Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RoyalChick]

I’m desperately catching up, only 100 pages behind now
Update from me…
Snow had one tail feather left first thing this morning, now she’s like a fluffy beachball
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The other issue I have had the past few days is these cuties
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I have about 20 come daily to feast on my apples on the trees (it’s our almond tree they are perched on in the photo, they didn't what I was up to so they got up high!)
I had to make the choice: beautiful wildlife in my suburban backyard or my apples.
I chose the wildlife, they can have as much fruit as they desire. They are simply gorgeous to watch and they knock apples onto the ground for the chooks so everyone wins I guess

Wonderful. I believe in sharing produce so I get some apples but so do the deer and the bears and the chickens.
It is the raccoons that bug me. They will tear off an ear of corn, take one bite and then discard it and pick another ine until there is none left for anyone else!

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Wonderful. I believe in sharing produce so I get some apples but so do the deer and the bears and the chickens.
It is the raccoons that bug me. They will tear off an ear of corn, take one bite and then discard it and pick another ine until there is none left for anyone else!

It's so annoying and wasteful! The cockatoos and possums do that here too. I need to give them a stern talking to.

 

[Scrambles83]

Happy Friday

It's a big girl Friday!

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My heart just skipped a beat
Just stunning and fluffy!

 

[Scrambles83]

Oh good - I am not alone. I felt a bit of a nerd as I was excited about it!
I think I need to mount it as a decoration in the Chicken Palace.

Is it from a jackalope?

 

[Scrambles83]

Betty Spaghetti

Its funny but I've started calling Betty, Betty Spaghetti, and yet I realized I have never given her spaghetti. I decided to correct that today.

Before I tell that story, today was amazing. They got over 5 hours of free range time together. It does wonders for the integration for them to free range together. They had such a wonderful time today and so did I. It was almost like the pre-hawk days. I have so many pictures to share. I will have many posts to do.

Back to Betty Spaghetti.

So I had a chance to sit down and visit with my ladies today. I have sorely missed being on the ground with them looking at their silly faces. They truly seemed excited to spend time with me today. Check out this greeting when I first sat down.

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Well it was time for Betty to experience Mrs BY Bob's spaghetti. Betty figured out pretty quickly that I am likely to have a snack with me and she joined the crew pretty quickly on the deck. I started to distribute the spaghetti and felt that Betty might need her own off to the side. Phyllis thought the Betty might need some company.

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So Betty grabbed some and headed down the steps to eat alone. Here she is enjoying her first spaghetti.

Hattie was very hesitant to come up on the deck and when she did, she did not eat much. Rather suprisingly she set herself up as sentinel.

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Later when I went inside to grab a drink. Betty and Phyllis were sure I was going on to grab more food for them. Betty has learned fast.

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I'm going to have to watch out for these two.

@Ribh @Aussie-Chookmum @MaryJanet @LozzyR @micstrachan @ChicoryBlue @Shadrach

Wonderful!
Hattie, coming along in leaps and bounds

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

While you do not yet have all the answers I'm very happy that Lily is still with you. Hopefully the Iron Beak has plenty of time left. My daughter sometimes reads over my shoulder and she caught where Lily was sick and she was praying for her yesterday as well. I had to let her see this morning that for now she is ok. She also now wants to do something this summer, but I told her I will have to check with you first BY Bob. She knows I'm hoping to hatch and keep a Corona daughter this year, she wants to name our keeper Lily in her honor.

 

[featherhead007]

Let's go Kris it's summer there, no snow and no frosted fingers or high winds.... And they have chickens!

Don’t go! I heard that even the shrimp on the BBQ, will bite your fingers!

 

[featherhead007]

There’s only one thing that I can say today, and that’s

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

So yesterday evening me and Rosie took a walk up the road to the house where I got my silkie eggs from last year. Rosie is friends with her son and they invited us up to see their new baby goats. I agreed to go with Rosie simply because I had yet to personally see what Branch and Poppy's parents looked like. First off, the baby goats were adorable and I do want the boy out of the 4 she has. Rosie was in heaven in the middle of the pen with the babies bouncing all around her and the momma's trying to eat the hood off her sweatshirt. Then I got sidetracked, the silkie coop is right beside the goat barn. They were not what I was expecting to see. I was told Branch and Poppy came from a all black flock, there was only 1 actual black silkie hen in that coop. The other 4 hens are blue, just a dark enough blue that could be mistaken for black but blue none the less. Branch's daddy, he's stunning. really dark slate grey body, and a copper head and neck. It explains why both Branch and Lil Bit have some sparse copper feathers in their hackles. Lil Bit had more of them than Branch does. To be honest I was so surprised with their colors that I asked her was those actually the silkies I got the eggs from and yup, the only silkie's she's ever had. Then I took a close look at her hens sizes because I've always thought Poppy was so tiny. Her hens were about the size of Branch, none of them were small. I will never know now, but, it reaffirmed my off and on suspicion that there was something internally wrong with Poppy. I'm very confident the black hen was Poppy's mother, she is the only one with a vaulted skull, and looks identical to her just twice her size. I was also once again offered some eggs to hatch when her hens pick back up laying again. I told her I'll think on it, but it sounds like a fair trade. 5 Branch x Chiquita eggs for 5 eggs from her girls. Even if I do decline to take any eggs I will make sure when she's ready for them to ensure she gets some Chiquita eggs. After all she did give me the eggs that led to my favorite boy Branch.

 

[rural mouse]

All this talk of diet has me thinking of poultry and their requirements - outside that which commercial growers dictate. As I am sure most research has been done for fast growing meat birds or heavy laying hens.

I would say in the real world feral chooks are going to eat whatever they can find, bugs, fallen fruit, small reptiles (thank you fluffy for eating that snake!), Small mammals (was that mouse tasty Pangoo?), Etc.

The one thing I noted with my cousin's hens when they arrived at my place they were very heavy, now they have skimmed down and I think exercise is the big thing, along with the frigid temps here, I am not so worried about their scratch grain and left overs I throw to them. I am betting that there extra calories help with the cold weather and of course all the roaming, jumping and flying about in the barn helps.

Bob and I have similar climates so I think extra calories in treats and scratch might be mitigated by the calories burnt staying warm... Just a thought.

I've had similar thoughts: and add extra calories in fall/winter when forage isn't available. They know when the ants start turning up (had a swarm of flying ants last fall: they went bonkers for those) and in spring, tear up much of the ant hill. As more insects wake up, they eat much less of the ants (also depends upon the type of ant: they don't like carpenter ants). They also spend more time digging through the horse manure in the paddock below us in late winter/early spring on warmer days: chance of bugs. In high summer, I still provide a little bit of scratch mix to get them started in the cool morning air and have pellets available to them....For the most part, they ignore the pellets and forage all summer. so far, no snakes or ground squirrels, but a few mice, lots of grasshoppers (some pushing locust sized)and whatever else catches their fancy. I haven't seen them going for mosquitoes, but those are so fast and come out at bed time, that I don't think they've tried them. I did pick up (on clearance) a rechargeable mosquito zapper to try this summer: "crispy fried bug snacks". Testing will probably start may/june.