Ditto Maggie. In in his first year or so our rooster charge me a couple of times. He hasn't since. Now he's nearly 2. I always keep an eye on him. When I first let them out in the morning and he's especially active, I always have a garden tool in hand. When the chickens are following me across the yard I will walk facing him--I don't trust him though he hasn't touched me for several months. When grandkids visit, the roosters are in the pen. You can't be too careful. Sometimes I think it would be easier not to have roosters but they are beautiful and they are part of the natural order (however "natural" their lives are). And this rooster is great with his girls. AS far as agression, our head hen is much more agressive than the rooster. This morning one of the pullets was in the egg laying place (of course the nesting boxes are ignored) in the corner and Hera just kept pecking at the pullet's neck. The pullet almost looked like she was in the submissive position but didn't leave the spot until the egg was layed.

I think those were probably "walking iris". Did they have a white blossom with a blue/brown center about the size of a silver dollar? I have these "coming out my ears" so to speak and if you e-mail me, I'll send you a few. I have to bring them inside for the winter and I'm in 6/7 so you may have to experiment with one or two out and one or two in. Marian

Just a quick update. We've been to the vet. He did an Xray to confirm heart problems and said that Ginger is Stage 3. According to the vet, this is not too late for medication to give her a good quality of life, although it certainly can't cure the problem. He put her on three medications. One to strengthen her heart. One to lower her blood pressure. One which is a diuretic and she is taking a fairly high dose for several days, and if her coughing goes away he will slowly reduce the amount until it seems right. The medication caused diarrhea the first night. She is still having the spells where her legs give out and they are worse than they were at the beginning. We haven't even taken her outdoors lately. I put puppy pads by her bed, and sometimes just the effort of climbing out of the bed to use the pad will bring on a spell. The vet seems to think that will improve. I hope so because it scares her when it happens. It scares us too, but it's her we're worried about, not us. We hate to see her frightened like this. We are holding on to hope for a little bit, but we won't put her through this indefinitely. Only a little while, as the vet seems to think there is hope and says today's meds are really good. He did say that her tongue is nice and pink and that is a good sign, compared to when the tongue turns bluish for lack of oxygen. Of course, he also reminded us that at 15 1/2 years of age, she is quite elderly and medicine is not expected to keep her feeling good (even if it gets her that way at all) indefinitely. My heart breaks for her. I will let you know how she is doing again later on.

If she wants a relatively organic option, spinosad is listed as killing thrips. She should spray every surface of the plants, including flowers/buds, the undersides of leaves, etc. Repeat 3 days later to kill the thrips that were eggs for the first spray or managed to hide. I would repeat again a few days later. Spinosad is a bit more broad-spectrum than most biologicals, so she should do it in the evening after the bees are finished.