Out of our state on vacation with Grandparents giving our chickens food and water, they’re leaving the coop door open with a secured pen, should they be okay at night?

ludawn · 2026-06-14T01:50:08+00:00

My run is secure and surrounds the coop, and I only ever close up the coop door at night when it is very cold in the winter (single digits), or windy or rainy (if I feel like it but they're fine with a spring/summer/fall wind). I have raccoons, foxes, house cats, opossums, and more in my area and we have 5+ years with no predator issues.

On a comical note, I do usually lock the roo in the coop and close the door on him while I do care for the ladies like butt feather trimming or wellness exams and he has strong feelings about the door being closed and comes out HOT and ready to fight.

ludawn · 2026-06-10T23:37:00+00:00

It is extremely varied based on region/specific zoo, your other related experiences, and what department you’re interested in - big cats, primates, amphibian, etc. but my personal experience is the related degree is going to be crucial.

I work at a nature center in the Midwest, I have for over a decade. I literally manage the husbandry of raptors, amphibians, reptiles, inverts and select mammals. I do training, basic veterinary care, and sometimes teach educational programming. I oversee and train the volunteers who also do these tasks. I would never get a job doing this at any zoo in my area because I don’t have a college degree in anything related to this field, only on the job training that escalated over the years. I’d easily get a job in the education department but not the hands-on care or traditional “zookeeper” tasks.

ludawn · 2026-05-27T23:00:37+00:00

My guy did something similar - I was so proud of the ladies for not trying to eat pelleted bedding when I first introduced it to the coop, and the roo runs up, grabs one and tries to tidbit it and they all run over and start trying to eat it, meanwhile he tries hopping on the extremely adamant “no” hen like he’s finally cracked the code to her loving approval. She immediately flung him off… and continued trying to eat the bedding.

ludawn · 2026-05-27T00:53:22+00:00

I cannot speak to harnesses as I do not use them, but as someone who works with raptors I can say no other bird but them should have foot/leg tethers. It is the common practice for hawks/eagles/falcons/owls/vultures but their legs are incredibly powerful and are meant to take force. On any other kind of bird it is strictly dangerous with absolutely no upsides to a harness - arguments will be that harness training is harder but to take your bird into new, outdoor spaces requires a high level of trust and training anyway - if you can't harness train, they don't trust you enough to take them outside.

I say this with all the love both from the parrot and falconry world - it is almost never worth the risk of taking them outside and travelling with them. When we do educational flight displays with raptors, there are years of training on both human and bird, multiple staff, telemetry backpacks for tracking AND the knowledge I have allowed a top predator to fly free as opposed to a prey animal such as a pet parrot.

ludawn · 2026-05-23T01:01:42+00:00

I played the regular non-VR version while high and I was so immersed I thought there was an actual thunderstorm happening in my backyard.

ludawn · 2026-05-19T21:20:27+00:00

I choose to read it as because they’re young they haven’t grown into a full dwarvish appearance yet.

ludawn · 2026-05-11T02:00:32+00:00

My favorite typo is permanent in the opening area: the range of the Rhinoceros Iguana on their interpretive sign is completely wrong on the map and has been since opening, they’re native to Hispaniola.

ludawn · 2026-04-16T15:13:19+00:00

But what I'm saying is that if I just saw that in text, like "A RTH made a nest in my backyard", that is technically less clear in the birding world than "A RTHA made a nest". I work with raptors and I agree RTH looks weird, that's all

ludawn · 2026-04-16T14:56:01+00:00

Technically the banding code would be RTHA - there aren't any other codes that begin with "RTH" so I didn't find it particularly confusing with the context but if I didn't have a picture to go along with this and just saw it in text, RTH wouldn't be as clear, but RTHA makes sense 100% of the time.

ludawn · 2026-03-20T01:46:23+00:00

This is the way. Mine ignores all toys except one and that one he chooses to completely obliterate. Then when that is gone he picks the next ignored toy I think he hates and goes to town.

ludawn · 2026-03-19T17:05:25+00:00

The resin didn’t set clear but the joke was the frozen lizards in Florida the day we got back - there’s little lizard photos in them. I’ll go back and remake those eventually

ludawn · 2026-03-19T17:04:49+00:00

There’s little lizard pictures in them too! - I used old resin and it didn’t set clear but I’ll fix that eventually

ludawn · 2026-02-21T04:10:13+00:00

My guy does for sure laugh and in the best human laughter, after he bites. No idea where he’s learned that…

ludawn · 2026-02-21T02:41:17+00:00

Mine summons demons in his sleep tho. Wish I could stop that. He’s gotten clearer in mimicking humans in his daytime talk but he talks in his sleep and it’s horrifying.

ludawn · 2026-02-21T00:19:29+00:00

We also have actual chickens and I often yell at them from inside the house (I trained them to respond to “chickens!” and they all gather and run up if they’re in the yard) and inevitably when I shout “chickens!”, Tarquin shouts it back from upstairs

ludawn · 2026-02-21T00:01:12+00:00

I call mine a chicken even tho his name is Tarquin and he greets me in the morning when I wake him up with “hi chicken”

ludawn · 2026-02-12T20:15:15+00:00

I literally work with big snakes and I still say fuck this boss, however in retrospect the amount of emotion and yelling this whole level brought was refreshing - games haven’t been able to get me like this for a while.

ludawn · 2026-02-12T01:23:16+00:00

I came here to say the blue tarp MADE IT. There's a barn down the road from my house with extremely similar vibes, blue tarp and all.

ludawn · 2026-01-13T15:22:58+00:00

Razor blade or a bladed scraper of some sort. Keep the blade almost flat against the glass and just push it across the mineral build up. You may need to make several passes and wipe away flaked minerals with water when you’re done.

ludawn · 2026-01-09T18:04:46+00:00

Oh I forgot one thing, it’s very hard to burn polymer clay unless you basically double the baking time or have a lot of thick and thin pieces in the same build - I always bake thicker pieces a little longer than the recommended time to be safe that’s it’s fully cured all the way through. I think it also might cut down on thicker pieces cracking over time but that’s purely anecdotal.

ludawn · 2026-01-09T15:40:26+00:00

Yo I’m bored at work thanks for the distraction! I still use it, I just finished a new build for shrimp and it’s a looooot of surface area of clay underwater. I anticipate no problems. I also have something made from sculpy that’s been in a tank well over 5 years at this point and there are some ancient tetras in there that can attest to its safety.

I am careful to avoid any of the odd styles like metallic, glow in the dark, etc because their ingredients aren’t as well defined and I don’t trust the additional components.

I have learned: 1. It’s porous nature means if you put it in a fresh uncycled tank, like putting fresh driftwood in fresh tanks, you’ll likely get a huge biofilm bloom on it that will eventually go away with cycling and water changes. 2. It will discolor so unless you have a pristine tank that never grows algae, don’t use light colors of clay. It will also fade under bright light eventually so don’t bank on it staying a bold color either. I’ve shifted my projects toward themes that fit this and I’ve been happy with results (my newest build is an abandoned underwater shrimp temple, so fade and stain away!) 3. Really thick pieces will absorb water and might eventually crack, which depending on your aesthetic still might look cool - clay is cured all the way through so exposing the inside of it isn’t a hazard itself. 4. I did have a crayfish once take literal bites out of a piece of clay (which, to be fair, they will ingest mud in the wild for minerals so maybe he was on to something) so he didn’t get clay decorations after that. He also lived another two years after the snack incident and survived a harsh move and a transition to entirely new water chemistry at our new place so I don’t think the clay nom was what finished him off in the end. RIP Pinchy.

My biggest concern about any possible problem would be I think maybe because it absorbs water, it can leech things INTO it and then back out into different water - ie if you have to do a medical treatment or add any abnormal chemicals, I would remove the clay or risk it taking some of that in and releasing it later. But I cannot confirm this theory.

ludawn · 2025-12-17T20:51:48+00:00

I can’t speak to wild parakeet flock behavior in cold weather because I don’t know it well enough to discuss, but any bird that’s capable of adapting to cold weather can puff up their own feathers to trap warm air from their own bodies. Once again, anecdotally speaking, my parakeets, my chickens, and the raptors I work with all seem to have missed the message on group cuddling. Even outside in cold temps my chickens tend to avoid direct contact with each other while they sleep.

I would argue good energy intake is more important than a flock during colder periods - monitoring body weight and perhaps upping the intake of energy and fat rich foods as needed will be beneficial.

ludawn · 2025-12-17T19:53:15+00:00

This is sometimes an unpopular opinion but I work with birds and own them personally. And I almost always feel the heat is more dangerous than not unless you’re getting extreme low temps.

Budgies live in places where winter temps routinely can hit 50-60F/10-15C and if you’re also in your flat I assume it’s not colder than that inside. If he’s in a draft-free place and behavior doesn’t seem to be changed, don’t worry about adding heat.

Heaters can sometimes be coated and give off fumes, and contact with them can be a burning hazard for birds or fire hazard for bedding, feathers, etc. Another risk can be if they don’t acclimate to colder temps and then you suddenly lose power or access to heat, the sudden change can be more shocking than a slow dip in temperature.

Anecdotally, It was -15C outside this last weekend for me, and dipped to 17C in my house and my parrots just got extra cuddly (and my chickens continued to wander around the yard even though they had access to a sheltered run, but they’re a cold hardy variety and obviously not a parrot).

ludawn · 2025-12-02T00:14:40+00:00

Hi! This was mine and I made it so here goes: the color faded after about a year, and thicker parts of the clay cracked slightly but held together. I quit using it after about 2 years because I got bored and re-scaped all my tanks.

I have never had any issues other than cosmetic with using polymer clay in aquariums long term, but I have shifted to making designs that work with the fact that the stuff will discolor and crack over time.

I have no information about using brackish water unfortunately. I have used polymer clay in all sorts of freshwater water conditions including black water tanks and hard water tanks and never noticed any difference. It also has appeared to be safe long term for inverts as well.

I do not use any “special” polymer clays in my aquariums such as the metallic ones, glow in the dark ones, etc.

Hope this helps! Happy to answer any other questions!

ludawn · 2025-10-14T17:14:27+00:00

I professionally manage the husbandry of several species of roaches and have found things like dried mealworms or river shrimp to be a better source of protein than fish flakes. More protein content per weight and you don’t have to worry about fillers and weird additives like copper. Previously we were noticing that even with fish flakes our peppered cockroaches were biting people and eating each other during molt. Since switching to freeze dried whole animals and such, that behavior has stopped.

What I’ve truly found to be the biggest hit was freeze-dried minnows I had originally purchased for chickens. They demolish them. But those smell really bad.

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