Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[GregnLety]

Awesome!

 

[GregnLety]

I house mine 'together' so to speak. They share the same run space...and I have an 'up & down' coop. Bottom level was for ducks, top level was for chickens. However, the ducks moved themselves to one of my other chicken coops (the only one that isn't raised off the ground), and now sleep with the chickens. They sleep under the nest boxes and/or under the ramp, so don't get pooped on...but I have one duck that will sometimes climb the ramp and sleep with the chickens (I have a slightly sloped 'roof' to the nest boxes that acts as a poop board under 1 of the roosts). This 1 sweetie (duck) likes to sleep there at times. I also have 2 ducks that will hop into the raised nest boxes to lay sometimes. They do very well together! The ducks keep the roosters in line (well....control the roosters), so there is no issue there.

A couple of things to consider, though:

IF you have a drake, make sure you have enough female ducks for him, though. A duck's anatomy is different than chickens, and he (drake) can hurt hens if he tries to mate with them.....which he will only do if he doesn't have enough duckie females. (1 to 4 per drake, depending on the breed)

Water. As you know, ducks love to play with and make a mess of water. This means that sometimes they 'play' all the water out of the dish so there is none left to drink! (In the winter when the ducks just get a small 'duck bath' with added deep water dishes...in the summer I have a larger pool & nipple waterers - which the ducks can't mess up!) My solution is to raise one rubber water dish high enough so the ducks can't reach it, and place a roost next to it so the chickens can hop up and drink CLEAN water. Though they usually prefer the dirty duck water,,,

Other than these 2 things to consider (well, plus the fact that ducks make a mess with the water, and chickens don't like damp, so it means either a designated area for waterers with plenty of other dry space in the run, and/or lots of frequent changing of bedding.) Note that I NEVER put water in the coop, regardless, but you absolutely can't with ducks.

They'll be side by side but separate because my silkies are so small. Good to know they can coexist.

 

[Ponypoor]

A squat! Of all things, she squatted for Ivy No wonder Ivy was mortified!

Gotta luv chickens!!

 

[MaryJanet]

Gotta luv chickens!!

It was a very funny moment!

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Here we have the chickens saying “No” we don’t DO that stuff”
View attachment 3004330Coop cleaning day is coming very, very soon… excuse to poop.

Eventually my craziest chickens ventured forth, with a little scratch “encouragement” my bully girl who attacked the hawk and my oddball grey sapphire MaranView attachment 3004333 we were mostly all melted by 3pm… and it wasn’t too bad really, just all that strange white stuff was definitely off putting for the poor delicate chickens. Normally if I stand in front of the door in the morning I would be getting smackedin the face by 40 or so eager to be foraging chickens, today… not so much!

That first photo with the soft lighting and the crowd of chickens looks like a Renaissance painting.

 

[GregnLety]

Deer won't eat our lilies but the roses to the ground.

Fortunately the roses will grow back if the root isn't damaged. We cut them back a few times a year because of their vigorous growth.

 

[Ponypoor]

It was a very funny moment!

One of the reason I am so enjoying them is their shinnanigans

 

[Ponypoor]

Here we have the chickens saying “No” we don’t DO that stuff”
View attachment 3004330Coop cleaning day is coming very, very soon… excuse to poop.

Eventually my craziest chickens ventured forth, with a little scratch “encouragement” my bully girl who attacked the hawk and my oddball grey sapphire MaranView attachment 3004333 we were mostly all melted by 3pm… and it wasn’t too bad really, just all that strange white stuff was definitely off putting for the poor delicate chickens. Normally if I stand in front of the door in the morning I would be getting smackedin the face by 40 or so eager to be foraging chickens, today… not so much!

Is that the little man I see taking a look see outside? How is he doing now?

 

[Ponypoor]

They're forecasting -35F with wind chill tonight here. The school postponed start time to 10 am tomorrow because of it, too.

it doesn't look like this here anymore.View attachment 3002179

Darn right chilly here also, it was showing -19c on my truck this morning and we got more snow, another 10cm of the gross white fluffy crap.

I am so done with the cold, snow, icy walking even the horse are fed up they don't want to go out and are happy to come back in.

Weather tax

Everyone is roosting where they should tonight

 

[ChicoryBlue]

You lasted two more winters than me with the water lugging! I was clear from the first window that something had to change!
On the heat panel, yes. But my issue is only at night. During the day the whole Chicken Palace faces south so if the sun even thinks about coming out they can sunbathe. I actually tried putting the oil heater on and just the other side of a hardware cloth barrier during the day and only I was interested in huddling up to it!
So it is at night I am worried and something on the wall would only heat one chicken who was roosted up against the wall.
I need to keep noodling this.

The flat panel heater will send heat up. Maybe if you construct a small poop protector roof, like a narrow piece of flashing bent and tied or taped to the panel's top edge, or maybe even cardboard, you could set it under the roost. It won't set anything on fire and it will be easy to deal with on the floor or on a low table.

I have ours right now keeping the red worms warm, it's resting horizontally under the bins, like a brooder plate with the feet still attached, so it's sort of at an angle. Anyway it fits under there and warms the air from the bottom up. The worms are in a work room that gets too cold for them when the weather is like this now (8F, -13C).

If you do hang something like a Sweeter Heater above the roost could you have it permanently attached to an extension cord going to another cord that is at a reasonable human height to unplug?

Mostly though - you haven't had any problem before with frostbite, this was an unusual situation, with Dotty running around in the rain before the weather turned cold, as I recall? So now you know to break out the blow-dryer if something like that happens again.