identity crisis

Poor Francis. He adores his hens. He will sit watching them with an entirely
quizzical expression on his lovely feline face as they tuck into grass;
scratch about in the soil looking for bugs, worms, snails, grit... He is,
however, confused in his sense of identity. He has not been the same since
Anode stuck her nether regions in his face and popped out an egg as she did
so. It doesn't help that The Laydeez have taken it upon themselves to follow
me about as they free-range in the garden. They have discovered that if they
follow me into the house they can see the fount of all wonder: the
microwave. For, lo! From the fount of all wonder doth come forth delicious
manna of the gods: warm sweetcorn. So once they follow me into the house,
into the kitchen, and they stand in front of the fount of all wonder, heads
bobbing about, happy clucking sounds made and behind them is Francis,
watching... I feed The Laydeez their treat of sweetcorn out in the garden. I
place it on a dish and this is leapt upon by merrily clucking hens, followed
by hoovering up of golden yellow goodness and scratching it out of the dish,
splattering it about and they chase up each scattered kernel. Francis looks
on. Once The Laydeez have hoovered up the vast majority, they are joined by
a lovely black & white boycat who has decided that as The Laydeez seem to be
so obviously enjoying the yellow jewels, they must taste good.

I now have a cat who thinks he's a hen. He has taken to eating their
sweetcorn. Sigh...

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:33:14 +0100, wafflycat wrote:

I now have a cat who thinks he's a hen. He has taken to eating their
sweetcorn. Sigh...

That *is* unusual: usually, they want it on the cob
(http://67.54.246.139:9000/tdavis/cats/happiness/corn.jpg). I have two
others that eat sweet corn - all prefer it on the cob. None like canned
corn.

--

T.E.D. ) MST (Missouri University of Science and Technology)
used to be UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla).

"Ted Davis" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:33:14 +0100, wafflycat wrote:

I now have a cat who thinks he's a hen. He has taken to eating
their
sweetcorn. Sigh...

That *is* unusual: usually, they want it on the cob
(http://67.54.246.139:9000/tdavis/cats/happiness/corn.jpg). I
have two
others that eat sweet corn - all prefer it on the cob. None like
canned
corn.


I take it the LayDeez had a rough upbringing and are delighted with
whatever form is available.

I love these stories and keep wondering if it would be possible to
keep a few hens in my back yard. What to they need? Shelter, water,
food?

Jo

"Jofirey" wrote in message
...



I take it the LayDeez had a rough upbringing and are delighted with
whatever form is available.


They ate some cat food this morning...

I love these stories and keep wondering if it would be possible to keep a
few hens in my back yard. What to they need? Shelter, water, food?

Jo



Aye, suitable shelter, suitable food, water, control of parasites, vet on
occasion. One the plus side, you don't get them 'fixed' ;-)

They are very easy-going creatures, easy to look after, provide hours of
comic fun, are *brilliant* at garden pest control duties as they zoom in on
snails, slugs.... provide excellent compost material from the non-egg stuff
that comes out of their bums, will also eat your vegetable peelings (and
your prize seedlings). But you do have to be predator-aware. In my case the
two most likely being fox & mink, so the hens' home is secure against foxes
& minks & is checked over daily to ensure it stays that way.

I am so very glad I got the two girlies (Francis is too), and would like
another two as and when (but no more than four). They take under five
minutes a day to keep house & run clean, and the reset of the time is utter
amusement with them. Oh and you *don't* need a cockerel in order to have the
hens lay eggs.

wafflycat wrote:

"Jofirey" wrote in message
...



I take it the LayDeez had a rough upbringing and are delighted with
whatever form is available.


They ate some cat food this morning...

I love these stories and keep wondering if it would be possible to
keep a few hens in my back yard. What to they need? Shelter, water,
food?

Jo



Aye, suitable shelter, suitable food, water, control of parasites, vet
on occasion. One the plus side, you don't get them 'fixed' ;-)

They are very easy-going creatures, easy to look after, provide hours of
comic fun, are *brilliant* at garden pest control duties as they zoom in
on snails, slugs.... provide excellent compost material from the non-egg
stuff that comes out of their bums, will also eat your vegetable
peelings (and your prize seedlings). But you do have to be
predator-aware. In my case the two most likely being fox & mink, so the
hens' home is secure against foxes & minks & is checked over daily to
ensure it stays that way.

I am so very glad I got the two girlies (Francis is too), and would like
another two as and when (but no more than four). They take under five
minutes a day to keep house & run clean, and the reset of the time is
utter amusement with them. Oh and you *don't* need a cockerel in order
to have the hens lay eggs.

Yeah, that bit of information was a real surprise to me, having been a
city girl all my life, so never having had close acquaintance with
domestic fowl! (Is that true of ALL birds, or just chickens?)

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

wafflycat wrote:

Oh and you *don't* need a cockerel in order
to have the hens lay eggs.

Yeah, that bit of information was a real surprise to me, having been a
city girl all my life, so never having had close acquaintance with
domestic fowl! (Is that true of ALL birds, or just chickens?)

Lots of egg-laying species lay unfertilized eggs, which the males
fertilize afterwards. I don't know what the case is for different bird
species, though.

If you think about it, humans "lay" unfertilized eggs, too. It's just
that our eggs are very, very small.

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote in message
...



Yeah, that bit of information was a real surprise to me, having been a
city girl all my life, so never having had close acquaintance with
domestic fowl! (Is that true of ALL birds, or just chickens?)

You only have to have a cockerel involved if you want *fertilised* eggs.
Many birds produce unfertilised eggs. And we ladies still produce eggs
without having to have a male involved ;-)

Jofirey wrote:
"Ted Davis" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:33:14 +0100, wafflycat wrote:

I now have a cat who thinks he's a hen. He has taken to eating
their
sweetcorn. Sigh...
That *is* unusual: usually, they want it on the cob
(http://67.54.246.139:9000/tdavis/cats/happiness/corn.jpg). I
have two
others that eat sweet corn - all prefer it on the cob. None like
canned
corn.


I take it the LayDeez had a rough upbringing and are delighted with
whatever form is available.

I love these stories and keep wondering if it would be possible to
keep a few hens in my back yard. What to they need? Shelter, water,
food?

Our city expressly forbids the keeping of chickens - and is one of the
few municipalities in Canada to do so. Crazy really - I mean, we could
save money, save gas and packaging, pesticide control (not that we spray
anyway), and other good environmentally friendly things.

Do cats *ever* take a run at a chicken? I'd be slightly worried about
Otis' propensity to take down large jackrabbits. Of course, jackrabbits
don't have beaks.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

On Jul 20, 9:48*am, Susan M wrote:

Our city expressly forbids the keeping of chickens - and is one of the
few municipalities in Canada to do so. *


That's sad- I don't have a garden or I would consider keeping
chickens- when I was a kid our next door but one neighbour did have
chickens, quite a few and to this day I can still remember the taste
of a warm, free range, freshly laid egg......oneof the best tastes in
the World. When we first moved here, there was a guy who used to drink
in one pub and he had chickens on his allotment and he supplemented
his pension by selling the eggs to the pub. This pub was a complete
dive- rumour had it the toilets hadn't been cleaned since Queen
Victoria came to the throne! But the landlord was happy to sell the
eggs on because they were divine and a lot of people (Myself included)
would just have to get some of those eggs so yes we'd go in, have a
pint, buy our eggs and leave (Few other things could have got me over
the threshold of that place! It stunk of cigarettes...remember I have
a bad sense of smell and smoke myself so when I say it stunk....IT
STUNK!) they were enormous and not very expensive and boy! They were
good!

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

"Ted Davis" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:33:14 +0100, wafflycat wrote:

I now have a cat who thinks he's a hen. He has taken to eating their
sweetcorn. Sigh...

That *is* unusual: usually, they want it on the cob
(http://67.54.246.139:9000/tdavis/cats/happiness/corn.jpg). I have two
others that eat sweet corn - all prefer it on the cob. None like canned
corn.

--

T.E.D. ) MST (Missouri University of Science and
Technology)
used to be UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla).

I used to have a couple of cats that also liked corn on the cob.

Joy