Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Sylvester017]

Gosh he needs a haircut worse than I do!

I need to do Georgie and Clyde again, and the other silkies also. Oh and Betty - all of them need a trim they are starting to have issues seeing.

I wanted DH to bring in the Silkies for eye trims but were already trimmed. They all learned from our old Silkie Violet how to trim each other's eyebrows. Violet would put her face into another hen's beak & waited for the other hen to pluck her brows! The brow trimming practice has been taught to each other from generation to generation. We thought this was a natural Silkie practice but apparently it's unique to our flock since other Silkie owners say their birds don't trim each other?!

Violet ~ she started the brow-plucking tradition

 

[Ponypoor]

I wanted DH to bring in the Silkies for eye trims but were already trimmed. They all learned from our old Silkie Violet how to trim each other's eyebrows. Violet would put her face into another hen's beak & waited for the other hen to pluck her brows! The brow trimming practice has been taught to each other from generation to generation. We thought this was a natural Silkie practice but apparently it's unique to our flock since other Silkie owners say their birds don't trim each other?!

Violet ~ she started the brow-plucking tradition
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I have a bunch of hens who like ‘trim’ Mr P’s coiffe- but it really more of a cannibal thing - making his feathers bleed and then they really go to town on him! Crazy birds!

 

[Ponypoor]

What a relief your hen's crop cleared! We have only 6 birds but we still do helicopter parenting too.

That's a lot of farmwork/chores you have. The chickens probably wouldn't stress your schedule so much if there wasn't such a volume of animals. Nice that you have help w/your BIL bless him!

We know how you love all your animals. We loved all the ones we've had over the years & cried over the sweeties when they passed. Yet strangely the older we got we actually felt a sense of relief at having less responsibility after the sorrow passed.

As DH & I got older we knew we couldn't handle the budget or the stress of multiple kinds of pets at once. As the last of our multiple pets passed we chose to keep to one pet choice easiest for us ~ hens that also provided usefulness as egg-layers & insect foragers. We're just glad we don't have more than we can handle in our old age now ~ teehee!

Yep if I didn’t have the horses it would be great. But they are so old now it’s not possible to sell them. They take up the majority of my time. Time I’d rather spend sitting in a lawn chair hahaha..

But I will have to make a decision on Truly as she is getting to the point were she can’t get up if she gets down on the ground. She’s my real problem kiddo at the moment.

I always said if I had known how much fun the chooks were I would have got rid of the horses years ago!!!

Well speaking of which I better get cracking and get those horses fed and outside - have a great day everyone!

 

[Ponypoor]

Do you trust the age of the hens? Most hens lay significantly less eggs by age 4 or 5. But then you probably use older birds for meat when they stop laying?

My DH won't eat our birds so ours are more garden pets rather than utility birds. & that's ok w/me. We aren't zoned for roo's so w/ just hens we get to enjoy the occasional surprise of eggs in the nestboxes. The birds are useful as foragers of insects/spiders/etc, useful manure in the garden beds & around trees, & they are masterful at soil cultivating.

The real benefit in our old age is the entertainment hens provide & the ease of having independent yard pets ~ if we leave for the day we know they'll put themselves away at dusk. Slightly less needy in our experience than a dog or cat yet hens are just as companionable as dogs/cats. We have a small cottage & only chose one type of pet as we could not accommodate both dog, cat, canary/parrot, & chickens so we ultimately chose a single most useful pet for our yard & for our enjoyment.

On farms there's a different mindset for raising animals as food. That's how I grew up on a farm but I was too sensitive as a kid on slaughter/processing days & never got over the trauma of it. I was ok w/DH not wanting to use our flock for the table.

Now that we have backyard chickens in a suburban neighborhood, not a farm environment, our hens are garden pets & are provided a forever home here. No one thinks of slaughtering their pet dog or pet cat as food & we never think of doing that to our pet hens either.

In recent years DNA-sexing guarantees we only get female chicks from NPIP breeders so we don't experience the heartbreak of rehoming cockerels which happened a couple times to us ~ DNA-sexing is such a relief.

This was fun sharing what we do & is not meant as any judgment on others' practices.

There was an occasion where we had to rehome a hen & here she is snuggling w/her new owner. This bird was a "people" person
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Yep mine are basically lawn ornaments also. And yep they are good about being on their own and don’t get up to much trouble.

The perfect ‘sit on your lawnchair and watch chickens’ pet.

 

[RoyalChick]

But I will have to make a decision on Truly as she is getting to the point were she can’t get up if she gets down on the ground.

Me and Truly both!
Poor old girl, I feel for her.

 

[Ponypoor]

Me and Truly both!
Poor old girl, I feel for her.

Even with pain meds she has issues, her hocks are not able to bend and they have no strength to get her up. She has arthritis in her hocks.

 

[SimpleJenn]

Is he a cuckoo pattern?

Yes blue cuckoo white crested polish. His half sister is a black cuckoo

 

[SimpleJenn]

Do you trust the age of the hens? Most hens lay significantly less eggs by age 4 or 5. But then you probably use older birds for meat when they stop laying?

Yes I have no reason to not trust the breeder. The junglefowlXLeghorn is 2, the cochin bym is 1, and the fibro egger is 1.
I told hubby the third bird is for his dad and he was like "that's a good idea, dad eats a lot of eggs." So he approves haha.

And yeah, our plan is pretty much to eat the oldest birds when they start to slow down. I'm sure hubby will want to keep Shep in her "hentirement" years and that is okay. We might keep them as lawn ornaments. Depends on the flock dynamic at the time and how much room we have.
He has a few weeks to get the third coop built.

 

[TOMTE]

Random question! I figured this is as good a place as any to ask since you've all been so helpful

Should I expect my girls to not live very long once they're done producing? Since they're all from a big hatchery and bred for production. I've read that chickens bred for production usually go downhill healthwise as they age and stop laying. But I've also read that, SLW for example can live 6-12 years. My dad would prefer to cull once they're done laying. I'm on the fence about that and would rather only cull if QOL isn't good anymore. His biggest concern is continuing to feed them ($$), but since they're going to be free range I don't think that will be much of an issue. They already prefer to forage in the garden rather than eat their feed 90% of the time

Anyway, it's not something I need to worry about for a while yet, but I want to be prepared!

Fluffy butt tax

 

[featherhead007]

Yes blue cuckoo white crested polish. His half sister is a black cuckoo

I’m just wondering, what kind of cuckoo are you Jenn?