Animal Behavior

Alex:

In the car yesterday, Alex was stuffing his face with the chips (snapea crisps).  Irritated at the crumbs and behavior, I asked him to put one in his mouth at a time and then chew with his mouth closed.  He tried this and moaned as if it were unbearable.  I reminded him more than once, threatening to take them away.  When I finally took the bag away from him, he nodded his gratitude.  He would rather do without than use basic manners!  (Yes, I told him I was going to post this!  He was happy about it, claiming that he gave me lots to write about!)

Rabbits:

Be-bop and Lorelai live indoors now.  They reside in separate cages downstairs, unfortunately.  I simply can't have them running through the house tearing everything apart.  Be-bop, however, is turning out to be a sweetheart for the kids.  Since she's so handy, they often grab her out of the cage to hold while they are doing homework, and they even set her up in a chair next to them while they practice piano.  It's too cute!  Be-bop, however, has a big flaw.  She loves to bite and tear holes.  When she's had enough of holding, she'll bite.  Also, it's just fun for her with cloth.  She rips countless holes in the towel in her cage, and, yesterday, she ripped a big hole in the front of Alex's nice sweater.  I was NOT pleased!  She also chews on a wood plank in her cage and possibly caused the extensive damage to poor Lorelai...

Chickens:

At dusk, Bach started behaving quite strangely.  She was aggressively pecking at the back door.  I figured, "Wow, they must be really hungry--they're usually going to roost around now," and took out some food.  Soon after they finished eating, Bach began the door attack again.  This time, Michael was home and he opened the door, laughingly responding, "Do you want to come in?"  Immediately, Bach came inside and flew up onto the table!  We put her back outside, and soon this strange incident repeated itself when I opened the door.

Now, Alex let out the chickens yesterday morning.  He is not often assigned the task, so he forgot to open the partition that leads to the outdoors from the coop--they'd been locked out all day!  Bach was planning to roost on our table!  Isn't that funny?  Apparently, they expect to be indoors at night! 

Anyhow, I think that internal clock is much stronger in chickens than in us.  Poor Bach was in quite a tizzy about it!  Oh, and we are getting an egg every other day or so, despite winter and molting.