This morning I chopped up the apples and put them in a cake pan to try it out on the chickens. I only cut up two kind of small apples but, once chopped up, it was a LOT of apple. I just figured that bit-size (chicken sized, I mean) might be more appealing to them.
I put the cake pan in the yard and was surprised that they treated it like it was a threat. They didn't like the pan but I didn't want to scatter the apple into the dirt. It IS mostly dirt right now. I just left it there and then watched them. It was kind of funny to see them strut around the pan, at a distance, then run towards it and quickly grab a piece and run off like it was going to trap them and do them featherly harm.
They did manage to eat about 1/4 of the apple. I finally decided to remove the pan but got an idea. Since they seemed to like it, I was going to hand feed them pieces. After I shut the door leading to the yard (our yard, not theirs), I sat down on the ground and held a piece of apple through the chicken wire. Sure enough, they came over in a rush to get some. I spent about a half hour feeding their greedy little beaks and, soon, the apple was gone.
We have a couple of very greedy hens, I discovered. I had to move my arm over to a different area to try to make sure that some of the other hens got some apple. What struck me as weird was that the rooster never joined the throng. But all 12 of the hens were just clamoring for my attention (and apple). Even though some of them were really grabby and snapped up the apple from my fingers, they never hurt me with their beaks. They didn't try to hurt me at all. I had the feeling that they knew they COULD hurt me by snapping those nasty looking beaks down hard, but they were cautious about that. I didn't get a single hard bite even during the worst of their grabbing the apple out of my fingers. A couple of the girls were actually almost dainty about it.
The Beast took a picture of me from the deck while I was feeding them. Not the most flattering, for sure, but you can see them crowded in front of me and Sweetie Pie lying on the ground next to me, watching what I was doing. I had a copy of it but have no idea what happened to it once I put it up as a background picture. I change mine a lot. But Windows 10 is not as easy to tell where you want a picture saved as Win8 was. *Sigh* I tried to put it in a folder on my desktop but it wouldn't let it go there. I figure I will try again tomorrow (I'm too beat right now to think). Even though I don't like my backside (and my hair shows the finger waving I get when I don't set my hair or blow dry it). But still, I will post it tomorrow.
I'm heading for bed. It's going to be cold tonight. I found five of the chickens roosting on the tall perch this morning and, before we closed up the coop, there were eight of them up there. They made it up easily with just a hop and a flutter of their wings. I'll bet they will all be huddled together up there tonight. Even the rooster....LOL
Love you all. Be good and be kind. It takes no effort at all. And, please, be safe. ***Hugs***
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