Welcome to Unpretending’s Substack.
Today we will be showing you the chicks when they were 4 weeks old.
The chicks were getting too big to be inside their little coop during the day. They needed to be able to stretch their legs, stretch their wings, get used to the bacteria in the soil, and learn to eat bugs and grubs and seeds.
You will be able to see on the video some of them have a few bald spots as they lose their downy fluff, which are being replaced by adult feathers. They still have downy fuzzy heads.
The day before this video was taken, one of us on our inside tried to put together a little fenced off section in an area of our garden that had been fenced off, so the dog didn't dig up the plants. We pulled out most of the weeds and put a little box in there and a make-shift wire roof just made it safe for them, and to see how they could be during the day. Around this time I think we started letting them come out for about an hour at a time, and then over the next few days, they ended up staying there all day, being taken inside at night.
It's really nice to watch how the chickens grow, and how they interact with one another. The original video we took was over 10 minutes long, so we’ve shortened it down to about 7 minutes, it ends abruptly, I think because Unpretending began describing the garden and got a bit distracted, she spends most of this video describing the chick’s surroundings, it's nice. Anyway, as we wrote the transcript, Spencer came and had us write down their thoughts, and there ended up being a little Chick commentary towards the end of the video which is attached after the video transcript. We know you’ll enjoy it, we certainly did. 😊
Transcript of Video
The chicks are exploring their new surroundings, chatting to each other as they do almost nonstop.
Unpretending is sitting on a small chair inside the fenced area, watching their antics. The camera view begins at chick height, you can hear cars and birds in the background.
“Hi Sage, what you doing? Hi Kayla, with the crooked…, crooked beak, you poor darling. Hi, what can you hear? Hmmm?” Unpretending coos a little at Kayla.
“They’re going to come out here in the mornings, it’s really warm.”
The camera scans around the coop as Unpretending describes the chick’s surroundings.
“It’s not the best little coop, but…, that’s an old box. I think it was made for shoes, and they can just go in there. I’m going to put a log in there so they can perch, cause I think they’re wanting to perch a bit.
They’ve just got a small amount of food and water, I just want to see how it works. Poor little Kayla she needs to scoop her…, sorry about my shorts (she thought you could see her shorts) …, she needs to scoop her food because of her jaw. So even though she makes a giant mess, she does need a bit more of an ability to do that, but this will be good practice.”
We are using an aluminium cat food bowl - do you see the Australian spelling of aluminium, that is how we spell it so that is how we say it. 😉 There’s a winking emoji there because that’s an ongoing joke between MultiMes and I.
“And then…,” Unpretending pans the camera around the coop area and explains, “It's a mess here, cause this is where my…, that’s my lemon tree, and ah, I’ve put a bit of a roof over here just to protect them from other birds, there’s a gap there. Usually I grow things like, I don’t know, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach. This is um, lemon balm, smells amazing. Um…, these are…, what are these here? These are coriander seeds, umm what’s the other word for coriander? Oh gosh, my brain is no good at the moment…, Cilantro, there you go.
She continues panning and giving a guided tour, “Mm, got some daisies over here, some sort of daisies, there’s a few strawberries at the back, lots of weeds. That…,” She pans to an area of dried twigs and plants and right in the middle of the camera frame, you can see tiny ‘love heart’ shaped green leaves…, “Is a sweet potato. Anyway I made this yesterday. Well I didn’t make it, it’s here, I just sort of put this together.”
She pans back to the chicks from a birds eye view. “They need more room during the day, so if it’s a hot day like it is, being Summer, it’s very humid, it will be good for them, get use to a little bit of the-the bugs and the, you know bacterias and things out in the garden.”
Sage jumps at Cheepy, who jumps back, then Kayla joins in the fun also jumping at Cheepy, who again jumps back. She laughs.
“Oh it’s so cute, for a li…, look they’re going, ‘ooh wow we can flap our wings, look at that! Oh that’s so sweet.” (I can’t speak in her high pitch). Sage gives a final leap and the game is over. Jean ever so gentle, just steps aside.
The backyard backs onto a main street and a car in the background can be heard as it revs its engine. The chicks stop to listen and Unpretending says,
“They’ll have to deal with the um cars and buses going past.”
Sage wants to play the jumping game again and tries jumping towards Jean, who immediately jumps back saying,
“Don’t you jump at me!” They have a bit of a standoff together and Sage swipes Jeans beak declaring,
“I’m the boss!” They stand eye to eye for a moment, and Jean looks away. Sage satisfied, begins pecking at the ground and Jean goes back to the spot where she was. Unpretending giggled and now states,
“That’s funny, they can get their pecking order a bit, cause they can spread out.
While typing the transcript Spencer say’s,
“It’s me Spencer, I don’t think they can really speak chicken cause if you listen they are saying things to each other which is getting them to jump like that. I don’t know what they are saying. Do you? Can you tell me what you think they are saying in the comments?
Unpretending is still talking on camera,
“They should be alright like in the day, if it’s not raining. I’ve got like some tin and stuff that I can put together and give them some shelter.” The camera pans to the box. “Like they can go in there, but that’s wood, it’s not gunna last too long.
The camera pans back to the chicks. “They say you should give each chicken, a square meter.
Wow! Look at that Cheepy! That was cool. These two, this is quite interesting.”
Again, while typing the transcript, someone within us declares,
“I know what happened there! If you go back in the video for a sec, you can see Gentle Jean goes over to Cheepy and whispers in Cheepy’s ear,
“Sage was picking on me, she thinks she’s the boss.” Cheepy looks towards Sage and without a moments hesitation, leaps upon an unsuspecting Sage proclaiming loudly,
“No! I’m the boss!”
Sage, shakes herself off a little before running over to Jean,
“You made Cheepy do that!”
“Well you are NOT the boss.” Reminds Jean, “we are all in this together.” The 4 chicks come together for a moment. “Remember.” Says Jean again. Sage isn’t convinced and has another small go at Jean.
Unpretending has continued on chatting away,
“Um, mmm, this is probably about 4 meters if ya…, oh it’s a stretch, it’s more of a triangle.
We stopped the video footage there because she goes on to describe her bees and her greenhouse and goes off on her big tangent.
It is really interesting watching the little chicks and how they interact with each other. It's also interesting editing this and having Spencer come close and saying,
“No, no you don't, you don't understand, look.” I'm not going to go back to see and inspect their behaviour, but I like that Spencer can see what they see. There could be a really nice commentary there.
We hope you like what you've seen. It's quite nice sharing, the chickens and their personalities. There's something about nature, something about animals other than humans that are so special. And a lot of people don't get the opportunity or the time to stop.
There's that saying “Stop and smell the roses.”
It's like, stop and watch the ants.
Stop and watch the sparrows.
Stop and watch kids playing together at a playground.
It's all very similar. I wonder what happens to humans when they become adults.
Where do we lose that curiosity, that play?
Where do we all go serious?
Does responsibility take a hold on us, and we lose that curiosity about life around us?
That’s something I’ll leave with you to think about.
This has been Sharon and Unpretending, with others close by, Spencer and another had their say. Spencer is very keen and eager to put up more of “Freeing Finch” and finishing off “Dot And The Kangaroo”. They had been absent from fronting for several weeks and came back the night before yesterday. They told us that they had gotten stuck under the bed. It makes us feel really glad that they're back.
So, look forward to more posts on Spencer Reads. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. Thank you for coming to our Substack and have a wonderful day.
The Video
Unpretending Spontaneous is the name used by a Multiple System from Australia, the technical term is currently called DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder. This blogcast is our journey as we attempt to function well in society as a multiple while healing from our traumatic past.