Maybe not wild life, but

A very feral chicken. After 3 years I finally got a picture of it this morning. We had thought it was a hen from the way it looks and cackles, never crows and so forth, but look at those spurs. Any ideas?

Free range, feral chicken/rooster is definitely wildlife in my book! Bet they are as dangerous as a feral cat?

It's a beautiful bird.... looks like a Rooster to me! But, what do I know im orginally from Chicago Burbs, Illinois (LOL)

We now believe it is an Old English Gamecock.

Still wild, but a little less each day.

He's a pretty thing! Aren't you glad he doens't crow each early morning?? (I don't know anything about roosters)

I don't know where he sleeps or if he crows there. I don't mind early morning crowing any way, I kind of like it, but I grew up on a farm. I was always up before the roosters. It is nice to know that a rooster can survive here with all the predators that no tame chicken can survive. They even got to our own mean but tame rooster by digging a 20 foot tunnel into his cage. He is certainly a very alert bird.

Haven't heard from you lately. How have you been?

trois

trois, great shot of a pretty bird. I would guess he is elderly. My black large type banty rooster has spurs that are more than 4" long, he is more than 5 years old. I have had the rooster and 2 hens for five years. the neighbors dog killed 2 hens and one half grown young, three years ago. The two I have left had kept me supplied with all the eggs I needed until a month or so ago. They don't look happy and have lost a lot of feathers. I am afraid may have mites or something. I can't keep the English Sparrows out of the chicken house or the mice. They went through fall moult late last fall don't think that is what is going on. I think I will dust some Sevin all around the litter and the roosts, and now that our weather is getting more springlike will close the door so the chickens have to stay outside. Don't know what else to do.

Donna

Good Morning Trois,

I've been around and check in briefly several times every day. I just have to wait for a chance to sit and reply to threads. Sometimes it takes hours to send a short reply! LOL We're so busy at work it is unreal and the weekends are for pictures! LOL

We love mornings too. There's no prettier time of day than early morning or sunset. At least mornings have 'cool' too. It's already in the 80s every day now and no rain for weeks. We went from heat to AC in 24 hours...early last month.

We're leaving Thursday for St Augustine...a well needed break for both of us. Going to see the shorebird rookery at the Alligator Farm. It's nesting time!! We try to do this every year in April or May. I hope to get lots of special photos there this year.

I know what you mean as our AC isrunning right now. I don't remember our last rain. We went to the St. Augustine Rookery a few years ago, and it was raining very hard, and was cold. I think a nesting Skimmer was all we were able to see. We were then going to continue on up the coast to the Carolinas but it was having a late season snow at our desired destination. We just returned to Texas where it was nice and warm. 3 years ago we went to San Diago for Christmas and almost froze. It was cold everywhere we went, again returning to Texas to get warm. We are victums of bad timing frequently. We are awash in wild flowers this year, dense acres of Primroses, Bluets, and Texas Stars all over.Walking about the farm is a real pleasure right now.
trois

Oh too bad you weren't able to enjoy the rookery and zoo. We just love to go up there and watch the birds. There is also the best pizzaria
there in St Aug..that's saying a lot from a ho hum about pizza person.

You should try to put St Augustine back on your list of places to see. It's best from mid April through May.

Isn't that "Old English Gamecock" a rare bird in this country?

It is the only one of it's kind I have seen. I suspect I know where it came from. There was a large farm that raised illegal fighting roosters that was shut down a few years ago. I suspect many of the fowl were just released. This was about 3 miles from our place.

Oh mah gosh.. really? Well, Im glad this one made it out alive :)

Me too. So far, it has been a very nice bird. We get pleasure each day watching it. It will be eating out of our hands soon, I think.

What do you feed it and have you named the bird yet??? (smile)

He eats scratch grain for chickens.

We have not named him.

I don't know if you have the time to tell me what scratch grain is? Do you? (lol)

Ps: "Lucky" would be a cute name, for the birdy!

Scratch grains are a mixture of grains for feeding chickens, mostly free range chickens that can eat green things and catch bugs. Usually fed in pans, frequently thrown on open bare ground. They usually get it all.

Oh wow that is interesting.... Tks for the explaination.... My grandmother's cousin was one of the last folks aloud to have chickens, roosters and a few ducks in her yard.... The town had made drastic changes on allowing them on people's property.. re: Pharr Tx I was lucky enough to assist in feeding them, when she had gone to Houston during the weekend.. but I don't recall what we feed them becuz I was almost attacked by the roosters when I opened the pen house! (lol)

Many roosters are mean. I have a few scars on my legs. We live a good ways out in the country. Town is moving closer all the time.

Gosh.... Ya, I didn't know they attacked.. Before I got to the pen to feed them, Im like "Oh, look at the cute birdies" (lol)

My grandparents on my father's side owned a ranch in Durango, Mx. Another story to share...I was about 5 yrs old and my brother 3 yrs old..well, we were spending part of our summer at the ranch and was warned not to go near the wooden fence... and "NOT" to open the gate to it... We heard bucking sounds and I told my brother it has to be a horse! Lets open the gate to take a look at it. (lol) Re: we later found out....it was a "BULL" with horns bucking at the gate! (oops) Luck, we never did open the gate...(lol)

And when I was about 3 I saw my grandfather take the top off a bee hive and look inside. When he went away, I did the same. They had to shave my head to get all the stingers out. I remember it well.

Oh mah gosh... (lol) lucky you pulled through that incident! That same summer at the ranch, my grandmother who's relatives were orginally from (germany) well, I thought she was crazy...she looked at me and my brother and grabbed a chicken by it's neck and gave it a twirl and chopped it's neck off with some sort of axe, on a tree stump! We didn't know that was going to be our lunch! And im glad nobody told me that becuz I wouldn't have eatten it...(lol)

We ate two chickens a day when I was growing up, and it was my job to deliver skinned, dead chickens to my mother to cook. We had no electric so they were slow cooked, and very good. Fresh also,. After I was married and lived elsewhere, I found out what left-overs were. Never had any growing up.
trois

RE: Grrrr, I tried posting then when I hit, (send) and then it said to log back on and I lost all my typing.....

Well, I wanted to say "WoW" you were in charge of skinning the chickens... Im sure the chickens taste very good when it's totally fresh.
I've only like tried twice to cut up a chicken for cooking and believe me, I couldn't tell what piece was what, when I was done...(lol)

After I left home, it was 10 years brfore I could eat chicken in a resturant. It just didn't taste good. We did fresh, free range chickens one Thanksgiving so I could put to rest to "old timer's" memory. Everyone agreed they had never had good chicken before. We did the same the following Thanksgiving, and everyone sat around stupified for hours afterwards, eating way too much. It's probably a good thing we don't have such good stuff all the time.
Even waiting one hour decreases the taste considerably.

Really 10 yrs... Gosh! I enjoy reading about your (true life) stories (smile)
You know I like to add some sugar to the water when I make corn on the cob... of course maybe with fresh corn, you may not have to? Im excited.. Im growing cantalope, watermelon, and I think I tossed in some cucumbers too! Oh, and Im growing pumpkins! Re: Big Max and other kind that didn't have a name on the package..but it's suppose to grow up to 100 pounds! (lol)

Fresh sweet white corn can be eaten right in the field, raw. Also very good cooked, boiled and buttered. Put some butter in the water when boiling, then suck the juice from the cob. Fresh stuff is great.

I raised a lot of pumpkins one year when I was a kid. They were about 10 to 12 pounds each. My mother was canning them as fast as she could, we had a lot of them, and then they forcast a hard freeze for that night. I went out and collected as many from the field as I could, about 6 feet deep in a 15 x15 foot barn room. When the thaw came I had about a foot of goo on the barn floor. I learned a big lesson then. Lots more work cleaning.
The hogs ate it all anyway.

Oh, really add some butter? Ok. I'll have to try it next time! Kewl, eatting corn raw from the field that is interesting!

Tks for sharing your "pumpkin" story ... That must have been something running around picking pumpkins...for your mother!

For awhile our family lived in a townhouse and one day my mother said she was going to be baking apple pies and a bunch of kids from the neighborhood...who happened to be cuban were totally excited...so we wanted to make sure she had enough apples to bake alot of apple pies! (lol) so we got on our bikes and rode around the neighborhood looking for apple trees!

Ps: The picture on your profile is so cute, with bird on your hat! Are bluejay's common in TX? I haven't seen any :( I miss them birds.. they were very common in IL.

They are very common here. We also have a lot of cardinals and mockingbirds. These are just the ones that nest in our yard, along with several smaller birds. We have no English sparrows or pigeons, but 3 miles away in town there are many.

Oh, ok... wow you have cardinals, too! Gosh, them were also mah favorites back in IL.... It seems im aways waking up to the sounds of the the pale pinkish doves (lol) Im not sure what a mockingbirds look like.. I'm going to have to look that up on the internet... About a month ago, one of my "Cockatiel's" flew away.... His name is Sugarbaby" and he is mostly Yellow.. so if u see him send him back my way "Wink" (lol)

I used to raise Lutino Cockatiels. If I see him, I will return him.

We have a mocking bird about every 50 feet.Lots of them.

trois

A friend of the family who is orginally from Tx who lived in my same town in IL. (Ps: I assisted him with his gardening) had given me a male and female birdy for my birthday like 3 yrs ago and then they started laying many eggs... up until we moved to Tx... My parents also have two cockatiels who share the same cage with mine... I think that's why they stopped laying eggs? Im pretty sure they are the same kind you breeded! Re: Mockingbirds... I just looked up the birds and we only have a few around....It seems the only time I see them around is into 1 hour of gardening they come around looking for bugs I have dug up! (lol) They are very beautiful birds... I had been wondering what kind they were! Im glad you mentioned them in your post! (Tks)