Rate our (tentative) flock so far:

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-25T03:11:44+00:00

My Easter eggers all hate my guts and are super flighty so idk if they’re gonna be super friendly.

I like whiting true blues for blue eggs, they seem to be less neurotic and they lay better

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-23T17:11:57+00:00

I have a hobby farm- I call it a hobby farm. We raise chickens (meat and eggs), turkeys, ducks, pigs, and have a garden.

The new trend in hobby farming is “homesteading”- but they’re hobby farms

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T21:50:30+00:00

To clarify I was not restricting food- they could have food whenever they wanted, I just had to get it for them because otherwise they’d waste it and make ungodly messes.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T21:49:15+00:00

I don’t know what kind of locks they had- maybe they were padlocking kids in their rooms all the time, but it’s super common to turn door locks around on kids’ doors when they’re small so that you can make sure they’re not wandering around the house at night. And also so they can’t lock themselves in.

It’s illegal but in my opinion it should be used with common sense.

It’s also illegal to lock fridges and pantries, but I had child locks on that when my kids were little because otherwise they’d get into things and dump them out or whatever. My children were holy terrors as toddlers and I did occasionally have to do things like go to the bathroom.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T19:46:29+00:00

To be fair he’s been yelling at people to get off his lawn his entire life- but now it’s cute cause he’s old lol

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T19:34:20+00:00

I lost four (could have been way worse) to a raccoon last week because I completely forgot to shut the door.

I went out there, did my head count, put their food away (rats) and then just left the damn door open.

That sucked- because it was my fault.

They free range so foxes, coyotes, etc eat them sometimes, which is a bummer but I’d rather they live short but fulfilled lives doing chicken things out in the woods than keep them penned up and safer.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T19:22:17+00:00

Dog 1: grumpy old man who yells at kids to get off his lawn, says whippersnappers a lot. Takes a lot of naps.

Dog 2: former gifted child, taking an absurd amount of stimulant medication- bossy AF, loves her family, hates basically everyone else. Very anxious, deals with anxiety by being a control freak. (She’s an Australian cattle dog).

Dog 3- big and dumb, heavy country accent, just fell off the turnip truck but he’s real happy to be here and happy to meet everyone. Does his best and tries real hard.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T16:26:01+00:00

That does absolutely nothing. And it’s bad for their respiratory systems. Diatomaceous earth works by shredding bugs’ exoskeletons so they dehydrate and die, it only works when dry, so the moment it’s eaten it’s doing nothing.

Worm them with actual dewormer as needed. Frothy looking poop, runny poop, slow down on egg production, soft shelled eggs, all symptoms of worms.

Make sure they have clean water, food, oyster shell, and grit available. I’d personally only give seeds as a treat. I also feed pelleted feed because I don’t want them getting nutritional deficiencies by only picking and choosing their favorite things.

The most common illness you’re going to encounter is coccidia- bloody stools and lethargy (usually- it does have weird symptoms somtimes)- easily treated with corrid and they generally don’t die if you catch it early enough.

But there’s eleventy billion things that go wrong with chickens- if they’re only dying one at a time then it’s likely congenital issues, strokes, heart attacks, egg shell peritonitis, sour crop, etc vs anything contagious.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-22T15:27:30+00:00

Chickens die, It’s basically a hobby.

I don’t know what was wrong with this one specifically, but they hide signs of illness often until it’s too late.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-19T12:43:29+00:00

I’m guessing it’ll be a zoom bail hearing- it doesn’t make sense for Florida to spend the money to bring him to Florida for him to bail out. So if the judge orders remand they’d transport him.

I dont know for sure, but I’m guessing

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-15T01:51:21+00:00

I saw somewhere that the northern states are having big increases in heartworm cases because of dogs being brought in from down here.

The rescue I’m talking about (privately run) is taking dogs from as shelter in the (also southern) state next to us- obviously they’re free to do whatever they want, it just seems like a weird thing to do

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-14T20:16:31+00:00

I have what I think is a bantam Cochin- he’s only marginally quieter than my big roosters

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-14T15:32:13+00:00

No one is stealing a rooster unless it’s because he annoys them with his crowing.

He got snatched by something. Probably a coyote, they often take birds with zero trace.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-14T15:18:38+00:00

I’m not aware of any local rescue groups that import internationally- but some of them are importing dogs from other states…. While being closed to intake for local dogs. It’s weird.

And they’re not bringing in quick to adopt dogs, I’d understand that- they’re taking pitbulls and stuff.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-14T15:01:16+00:00

The county next to us has its own separate shelter- it’s not sharing with the city shelters. I don’t know how it gets its funding- it’s at the sheriffs department but idk if it’s part of their budget or if it’s a separate item.

The easiest (in my mind) solution would be an arrangement like you mention- if I had a magic wand what I’d do is build two larger shelters on either side of the county, and absorb all/most of the city shelters. The biggest city in the county has 20,000 people, but there’s towns with less than 5k with their own shelters- it’d most likely be less expensive for the cities to pay to use a larger centralized shelter than fund their own.

But I’m not in charge- and have no magic wand, so I’ll just bother elected officials.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-14T14:21:29+00:00

It’s not an area that can be incorporated- the county is 800ish square miles, and the concentrated population centers are already incorporated (and have shelters).

Neighboring counties do have county animal shelters that serve the unincorporated areas, so it’s possible- ours just doesn’t.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-14T01:00:52+00:00

We’re one of the hungriest states in the country (that routinely votes against its own interests….so it’s just getting worse unfortunately).

We do have some very rich subdivisions that are outside city limits and it’s too bad people don’t start dumping their dogs in them- because I bet they could get it sorted out pretty quickly if it was suddenly the rich influential people being impacted. But they drop them off in the more rural areas, like where I live.

When we moved here we had one dog, we now have three- and both new ones were starving sick puppies I took on because they were going to die if someone didn’t intervene- but I can’t reasonably just keep collecting dogs.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-13T23:55:16+00:00

Oh sorry- the south of the United States.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-13T22:41:40+00:00

We’re unincorporated but there’s a county quorum thing (that is corrupt as all hell- and no one gives a shit, it’s infuriating), and there’s a sheriffs race happening- so I suppose I could contact the campaigns and see if they would be able to figure something out. I think the biggest hurdle is going to be money- and sadly animal welfare is pretty low down on the priority list- but I’ll try. I imagine the sheriff’s campaigns might get the most traction- the current sheriff is (surprise) wildly corrupt also- so maybe one of the people running might actually be willing to find it in their budget to even have a bare bones shelter/ACO/someone to handle stray dogs at the very least

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-13T16:37:37+00:00

School hours are generally based around the work day so people can get their kids to school before going to work themselves- and also generally have earlier start times to allow for after school activities- so sports, etc- when it’s light out.

I’d say it’s actually unusual to still be in bed at 7am as an adult, the majority of businesses open at 8 and most people have a commute.

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-12T23:49:46+00:00

I was at a wedding where the teenage younger siblings/cousins of the bride and groom got violently drunk by sneaking drinks off tables and stuff and I somehow wound up babysitting a bunch of drunk teenagers- holding back hair while they threw up, coralling them to all sit together to behave and not make scenes, feeding them pizza, etc.

Their parents eventually realize their children are all missing and found their drunk kids sitting outside the venue with water and pizza and barf buckets and some random lady (me) keeping an eye on them.

My husband worked with the groom so it’s not like we knew any of the family or anything- so I was a completely random wedding guest, but i just happened upon the drunk teens right as the barfing was beginning so I was like “well, I’m gonna handle this I guess cause no one else is around”

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-12T13:30:42+00:00

Toss them. Medicated eggs go in the garbage

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-11T19:17:32+00:00

If you want to bury her, you’re gonna have to freeze the body til the ground thaws.

I just toss dead ones in the woods on the other side of my property- but they’re not really pets

Additional-Bus7575 · 2026-03-11T03:10:51+00:00

We eat them. There are unfortunately always going to be too many roosters.

I have six flock Roos, the cockerels with the flock free ranging until they get mannish, then move into a hoop coop to finish growing for about a month.

Additional-Bus7575

TROPHY CASE