moving chickens
May. 14th, 2019 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Everyone's up the hill wearing headlamps to load the sleeping hens from the barn they overwintered in into the pasture units they're going to spend the summer being moved around in, and I wanted to go and take photos of the process because I bet it would be somewhat dramatic-- everyone's wearing headlamps, they've got the lights off so the chickens will sleep-- but Farmkid is in bed and has already come downstairs once this evening. She helped transfer these same hens from the brooder where they started out to the barn where they overwintered, but that was because it was winter and the sun went down early enough that she wasn't in bed yet. This time of year, it's not dark until 9, and that's just way too late for her on a school night. (She's been oversleeping lately, it's been hard to get her up in the mornings, so they're really trying to get her into bed on time.)
So her mom asked if I'd stay in here; it would probably upset the kid if she got out of bed again and came down to find an empty house.
So, I'm down here watching the bright little pinpricks of everyone's LED headlamps up the hill behind me. I probably wouldn't have gotten any good shots, and it's 45 fucking degrees out there and wet as hell, so I'm not really sorry to have been excluded.
(Did U Know chickens, like many birds, have no appreciable night vision? I don't really understand the mechanism by which it works but i do know that if you pick up a chicken in the dark you can just carry it by the feet and it often won't wake up enough to mount an effective resistance to you. I have no idea why this works, just as I've no real idea why chickens go so docile if you hold them upside down. I also happen to know that turkeys are docile in the dark too, and if you pick them up by the first joint of their wings they won't flap or try to escape. One night I had to help retrieve several stray turkeys, and so I wound up wandering through a garden with a 35-pound bird held by its wings, and it leaned back and back and stuck its feet out in front of us and let out the faintest, wondering little chirps, until I set it on the ground and it instantly settled and fell back asleep. Dinosaurs are weird, man.)
So her mom asked if I'd stay in here; it would probably upset the kid if she got out of bed again and came down to find an empty house.
So, I'm down here watching the bright little pinpricks of everyone's LED headlamps up the hill behind me. I probably wouldn't have gotten any good shots, and it's 45 fucking degrees out there and wet as hell, so I'm not really sorry to have been excluded.
(Did U Know chickens, like many birds, have no appreciable night vision? I don't really understand the mechanism by which it works but i do know that if you pick up a chicken in the dark you can just carry it by the feet and it often won't wake up enough to mount an effective resistance to you. I have no idea why this works, just as I've no real idea why chickens go so docile if you hold them upside down. I also happen to know that turkeys are docile in the dark too, and if you pick them up by the first joint of their wings they won't flap or try to escape. One night I had to help retrieve several stray turkeys, and so I wound up wandering through a garden with a 35-pound bird held by its wings, and it leaned back and back and stuck its feet out in front of us and let out the faintest, wondering little chirps, until I set it on the ground and it instantly settled and fell back asleep. Dinosaurs are weird, man.)
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 06:14 am (UTC)