Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Lady Red]

Where have you been lady Red? Missed you!

Same as always... just busy busy! Hosting a big event just for fun this weekend, then off to Greece for work related activities, then a few weeks later to vacation with friends as my youngest settles into year 1 of college.
The birds are great and make me laugh all the time.
Hope everyone is doing well!

 

[Lady Red]

And holy cow! I just spent like 2 hours looking at 10k celebration photos

 

[rural mouse]

Since several has posted pictures of most or all of their present and past flock members I thought I'd do the same in celebration. Keep in mind it will take several posts to get everyone as I have to go in the photo archives to 2018. I am sorting through a few thousand pictures of both the chickens and the horses to get this stuff.

In the beginning.
My current Chicken journey officially began in December of 2018. As a child we had chickens, including my special 2 Dominiques who started and cemented my love for chickens. Life happened, parents got divorced and eventually my biological dad got out of chickens and we were never in a spot to have our own chickens. Fast forward about 20 something years I have my own daughter now and starting around the age of 5 she added chickens to her wish list along with horses. I'm now in a place where technically I could have chickens, but, she was never a big egg eater, and well, as much as I wanted them I saw this just as a phase. She was about 8 when at one of the horse shows 2 chickens escaped and flew onto the hillside when they let them loose in the ring during intermission. This was for the kids called the "Chicken Chase." I will not go into detail about how I hated that, but it was a thing at the horse shows along with them trying to catch a greased piglet. The 2 chickens were a game hen and rooster. I do not know how old they were when they escaped but they were full grown. It upset the guy that owned the chickens, especially loosing the rooster as well......he was known for fighting chickens and wanted them back badly. He tried for a year to catch them and trap them unsuccessfully. They became feral. You would see them or hear them on the hill every few weeks. His brother at the time had the barn and farm leased so he was constantly there, asked me to help, I said I would, but did not. His brother eventually lost the lease to the barn and they left. About this time the Rooster was killed, and he decided to leave the hen alone and let a predator get her as well. Did I mention I did not like this guy? They were gone for about 5 months when someone else took over the barn and they gutted it and re did the thing. During this time I noticed that the hen was starting to come off the hill every few days. Rosie took notice of her and she once again started up hot and heavy on how she wanted chickens. I told her if she tamed that hen she could have chickens. Challenge accepted. She started taking scraps and putting them near the spot she was coming off the hill. The hen began watching for her and would come and eat, you could not get within 20 feet of her before she took off, but it was a start. This went on for a couple months. Rosie was eventually able to drop off the food, call for her and sit on a bucket about 5 feet away and talk to her. The barn got finished, horses moved in and we got asked to take over management and daily care of the boarded horses. That meant that we were there every day for several hours. Rosie started moving her feeding spot to inside the wash bay. The hen followed, you could not touch her yet, but you could talk to her and walk around her without her bolting. She also started laying her egg in the hayloft of the barn. This was not fun as the one thing they did not replace in the barn was the hayloft or death trap as I called it. Due to my reluctance to go find the "easter egg" daily we also discovered this hen was prone to go broody if given a chance. Even in December she tried to sit on a clutch of 10 infertile eggs and when I went to remove them tried to beat me up. You all should know by now who I'm talking about.
Here is one of my first pictures of the old bat. When we began taming her she had already lost the toes of her foot due to a hawk.
View attachment 3182430

That is absolutely the best chicken beginnings story I've ever heard!!!!!
Way to be persistent, Rosie!

 

[rural mouse]

Here’s hoping. I realise that it wasn’t hubby tailgating but maybe he gained wisdom from someone else’s experience?

Tail tax
View attachment 3182739

Well, he hasn't totaled any more patrol cars....

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

So lets skip ahead a few weeks. Momma hen's chicks are growing good. Tuff and Toothless reach a age where they decide they hate each other and one must die. I'm the bigger person and let Rosie keep Toothless and find Tuff a home. I'm also looking at these chicks thinking surely out of the 4 there should be a few girls. At least a 50/50 split if things go the way they should. Wrong, the rooster fairy LOVES me. Really, really loves me. 3 cockerels 1 pullet. Now if your keeping count, that is 7 chicks hatched in 2 groups. 2 pullets and 5 boys. I shall forewarn you.....to this day, it has not got any better in those odds.
The lone girl Nugget.

And her brothers.

 

[rural mouse]

Oh yes, playing ‘chicken’ with big trucks is a fun game in Australia too. Apparently, trucks and buses needing a longer stopping distance isn’t actually a thing.

ID10T tax
View attachment 3182777

Happens here too...and is why I drive a winding mountain road to work rather than take the interstate highway. If I'm going to play chicken, I'd rather play it with the wildlife: from ground squirrels to moose.

 

[rural mouse]

Ok I’m going to try this again… I see we are all taking our own approach to the celebration photos, and we all know how great I am at taking direction sometimes so, between this and my internet issues and that most my chicken photos are on my old phone.
My Favorite of Sammy:View attachment 3182780
And a few more for good measure as he’s so darn gorgeous and wonderful.View attachment 3182778
(At least I’m pretty sure this is his baby pic)
With his nephew Dean who he has raised to be alarmist as good a Rooster as he is.View attachment 3182786
And with one feather going rogue in the wind… lol ruining his perfect “majestic” pose (I swear he likes to pose for the camera!)View attachment 3182787

What breed is Sammy? Not sure I've ever asked. He's such a handsome guy!

 

[featherhead007]

I don’t know how they can stand it outside. It’s 102f and all the chooks are out jumping around, scratching and playing. I went outside to check on them, but then I quickly went back inside the cooler house. I would bring them all inside with me, but they have muddy chickens feets. Not good for a nice carpet like I have.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

By now I've found backyard chickens, and this thread. At first I was a sporadic poster. I had made a point to read all the posts before I joined which even then at the time was no easy feat. I also was really interested and taking a shine to BY BOB's 2 black hens Patsy and Lilly. They were assumed to possibly be Marans or mixes although we will never know. Shadrach also was a regular poster at the time and he did have Marans. I was looking into purchasing some hatching eggs and Marans were high on my list. Especially after reading and hearing what BY BOB and Shad had to say about them.
I still had these 4 running around

Plus Toothless

Henrietta who was developing into a lovely hen.

And Momma Hen of course.
I find someone sort of close to me who had Marans and offered hatching eggs. I contacted them to make plans to get the eggs when ole reliable went broody again as I did not have a incubator at the time. I kept a watch on their facebook page and what do you know, they had hatched out about 100 chicks and at 2 weeks old they still had 12 left with more due to hatch in another week. So they decided to have a contest and pick 2 winners to each receive 6 of the remaining chicks. I decided to enter, I mean, it is not like I would win as there were over 100 people enter. Low and behold, I was one of the 2 winners. My Marans were on their way.

 

[RoyalChick]

Holy Dinah I am flipping madly through the photos each as or lovely then the next.... But alas my horses are screaming blue murder to 'let us in for supper' whining wooses hahaha

Can't wait to see more!

@BY Bob thanks for having such an amazing idea love love love it

It is great! So many wonderful pictures and people who haven't been here for a while returning. So lovely.