A Chicken ... Ready for a Relationship

Foxnews via AP ^ | 6/26/03 | Unknown

[the infidel]

From Tuesday's SF Examiner:

The bizarre floating poultry was spotted about 40 feet above Broderick and Fell streets at about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. Park Station Lt. Mark Swendsen, a well-known sharpshooter, used a 10-meter Daisy Olympic pellet gun to pop most of the balloons without hitting the hen.

The orange-red hen with a red comb ended up tangled in power lines and was retrieved by a lineman from Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which shut off power to more than 1,800 homes. She survived the ordeal.

"The hen is fine -- she is eating, drinking and will be going up for adoption soon," said Deb Campbell, outreach coordinator for animal care and control. "There is a waiting list of eight or nine people; normally there is hardly any interest in chickens."

Anyone ever played fetch with poultry? Did any Freepers experience disruption of electrical service last weekend?

The article says cops and animal welfare workers blame Fox network (ahhh, of course) for the chicken's launch. Apparently the good people at Fox have been running a promo for a new series which asks how many balloons it takes to fly a chicken.

story here

[GSWarrior]

In high school science class we put a rat in a little cage, attached it to an Estes model rocket and sent it into flight. It was cool. Seriously.

[PJ-Comix]

"This is a great chicken, a friendly chicken, a chicken that is ready for a relationship," said Kat Brown, deputy director of the shelter.

I say give Amelia a nice home in a KFC bucket.

[Atlas Sneezed]

"...because it was tied to a bunch of helium balloons!"

[ba-dum-chsh]

[Ken H]

The is horrible. I have also heard of factories that slaughter tens of thousands of chickens every day. The carnage is horrendous. Chicken parts and blood are everywhere. It's sadistic.

It's murder most fowl!

[El Gato]

While Chicken's can't fly, at least not very far, nor in the ordinary sense, they are birds and they can flap their wings. They have an extremely low terminal velocity. She could have been up that 40 feet, slip out of the balloon harness and flapped her way to a safe landing.

Depending on what kind of chicken she is, and how old, she might be better utilized producing eggs, rather than in a fry pan. Even then, she might eventually end up in a pot with some dumplings , or as the defining ingredient in Caldo de Pollo. :)

[Abe Froman]

I'd like it to have a relationship with my gas grill.....

[AnAmericanMother]

What do you think of the Buff Orpingtons?

When we move to the country when the kids are out of school (a lot of my sentences begin that way . . . ) I'm thinking about a few hens just for eggs and to have something eating the bugs. I'm most concerned about how they'd do in a hot humid climate like Georgia's (compared to England).

[2Jedismom]

From what I understand they are very tolerant of weather extremes. They are a good "dual purpose" chicken...meat and eggs. You could order straight run buff Orpis and butcher your cockerels. McMurray Hatchery has detailed descriptions of the chickens they offer. And Feathersite has a lot of good descriptions too...

I would think if you offered them a cool place to get out of the sun, they would be ok. They are rather puffy! (One of ours is actually named Puffy...the other is named Benny Hen LOL) They do lay well all winter long, supposedly. Many chickens molt in the fall and won't lay again till in the spring.

You should try to get a few Auracanas...they are the ones that lay the pretty green and blue eggs!

Backyard Chickens is a good site...has a great message board to answer your questions and it's nothing to have a dozen people in the chat in the evening, no kidding! Can you imagine, a dozen people chatting about chickens?? Ha!

[My2Cents]

LOL....Best suggestion yet.

[Ken H]

What do you think of the Buff Orpingtons?

I don't know much about chickens, but I'd think they would be preferable to out-of-shape, flabby Orpingtons :)

[2Jedismom]

Also, we keep out four in a "chicken tractor"...a portable type coop. They stay in it at night, they go to bed in it just before sundown and we just have to shut the door. Periodically, we move the coop and it never gets too gross under it.

You can see some pictures of my coop being built HERE.

(We live in a neighborhood, so we're kinda going under the radar...if we happened to have a rooster, we couldn't keep it...it would end up in the frying pan!)

[2Jedismom]

HA!!!

[skinkinthegrass]

I hope the chicken has a "relationship" with seven herbs and spices and a fryer.

Yeah, KFC...11 herbs/spices and cast iron skillet...just doesn't the same...since 1980.

[AnAmericanMother]

Great sites! Found a gorgeous Buff Orpington:

I love your coop - I have been considering the problem of . . . er, coop poop, and a movable coop sounds like a great solution. Much better than removable floors, etc. What are the dimensions and capacity of your coop?

[AnAmericanMother]

LOL! Gotchyer out of shape, flappy Orpingtons right here:

[skinkinthegrass]

I hope the chicken has a "relationship" with seven herbs and spices and a fryer.

Yeah, KFC...11 herbs/spices and cast iron skillet...just doesn't taste the same anymore...since 1980.

[Uncle Miltie]

"This is a great chicken, a friendly chicken, a chicken that is ready for a relationship," said Kat Brown, deputy director of the shelter.

Marriage proposals will be accepted at www.sandradayoconner.com.

[2Jedismom]

Each chicken needs 4 sqft of solid-covered area and 10 sqft of uncovered or open run for chickens that stay in it all the time. So this coop, being 4x6 feet, is just slightly too small for two chickens. It should be 4x7 feet...2x4 feet of covered area and 4x5 feet of run. But my chickens are free-range during the day...they run around in the backyard free.

Each chicken needs 8" of roost space...that's the bar that goes across the back of ours...

You also need some sort of nest box for every four hens. I don't think you need more than 1 rooster for every 25 chickens and you don't need a rooster at all unless you want fertile eggs.

We made our coop the same dimensions as our square foot garden beds. We have it situated right on top of an unused bed. The chickens can eat and poop in there and in the process, fertilize that particular bed!

Here's a whole bunch of tractors!

http://home.attbi.com/~kkskinner/tractors.html

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Thanks for the ping 2J.

Have you heard how many chicks Lisa has yet all together? Becky