Critter Photopost!
May. 19th, 2010 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuI've been saving up images to post for a while now! Have some turkey release, chicks hatching, older chicks, duckling, kittens, and more! Lots and lots of cute. :D
Turkey release! The woman in the picture is Linda, who had the turkey after I did. :) And his handsomeness shortly after release:
Incubator pictures!
First chick to hatch:
This egg is fully zipped, so now it's time for the chick to emerge:
Crummy above-shots of the incubator. You can see some hatched eggs and chicks running around:
(The cups are to keep the humidity up.)
The ONLY picture I took of Pen-Pen when he was really little, SOB. I really, really should have taken more. :( He was SOOO tiny, and now he's gigantic, haha.
My peepers at about a week old:
Pen-Pen now, in his living quarters in my room:
And here he is in the grass in the backyard:
The chicks, now almost four weeks old, enjoying some time in a pen in the yard. (The pen is a lot bigger than it looks--it's actually two connected pens.)
Poppy is mostly grown up, and oh-so-pretty:
There she is with her two "moms"--Minky and The Salula.
The Salula with the other two older chicks--Cocoa and Eden.
Eden is a porcelain Old English Game Bantam, which is one of my favorite chicken colors:
Cocoa is really pretty, too, though I think she's supposed to be a red-blue and she doesn't look like a real red-blue.
The whole "family" (as a note, none of them are blood related at all, but they formed a family unit):
Aaaand have an arbitrary Bob. Bob is a girl, not a boy:
The four kittens I was caring for! They went back home, but they were fun, funny, and oh-so-cute!
I took the most pictures of this one because he was participating the most:
I wish that one wasn't blurry.
Not done processing yet, but Honey wanted to mother the kittens. XD
Don't mind the music and talking in the background, Mom was watching American Idol and I was quite close to the TV.
I hope you enjoy!
Turkey release! The woman in the picture is Linda, who had the turkey after I did. :) And his handsomeness shortly after release:
Incubator pictures!
First chick to hatch:
This egg is fully zipped, so now it's time for the chick to emerge:
Crummy above-shots of the incubator. You can see some hatched eggs and chicks running around:
(The cups are to keep the humidity up.)
The ONLY picture I took of Pen-Pen when he was really little, SOB. I really, really should have taken more. :( He was SOOO tiny, and now he's gigantic, haha.
My peepers at about a week old:
Pen-Pen now, in his living quarters in my room:
And here he is in the grass in the backyard:
The chicks, now almost four weeks old, enjoying some time in a pen in the yard. (The pen is a lot bigger than it looks--it's actually two connected pens.)
Poppy is mostly grown up, and oh-so-pretty:
There she is with her two "moms"--Minky and The Salula.
The Salula with the other two older chicks--Cocoa and Eden.
Eden is a porcelain Old English Game Bantam, which is one of my favorite chicken colors:
Cocoa is really pretty, too, though I think she's supposed to be a red-blue and she doesn't look like a real red-blue.
The whole "family" (as a note, none of them are blood related at all, but they formed a family unit):
Aaaand have an arbitrary Bob. Bob is a girl, not a boy:
The four kittens I was caring for! They went back home, but they were fun, funny, and oh-so-cute!
I took the most pictures of this one because he was participating the most:
I wish that one wasn't blurry.
Not done processing yet, but Honey wanted to mother the kittens. XD
Don't mind the music and talking in the background, Mom was watching American Idol and I was quite close to the TV.
I hope you enjoy!
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 09:53 pm (UTC)Youtube says the video is not available. =(
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Date: 2010-05-19 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 10:14 pm (UTC)and Pen-Pen is so cute and downy
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Date: 2010-05-19 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-20 12:07 am (UTC)His living quarters look pretty tiny, though! I'm figuring he doesn't spend much time in them because you take such good care of your animals. xD
And though I'm still planning for it, any tips or advice you could give me re: acquiring a duck, what breeds are the best for pets, etc etc would be most appreciated. (: I think I know enough about incubating and building the incubator and such forth -- could I visit the infamous Backyard Chickens for more info on the technology technicalities? xD
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Date: 2010-05-20 01:25 am (UTC)I actually just acquired another animal unexpectedly FFF.Ducks are awesome pets, but I will warn you they are VERYYY messy and smelly and honestly need a lot of space and frequent water-changings, so they definitely aren't for everyone. XD Pen-Pen is a special duck because he's imprinted to me, meaning he sees me as his mother and wants to be with me as much as possible, but that's because I was there right as he hatched and spent the next few days/weeks of his life with him much of the time. He follows me everywhere and generally acts like a dog.
He doesn't spend much time in his tub, nope. XD He comes out with me whenever the dogs come out, and I would give him something larger to stay in but he insists on staying in my room, so... When he gets older I may integrate him with the other ducks, including his biological mom and dad, or he may end up living in our fenced backyard or something. I'm still deciding. He'll probably get a special-made diaper, too, so he can wander freely in the house. He's going to at least triple or quadruple in size and he's stinky, so he definitely can't stay in that tub forever.
Personally, my favorite type of duck is the call duck. :D They're small, come in a lot of different colors, tame easily, and they have funny personalities. They're rather loud, though, and capable of flying. The other thing is they can be a little hard to obtain, but they're nice enough that they're worth it. There are a lot of great breeds, though--others you may want to look in to are silver appleyards, black swedish (Pen-Pen is half black swedish and half rouen), indian runners, cayuga, east indies, and...there are tons. XD Most tame species of duck (ie, domesticated varieties, not ornamentals like wood ducks and mandarins) make fine pets if raised around people, so it's mostly a matter of personal preference. And yeah, BackYardChickens is a great resource for finding out just about anything relating to poultry! The forum is awesome. I'm SilverPhoenix on there if sign up~
(Also, I'm just going to say, I LOVE my ducks and wouldn't trade them for the world, but personally I think chickens make better pets because they're easier to care for. They're less smelly, easier to clean up after, smaller, some breeds can be easily kept as housepets in a rabbit cage, etc. Just my two cents!)
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Date: 2010-05-20 01:31 am (UTC)Pen-Pen is sooo soft and fluffy and fuzzy looking! And you're the momma!!! awwwwwwww.
All of your chickens look cuter one more than the other.
Except for the hatched babies. man, they really improve their looks after a couple hours but at first? eeeeeeeew
zipped eggs? never heard of that, but it's an awesome word for that.
i loves to see these pictures share all that you have time for, which is not much with all of those babies to take care of!!!
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Date: 2010-05-20 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-20 03:43 am (UTC)I was figuring on the smelly / messy / high-maintenance, which is why I'm not running out RIGHT NOW to get me a clutch. ;) (Also, I really detest people who adopt on impulse, and so that would just be... terribly hypocritical.) I'll definitely keep BYC in mind, and do some exploring when I get a little extra compy time -- though I do want to ask, do chickens imprint in the same manner as ducks? o: The imprinting sounds ADORABLE, and was one of the main reasons you got me interested in their potential as pets, lol.
To be honest, I'm in love with some of the chicken breeds you've mentioned and spoken about (as well as taken pictures of; I think my favorite has to be the sebrights!), and I'd absolutely love one as a pet, but I wasn't too sure of how closely they bond with people. I adore interacting with my pets, so I tend to prefer species that bond well with humans, rather than those that you really just watch, like fish or reptiles.
Thanks again for all the info! YOU ARE A WELLSPRING OF KNOWLEDGE. ♥
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Date: 2010-05-20 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-21 12:20 am (UTC)Great, yeah, as long as you know beforehand what you're getting into it shouldn't be a problem!
Chickens don't imprint in the same manner as ducks, but they tame very easily and end up about as friendly. I have one hen who flies on to my shoulder every time I walk in to the coop, and all the chickens rush up to me when I walk in and don't mind at all being handled. They are very interactive and can even be trained to do tricks. :D Overall I'd say ducks and chickens are about the same as far as level of tameness and friendliness, especially if the young are raised around people and handled often.
The reason I recommend them more as pets is because they can be kept indoors in small numbers very easily, especially if they have a little pen they could go in during the day. Some chicken breeds, such as seramas and silkies, do very well in small areas, so if you set up a rabbit cage a couple or trio could live in that easily. Personally I like to put even my indoor chickens outside during the day, just so they can eat grass and enjoy the sunshine, but they do fine either way. Some chickens that are known for making particularly good and friendly pets are seramas, silkies, cochins, brahmas, and old english game bantams, but really any type of chicken can/will become very tame with handling. Sebrights are known for being a bit flighty and not as friendly, but like I said if you handle your birds a lot and they're raised around people, just about any chicken can become tame.
You're welcome! As you can probably tell, I LOVE talking about poultry! They really do make fantastic, fantastic pets, and I've owned multiples of most common animals people keep as pets. I may never keep a rodent or rabbit again because I think poultry are much easier, more fun, live longer, and are hardier.
Here are some cute serama videos, hee:
Just to let you know, seramas are sort of hard to find/more expensive, but Old English Game Bantams are more common and around the same size and about as friendly.
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Date: 2010-05-21 12:36 am (UTC)Honey is too cute with them!
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Date: 2010-05-21 02:17 am (UTC)Thank you so much for fielding all my noobie questions! I've been very excitedly consulting the internet, reading everything I can, and they do sound like they make wonderful pets ♥ I've been trying to convince my mother, and she's well on her way -- if there are any other anecdotes you could provide about what good indoor pets they make, that would help out a lot. ;) She was absolutely enthralled by the video of the fetching serama, as was I. aughhhh they look so cute and smart and ♥♥♥
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Date: 2010-05-21 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-21 02:57 am (UTC)Seramas are great, when I say they're a little rarer I'm not discouraging you from them at ALL! :D It's just a matter of finding some! I got lucky and have a breeder right nearby me, and I paid $28 for each of my three, which is pretty reasonable. You could buy some hatching eggs and try to hatch them, have them shipped, or post Craigslist ads looking for them. They're just beginning to have more popularity, but they're well known and loved on BYC, so that would be another good place to look for breeders near you. If for some reason you can't find seramas, I promise Old English Game Bantams really are fairly similar, and come in a lot of different colors.
Another thing is you can always purchase or make a "chicken diaper" and they can freely roam the house! That's lots of fun. :D They really make awesome pets, you'd be surprised by how great they are! BYC is probably going to be the best resource for talking about seramas, there's a whole 50+ page thread of seramas as well as tons of other threads about them. I only kept my seramas truly indoors for a little while (and it worked out great!), but now they have their own 6 x 10 dog kennel with a little henhouse I made out of a piece of furniture. Seramas have been bred to be pets, so they tend to have very sweet and docile personalities and do really well confined in small areas. If you get some, the best way to go would probably be getting a trio--one rooster and two hens. A wonderful way to house them indoors is to make a C+C cage, which you can read about on http://www.guineapigcages.com/. They're fairly inexpensive to make and you can make them as big or small as you want.
Another great resource on reading about breeds is FeatherSite: http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens
I highly recommend looking through the encyclopedia and seeing all the different breeds. Some of them are really unique and interesting and fantastic, you never know what you'll find!
And no problem--let me know any time if you have more questions or just want to talk about poultry ownership. It's really fun. *A* The only warning I can give you is that CHICKENS ARE ADDICTIVE. I'm not lying, hahaha, and I'm nowhere near the only person who says this. XD
no subject
Date: 2010-05-21 10:21 am (UTC)