Kitten VS Donkey

JuJu the donkey made a new friend. Sort of. He seemed to be just chasin' tail!

XoxoXOx

Lady Grey (the chicken)'s Secret Stash

There is one chicken here who has been a loner from day one. At first I thought she was picked (pecked?) on because she was beautiful and different from the rest, then i realized she was bitchy & her attitude towards other chickens sucked. (Which comes first the chicken or the egg?... being picked on and turning mean, or being mean and then getting picked on!) OI! I call her Lady Grey, she wanders around alone mostly, she is the only chicken who has figured out how to climb out of the fenced in area, she comes to my house every single day and tries to sneak in the window or door if it is open a crack. She steals my cat Toot's food, Toots let's her cause Toots is a total pussy when it comes to giant birds. At night Lady grey goes back to the barn, where the chicken coop is but I never see her go in the coop with the others. She always preferred JuJu the donkey to her own kind. I have been wondering if she lays eggs, because of course she will not get in the coop or nesting box with the others. It wasn't until this morning when I was prepping to have new bales of hay delivered that i found her secret nest, where she has been laying some pretty light brown eggs!

!!!! I love her style, i love how she wants a private chicken life, i love how she is sneaky, and i looooove that she was keeping a secret nest full of eggs!

XOXOxoxo

Just Me and Cows...

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I don't really understand cows... but i think they understand me.



xoxoox

Chicken Chasin' & Shovelin' Sh!t ( ft. JuJu the Donkey)

I don't really make plans anymore. I think there was a time though, many years ago that i could make plans and stick to them, that i could decide way in advance what i might be doing a particular day. Now I wake up in the morning and have no clue, i might get asked by the first person who rings my phone "what are going to do today"....
usually I have no plans, i have to make it up as i go along. I am almost living "in the moment" (maybe Eckhart Tolle would blush), but I wasnt trying to. I just fell into the abyss of no time frame (no watch, no schedule), and I can't say whether it is good or bad, only that I remember that alarm clocks are stressful evil noise makers and I think had i stuck with using one i would be mentally ill now.
I dont really know what i am doing with my life, but I know for me, life is for living.

Here is a video of today. I spent alot of hours, shoveling donkey poop that finally defrosted in JuJu's stall.


Xoxoxox

RIP Beep Beep, I Tried.

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my chicken Beep Beep died yesterday in my arms.
I am doing better today, although still really upset ---- i have to foreWARN that the video below is a little bit disturbing, there is a dead chicken, crying , yelling, and grief. It's been a really hard winter for me and I feel that the isolation from other humans has made it even harder. (Which is why i am talking outloud to a video camera everyday, to help keep me sane.) The loss of my animals though, on any level, any animal, any season always makes me extremely upset. Especially when they have to suffer and be sick. I have suffered and been ill, laying on my death bed with celiac sprue before so I know the fear, pain, and peace that comes with the fading of the body.
Beep Beep had something called "sour crop" which I was not able to diagnose till it was too late.

If your chicken is sick and has a bulging chest, lethargic, watery poop, droopy wings, heavy breathing and bad putrid breath they may have sour crop - and can be saved if it is caught early enough! Beep Beep's blockage (which is located below the neck on their chest) was really swollen and huge (felt like a soft rubber stress ball consistency), I tried giving her olive oil with with a dropper, then massaged the swollen crop over and over. She did pass a small amount of it on her own but it was just too much. The advice to hold her on her back and induce vomiting didn't work for Beep Beep at all, nothing came out.
Please read more HERE about this if you suspect your beloved chick might have it.
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also... anyone wanting to leave a rude comment on this post will be immediately erased and banned as spam, so please keep this one peaceful.



xoxoxoxox

Beep Beep the Chicken RIDES JuJu the Donkey

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JuJu the donkey gives rides to Beep Beep the chicken.
I LUVVvvvvVVVvVVVvVvVvvvv freakin LUV them!!!!!



xoxoxo

Talking With My Ass (donkey!)

xoxoxo

My Snow Freak Out and My Snow Luv...

It's been snowing for days. The first day was novel, not so cold I could see my own breath inside my cabin (yet), I crocheted, I hung out with Bort, I even went for a short drive down to the Trust Store (i have never driven in snow before, even though I have lived here for 10 years!)....
But dang it... 3 days and still snowing the temperature dropped, and dropped. Finally my spring water froze in spite of pipe dripping & obsessive precautions, the wind chills hit -15 degrees in my county, and I worried for my animals!
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I brought ms. Butterworth inside because she was the only chicken shivering and not mentally capable of seeking out water & things to fulfill her needs. She's very happy by the wood stove again...
When I went out this morning to check on everyone else, someone was missing and I noticed right away. Beep Beep the baby chicken. I freaked. Under pressure I stay quite calm, I don't lose my mind but I do get very upset and cry and when I called for Beep Beep for 10 mins and she never showed up I thought the worst. All the other chickens were staying warm in their coop and nesting boxes, Beep Beep was nowhere in sight. I kept seeing R.I.P BEEP BEEP in my head, like it had already been tattoo'ed distastefully to my shoulder. With all the snow, and her being mostly white I felt like I was looking for the impossible to try tramping around in the snow- it had piled up enough inches overnight to have buried a small chicken.
I was about to give up and was walking out the gate, when instincts had me slam it back shut and quickly walk through the wooded area in the fence, across the spring and into the trees. My eyes felt like animal eyes, the ones that spot things better then normal... and that is when I saw her... poor lil' Beep Beep sitting on a small tree branch, freezing cold all alone, out in the open.

I grabbed her and hugged her to keep her body warm, as she shivered. I brought her right to the barn for warmth, food and water - all of which she was frantic about getting. I had never seen frozen poop on a chicken's ass till this moment. That's how cold it was. Poop-cicles.

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JuJu the donkey is getting much more feed then normal so she can create more body heat.

She also wanted to send out a reminder:::

Do Not Eat Yellow Snow. It's Not Lemon Flavuh. ;)

THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL::::

The cold is painful to me. Maybe cause I am so small, maybe cause my DNA is that of cajuns who lived in the hot tropical swamps- never the less, I hate the cold but love the beauty, the way it re-sculpts the landscape.

Xoxoxooxxx

I Liked When Ms. Buttersworth Lived With Me

I had put Ms. Buttersworth the chicken back out with the other chickens........
but not really. She's been staying in the feed section of my mini-barn where the rooster and most the other chickens never go. Anytime I tried putting her back with the others they immediately picked on her, pulling out her feathers, the rooster mounting her so violently I could tell that this was why i had found her in a corner shivering in the first place. After bringing her in the cabin for a week, we got to know each other. We spent many long hours sitting with my cat Toots by the warm fire.
I never imagined a chicken would love me, but Ms. Buttersworth now loves me in a chicken love kinda way. She wants me to hold her, she coo's when she's warm in my arms, she perches on my arm, and nests in my lap. I miss her being in the Luck Cabin with me.
I don't know if chickens are really smart creatures, but they are definitely sensitive with a range of feelings - even if those feelings never form into thoughts as we humans know it.
( Side Note: i am not meaning to make any statements on whether we should eat them or not, I eat what I can eat AKA what I am not allergic to... these observations are just how i see nature.)
Of course... JuJu the donkey wishes she could live with me too. Why can't all my babies be potty trained? Or maybe I should move into my barn instead! ;)

Xoxoxox

JuJu the donkey Luvs Her Neck Scarf

This is a lil' story about JuJu and her love of sassy neck scarves ::::

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For the last two months I have not been able to go for walks with JuJu because she had found a way to jump a neighbor's decorative fence and roam their pasture. Mr. Dontlikedonkeys next door was more then unhappy about it, and since he'd caught her on his surveillance cameras JuJu the donkey was guilty as charged for her trespassing offense.

A sad long 2 months passed as we waited to come up with the right solution to the problem, and built a small fence this past week along the creek to block her from her habit. Yesterday was our first day to go for a walk again, and she was more then ready to get outta her fenced area - she was pushing with her head on the gate and jumping and swinging things- so when i took out her halter to put on her face (the ultimate symbol of "walk time") she grabbed it in her teeth and shook that donkey head in a big resounding YES YES YES!!!

I put the halter on her face and we were all ready to go...

but then... JuJu went inside her barn stall and stood there... patiently...staring at me. She would not budge. We stared back and forth in silence.
I was confused.
"Are you scared JuJu? Do you not remember? DO you want to go for a walk?"

JuJu then pointed her soft nose to her special blue neck scarf tied to the side of her stall and gave it a nudge. I had taken it off that morning... and thought, does she really want it back on?

I took the possible cue and pulled the silky scarf down and tied it around her neck. Then i stood back and walked towards the gate...

She now was ready to go for a walk, and followed me at almost an excited run right out the gate!

All she wanted was her pretty neck scarf on before she went out in public...

........... I dont know where she gets it from (the fashion sense OR the trespassing?!? ;)

Xoxoxox

Ms. Buttersworth (the chicken) Moves In (temporarily)

The last few days Ms. Buttersworth the chicken has seemed to be gettin' senile. She had been a little clucky and weird a few weeks before that, I thought maybe she was going through a possible nesting phase... but then she just seemed cold, confused, and I got that nursing home vibe. The last rung on the sanity ladder. Her lil' red comb on her head turned half black and patchy, flopped over a bit. When I would pick her up she seemed to be shivering, and was hiding in the corner of JuJu the donkey's hay pile.
So now Ms. Buttersworth is in the warmth of the Luck Cabin, her own private box with food & water... and a cat 'nurse' to watch over her. Toots the cat has been making BiG EyEs since I let Ms. ButterCrazy inside.
She eats and drinks. She just doesn't roost, or hang out with her friends, or seem to know where she is going...
is this chicken old age?
XOxoxo

Snow Day With My Animal Friends! (Ducks, Chickens and Donkey)

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Here are some videos of my animals here at the Luck Cabin today on our first snow day together! No one seemed to care about the changing seasons except for me... and maybe JuJu the donkey.


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This second video I am singing. I don't sing well but it doesnt matter to the chickens and donkey because they love to be sung to (this is one of those things that makes animals cooler then humans!)
Singing time makes Beep Beep the chicken sleepy... which I find so cute I could explode, or maybe melt, or fall to pieces. :)


XOxoxox

Spring Water + Old Sink = Fresh Water Container For The Animals

In the fenced in acre where my animals live there are two spring water sources (plus I have a rain barrel I am setting up at the mini barn!)...
I found a nice lil' sink underneath my cabin that I thought would be perfect for catching the spring water that had already been piped before I moved here. I settled the sink into the dirt and then took a handful of thick native clay (that has been dug up when building the barn) and shoved it into the drain to block the water from leaking. (I have tried this trick even with leaky buckets and had total success!)

Me and JuJu the donkey waited for it to fill up completely, drip by dribble for about 30 minutes.

Once the sink was full I had it lean slightly to the left side so that the water would overflow out in one spot... since it's spring water that constantly flows year round whether it comes out in a pour or a drip.

Before even pimping it out with some rocks, leaves and hay, the chickens came by to test it out...

Rooster approved.

I put a larger flat rock under the drip, and smaller rocks around the entire sink to make it sturdy. I also started covering the black pipe I had dragged under the fence with debris just to make it look like it's not there. Would be cool to make a second water pool with some rock and clay only under the drip.
This sink will ensure that no matter what the animals are constantly getting a flow of fresh spring water that has no contaminants in it of any kind (including their own poop.)

Yay, I am feeling clever now. ;)

PS - I got the idea to do this with the sink after having BAD dream last night that something happened to me where I couldn't get home & my donkey had no water and became very sick, I was crying in the dream because I thought she was gonna die of dehydration. Nothing like a lil' nightmare to get you extra motivated.

Xoxoxo

JuJu the Donkey Discovers Her Own Reflection

On our walks together, JuJu has discovered many new things... things that are sometimes big and scary, things that are loud and noisy, fake animals, real animals, so many humans, so many creeks. Most of which she must slowly approach, each new situation is assessed in her mind for safety and potential fun before she can fully relax.
So when she discovered her own reflection, I thought possibly something terrible had happened.
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I was picking chestnuts with my neighbor Nancy (at another neighbor's house who was out of town) when JuJu the donkey suddenly took off running! At the rate JuJu was going I thought she might run clear straight home, alone! I gave her a whistle and she soon came trotting back. Literally trotting like a freaked out show pony. She ran back behind the house we are at...
I assumed there was a large animal, either in the flesh or by scent because the only time I ever saw her run like that was in the threat of a bear nearby. Nancy wanted to know for sure and walked back behind the house only to discover JuJu looking at herself in the giant reflective windows!!

"Leslie, you better get back here I think she is going to go through the window, she seems really upset!"

I jumped down off the rock ledge from the chestnut tree and ran back there to find JuJu looking at herself in the window, and showing the reflection she was now IN HEAT!
Opening and closing her mouth, breathing out, making chewing sounds, lifting her tail (all symptoms of a donkey in heat)! She got hawt for her own beautiful self mirrored back to her!

Drooling and wiping her snot nose on the out of town neighbor's windows... she then took a piss and 2 big shits on their lawn too. Nicely mowed lawn.

JuJu was fully smitten with that "donkey"!

It took a LONG time to get JuJu to leave her reflection. I thought if the sun went down we'd be in luck, but it turned out the windows were tinted to be reflective on the outside regardless of light. The amount of coaxing I did was going no where. Treats were going no where. Nothing is as powerful as the urge to mate, I began to think, as I paced back and forth along the road hoping she'd come. I finally went back and waved my arms in front the window to make it seem hazardous. I tried stomping my foot, i tried pulling her rope. Running her off. Finally I just cursed, got mad and stormed off, thinking I had no idea how to get out this pickle.

Then, JuJu came running behind me.

I suppose there are some things stronger then the urge to mate. I am not sure what you call it though. She did Hee Haw back in the direction of her new friend half way home, just in case they might want to join us. :)

XOxoxo

Hen Sitting On Ducks Eggs

My uncle loves raising ducks and chickens, and yesterday he dropped off a pile of duck eggs to see if any of my chickens would sit on them and make um' hatch. Why ya might wonder?
Well, humans have done things to animals, something called domestication... in fact humans went so far as to only breed over and over the traits the *thought* were the best. They bred the chickens so much that most hens have totally lost all instincts to sit on their nest, sadly some ducks too. It is now a rare bird who is willing to set, and the only way he has been able to hatch some baby ducks is to shove the eggs under a rare setting hen.
So I snuck some duck eggs through the back hatch in the barn/coop where the hens lay their eggs... (see pic above)...
One hen sits in the nesting boxes all night and her name is Skinny Minnie. She seems to sit alot, and prefers it to sleeping on the roosting branches- so my fingers are crossed she will somehow get a glimmer of maternal instincts and just warm them babies up!! Cause oh my gawd, everyone knows baby ducks are SOoooOOoOOoOO f'en cute, I could die just thinking about their fuzzy wittle selves, their quack and swimming, floating, riding the ripples.

Rootin' for Minnie to have some instincts & duck babies. Yeah, it'll be confusing that her babies like to swim and have big beaks... but hell a good mommy overlooks their ugly ducklings and excepts that the times are a changin'.

XOXOXoxo

JuJu the donkey and Beep Beep the chicken

The best eva'. Cute Overload, you can eat this for breakfast! Lunch! and Dinner!

Xoxoxo

JuJu The Donkey + Beep Beep The Baby Chicken= No Longer Enemies

Remember the attack, when JuJu tha' donkey felt strong murderous instincts against the baby chicken Beep Beep?

No longer a problem. :)

Xoxoxo

The Pecking Order, Literally

It's like highschool all over again in my barnyard. I started out with one Rooster (the rhode island red) and one hen (golden comet I named Honey Pie)... Red and Honey Pie were in total bliss, always bathing in dirt, basking in the sunlight together, sticking together like those glued by the squeeze tube of love.
And then.... the other hens came, and the hardcore pecking, squawking, fighting and bitching exploded. At no instigation of the Red Rooster, this was between the women - and Honey Pie was not going to lose her place as top hen, even if she had originally earned it by being the only one around.

Pictured above is Honey Pie (#1 in the pecking order), I now have one other hen who looks similar to her (see in the background of the pic) - I call that one Skinny Minnie cause she has a long skinny neck. Skinny Minnie by some twisted racist default got accepted right away just cause of her color/breed similarity to Honey Pie - even the donkey didn't bother her because she was familiar looking.

So even though Skinny Minnie turns out to be somewhat of a loner herself, she never gets picked on, she always goes to the coop at night, she gives up the sex to the rooster, and fits in fine with all the hens. This is why I consider Minnie #2 in the pecking order.

The creamy tan colored hen pictured above is Mrs. Butterworth. She is in the middle of the pecking order, with her friend Margarine (who is tan and white feathered, and can be seen in the very top pic with all the chickens together). Mrs. Butterworth and Margarine are both in the middle because they equally stand their ground and peck back, yet also allow themselves to be pecked on and pushed around by Honey Pie. Margarine is more aggressive to those lower then her on the pecking order (since she can only fight so much to those higher)- and for this reason it makes it so Mrs. Butterworth is #3 and Margarine is #4 (she spends too much extra time seeking out the weaker, which takes away from Rooster time).

And then below pictured is Whitie (for lack of a better name)....

she is kind of a dull personality. So unassertive & so barely there in her energetic presence that she is more of a sheep or chicken droid who has no real place - she can fluctuate between #2 to something lower, but mostly has her loyalty to the rooster and doesn't concern over the other hens. She knows were the fertilization is at! She is still #5 in the pecking order, cause she lacks importance to... well... anything around but me.

Second to last on the pecking order (#6) is Beep Beep, the baby chick (see pic below)! Everyone except the rooster picks on her, even the donkey! She is always spending her time running away from everyone or finding a lil' nook to herself to scratch in, all alone. In Beep Beep's mind, she don't even care 'bout all them bitches running around acting all plump and egg layin' --- to Beep Beep I am her mommy and best friend and she follows me all around instead.

LAST in the pecking order(#7)....... is of course my most magnificent, beautiful and stunning hen! Lady Gray. They tear her feathers out, she is never allowed with the group, they are cruel to her and treat her like shit - she refuses to even go into the coop with them at night and has taken up with JuJu the Donkey who doesn't seem to mind letting her sleep perched in her stall. She never initiates an attack on anyone else, including tiny Beep Beep - she avoids everyone at all costs except for myself and the donkey. She has to be fed separately then the rest to get a fair share. It breaks my heart to watch.

Gawd....

do they not remind you of humans? We peck each other into order, we too are still animals.

XOxoxoox

Run JuJu, RuN!

Me and JuJu have been having issues when we go for our walk. Almost once every walk she would run from me.... pulling the rope so hard that if I didn't let go I was going to be dragged like a tin can on the back of a Just Married get away car. It seemed to me that she would do this randomly, at various places and unexpected times... sometimes cause she didn't want the walk to end and decided to get away from the gate, another time when she heard a loud noise and ran out in front of me to protect me, then sometimes just going downhill in general would set her off into a running frenzy. But the real clencher was when she ran onto a neighbor's land, a neighbor who happens to take pride in their mowing and landscaping..... WHOooPS JuJu!
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So at first I would run (fast) after her yelling things like "NO!" or "You Are an ASShole!" ..... thinking my disapproval should be known to help train her. I would run after to her so hard I would have to take breathing breaks, bent over holding my knees about to vomit. Then I stopped. I stopped running and she stopped running as far. She would stop after 30-100 feet and wait for me to walk up, acting like she'd been waiting for me all that time and nothing bad had ever happened. I would still show her I was upset after by saying "NO!" and stomping my foot......
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Let's just say the truth here- I am not a donkey expert (yet). I have never had an animal larger then a fat cat in my life, I never even had a dog! I wanted this donkey in my life for many reasons, most of which I would say are yet to be revealed - I read up on it, I did the research but like anything in life research is nothing quite like reality.
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So tonight I looked up "how to train your donkey" (again)....
and found this tiny paragraph of brilliance:
"In Vicki Abbott's discussion on communication she presents the illustration of the donkey who has pulled away while being haltered with the human shouting, "No!" and chasing after him. Her point is that to the donkey, this human is signaling danger whereupon they must all get some distance away from the snake (lead rope) that has just been detected and is chasing after them. The donkey's flight in this scenario is therefore predictable.
Of course the secret to success here is to understand how to read donkey body language and for us to convey appropriate messages to the donkey so that he doesn't bolt in the first place, and also avoid human-like responses that do little more than reinforce in the donkey's mind that the misbehavior was absolutely the correct thing to do."

Oh my gawd. Tomorrow some shit is gonna change around here! Me and JuJu are going for walk.....
but when she runs off, now what do I say?

xoxoxo