wind break and are kept dry.  They often snuggle at night, sometimes off the roost in piled up straw "nests" or in the nest boxes.  The worst thing you can do is shut up the coop tightly and heat it.  Heaters cause fires, and if not that, the shock of temperature changes is very hard on them if the power goes out.  Mark made an air vent pipe that runs across the top of the inside of the coop.  It has some holes in it, but they are never subjected to direct drafts.  I do shut the window, but I put up the back door for them on all but the very worst days. They don't seem to mind walking in snow.  I shut that door at dark to keep the heat in.
The coop itself is insulated just like a house and the floor is up off the ground several inches.  There are lots of photos of The Chick Inn in earlier posts if you haven't seen it.

During nice days when someone's around, we let them out of their run into the backyard.  They love running around and foraging.  I always have a waterer out there as well.

Summer care isn't all that different.  They have a shaded pen and house during the heat of the day with a fan if need be.  Clean water is always available.  They don't take water baths, so I have a big pan full of untreated topsoil mixed with fireplace ashes, diatomaceous earth and some sprinkles of poultry dust and they go to town diving into it and dust bathing.  It keeps them clean and mite free.

I feed my ladies the best food I can.  It's still cheaper than dog food!  I use an Omega-3 organic pellet that already has grit in it.  I toss oyster shell in when they are laying heavily.  I try to give them a treat everyday as that is what they live for.  I feed them plain yogurt, bagged salad greens, watermelon, pumpkin, cottage cheese, rice, cut up noodles, cereal, cheese leftover veggies and once in awhile junk food like bread, crackers, cookies, popcorn, etc.  (Shame on us, but they love it and it's rare.)  I only give a little "scratch" grain as a snack as it's fattening.  We call it "crack" around here because they love it!  We also grow apples, strawberries, pears, grapes, raspberries and peaches which we either give them or they steal.  I always give them some kind of green if they aren't able to be out of the pen that day.  I put a tablespoon per gallon of apple cider vinegar in their water because folks swear it's good for them.  Can't hurt!

These are just a few tips as I could go on for pages.  There are many books and magazines available to give you more in depth advice or you can ask me and I will try to answer your questions.

Isabella Cruella, an Appenzeller Spitzhauben and Bonnie Blue, a Cochin, braving the wind to help decorate their coop.  They are glad they aren't turkeys!

Have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving from everyone here at the 'Creek!  Stay warm!

Gale

I'm Not Dumb, Just Intermittently Intelligent!

I don't know what got me started thinking about some of the less than brilliant things I've done over the years.  I've had a lot of years to pile them up, so you can bet there are lots!  Hopefully, I'm repressing memories of the worst incidents...

The way I see it, there are two categories:  The first is doing something where you had no idea what the consequences would be and second, the ones you do--but choose to proceed anyway.  Unfortunately, I'm smart enough to know most of mine are the latter, but time, money, lack of ability or energy drew me to the "dark side" thinking I could get away with it "just this once."

Suffice it to say, I should never be around any sort of dye.  When I was in my twenties, I used to "highlight" my own hair.  When I decided to go natural, I went to a stylist and the chemical reaction of drugstore vs professional products turned my hair green.  I didn't get home until midnight from a 7:30 p.m. appointment and my hair had to be dyed black to compensate.  I could never learn my lesson about buying more yarn than I would need (same dye lot) and more than once, I have had to dye something to salvage it.  Did you know that even if you start with two shades of white you can dye it another color until the cows come home and it will never even out?

Since my main hobby for years had to do with dogs I have done many dumb things.  Not once, but several times at dog shows I would have a brand new bottle of "Sticky Ticky" (liquid hairspray) open on the grooming table while doing a topknot only to have the dog or me knock it over just before going into the ring.  I have to take the dog to the restroom, hose off feet or whatever and stick them under the hand dryer.  The same goes with knocking over Diet Cokes on the grooming table...only that's an even bigger mess.  But I never learned (and will still likely attempt it again...)  I hate hauling large grooming tables, but I probably should!

I also learned that you must put your grooming sprays/liquids in distinctly labeled and different containers.  Once again, I was ringside misting my dog with anti-stat when I discovered it was actually the spray oil (used after showing to protect coat.)  Off to the restroom....(you also have to have separate brushes and they should be labeled too!)  I could've finished the championships on a lot more yorkies, but Barb and I refused to dye our dogs...98%  because it's unethical and 2% because I would suck at it and get caught!

I've written several stories about Mark's Jack Russell terriers where I have given them the benefit of the doubt and wound up either hunting for them or breaking up fights or dealing with stuff they ruined or cleaning up a mess or worse, running to a vet.  Trusting a JRT is like handing All Capone the keys to Alcatraz.

I could kick myself for, get this, throwing away gold necklaces because they were knotted or kinked.  (This was decades ago.)  I also gave a handmade quilt to my golden for a bed.  I moved so many times I lost some of my jewelry like an opal ring, a tiny antique diamond ring and others because I wasn't careful.  When moving in a u-haul to CA I had to get rid of stuff which included the best ruby slippers for a Dorothy costume ever.  I still kick myself for that!

There isn't enough cyberspace for me to list my vacant moments, but I will leave with one of my most not-so-divine inspirational moments...

I had a very rusty old '69 Cutlass (could write a whole post on it alone) that had a black vinyl top.  Well,  most of it flipped back while I was driving on the freeway.  The car was beyond help and I had no money, so what to do?  I noticed kind of a soft rubber stuff around the roof trim and thought it was like roof tar.  So I spread the stuff all over the roof and frankly, it didn't look bad from a distance.  I got away with it through the winter and it didn't even leak (which it had before---I used to scrape ice off the inside of my windshield.)

However, one 90 degree-ish day, I walked out to the car to find the tar oozing and dripping down my windows.  What a mess.  I sold the car for $50 and bought some makeup with it.

Until next time, be smarter than me...

Gale

Gale's Gallery IX: It Doesn't Get Easier Than This! -- Ornaments

Hello,

I am a bit craft A.D.D., so anything I can finish quickly without a lot of cleanup is my kinda craft!  Everything I do isn't what one would call art and it's fun to do something in a few minutes sometimes.  If you have some floor cleaner, cheap glass ornaments and some glitter you can crank these out.  It is especially good if you are in charge of crafts for a youth group.

The other thing I like is that the glitter is on the inside of the ball and will not be shedding all over everything, ever!  You can decorate the outside however you like, but a ribbon hanger will suffice.  I got this idea from watching "Crafting At The Spotted Canary" on our local PBS station.

Now the floor cleaner must have "future" in it, not always easy to find.  I should have looked at Wal-mart first, but I rarely go there.  You can get a huge bottle Pledge Wood Floor Finish with Future for under $5.  It will last forever at the rate it is used on this project.  Guess I could actually use it on my hardwood floors...Nahhhhh!

Fine glitter looks best.  Here I experimented with coarse glitter, mixed colors, etc.  If you screw up, they can always be painted (or pitched because they cost next to nothing!)

Don't throw out the boxes the ornaments come in because the finished ones can be stored in them.

For this project you will need the floor polish, ornaments, glitter and some little Dixie cups.  If you have a tiny funnel or two that would be helpful.  Any adornments are up to you.

Make sure the ornaments are clean and dry.  Pour a couple tablespoons of floor cleaner in the ornament and gently swish around.  You don't want air bubbles!  Make sure the whole interior is coated, then flip over a Dixie cup and let the remainder of the cleaner drip out.  This can be reused in next ornament, so there's no waste.

After the ornament has dripped out, but not dry, dump (a technical term) in glitter(s) and shake a bit.  Mix and match colors if you want, it will never be perfect, but that's what will make it different!  Make sure interior is covered, but it will never go opaque (nice because it will let Christmas lights through.)  Then tap out gently the rest of the glitter into another Dixie cup for reuse.  Let them set for a few minutes, but they really don't have to be dry because you are going to pop the ornament cap on anyway.

Viola!  In minutes, you have an ornament either to embellish or leave as is!  Tie with a ribbon, add any do-dads you want to them and you are done!  Very little cleanup is needed unless somebody spills the glitter or cleaner LOL!

This snowlady is just thinned out white craft paint on the inside instead of floor cleaner.  I did let it dry overnight as the paint is thicker then floor cleaner.  Then, I decorated her with glitter glue, painted the hanger black and made her a felt hat.

More Galleries to come for the holidays...

Until next time,
Gale