Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[fuentemoon]

9:45 still a bit of light outside and I am in bed already!
Going to pick blueberries in the morning before our heat wave hits. Predicting 94 tomorrow and over 100 Friday-monday
I bought a piece of shade netting for my young plants (which are now huge, so I hung that on the chicken run until the right sized pieced arrives Friday. Don't want my little chickies roasting! Usually they would find deep shade, but the littles are still too small to deal with our hunter cats so they are confined to the run.

 

[fuentemoon]

Wrote that post last night and apparently it didn't post.

 

[RoyalChick]

And Then There Were 8

2 more eggs gone. 1 shell still in the nest the other completely gone. Only 4 left for Lady Featherington and they are covered in yolk and straw.

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We are down to 8 eggs.

This is sad. And I don’t understand where they went.

 

[lightm]

Wrote that post last night and apparently it didn't post.

9:45 still a bit of light outside and I am in bed already!
Going to pick blueberries in the morning before our heat wave hits. Predicting 94 tomorrow and over 100 Friday-monday
I bought a piece of shade netting for my young plants (which are now huge, so I hung that on the chicken run until the right sized pieced arrives Friday. Don't want my little chickies roasting! Usually they would find deep shade, but the littles are still too small to deal with our hunter cats so they are confined to the run.
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Maybe because all night it was waiting for a closing parenthesis? (And finally gave up)

 

[RoyalChick]

How the hell did this happen?
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They must have stowed away in my cart when I went to Tractor Supply for more green bean seeds.

I had sworn the only way I would get more chicks this year was if I found lavender orps and had a broody hen to raise them. And I had resisted every fluffball of cuteness, including straight run orps, ducks on multiple occasions, and even turkeys once. And then I failed on both counts.

These are supposed to be olive eggers, possibly a cross between French Cuckoo Marans and Hoover’s “Americanas” (which are a cross between Araucanas and Ameraucanas). I am wondering if they are actually Sapphire Olive Eggers. They look like the adult pictures at Hoovers, but don’t really look like the baby pictures. It will be interesting to see what they end up looking like, and what color eggs they lay.

When I got them, I was sure I would have a broody to put them under. Three of my Blue Laced Wyandottes have been broody for weeks (all four have gone broody this year, and so has Coco). But I have been trying to break them, and of course they chose that day to stop camping in the nest boxes.

So now I will have to do a better job of chick proofing the run. I was counting on having a mama hen to call them back if they snuck out.

Here are more pics of the as-yet unnamed babies, and of the run we expanded a few weeks ago. Plus the new concrete floor in the coop, due to our flooding issues this year.

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Lovely set up.

 

[RoyalChick]

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So pretty!

 

[RoyalChick]

How the hell did this happen?
View attachment 3881141

They must have stowed away in my cart when I went to Tractor Supply for more green bean seeds.

I had sworn the only way I would get more chicks this year was if I found lavender orps and had a broody hen to raise them. And I had resisted every fluffball of cuteness, including straight run orps, ducks on multiple occasions, and even turkeys once. And then I failed on both counts.

These are supposed to be olive eggers, possibly a cross between French Cuckoo Marans and Hoover’s “Americanas” (which are a cross between Araucanas and Ameraucanas). I am wondering if they are actually Sapphire Olive Eggers. They look like the adult pictures at Hoovers, but don’t really look like the baby pictures. It will be interesting to see what they end up looking like, and what color eggs they lay.

When I got them, I was sure I would have a broody to put them under. Three of my Blue Laced Wyandottes have been broody for weeks (all four have gone broody this year, and so has Coco). But I have been trying to break them, and of course they chose that day to stop camping in the nest boxes.

So now I will have to do a better job of chick proofing the run. I was counting on having a mama hen to call them back if they snuck out.

Here are more pics of the as-yet unnamed babies, and of the run we expanded a few weeks ago. Plus the new concrete floor in the coop, due to our flooding issues this year.

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What a great set up.

 

[RoyalChick]

Wow, look at all these nettings for aerial predator?

I know. That is great!

 

[Ponypoor]

13+yrs saga cont'd...

(June 2016) Oh no! Down one hen ("Taffy" the Blue Wheaten Ameraucana) and only 3 birds left again!

Phaedra, Mini, and Violet -- too small a flock
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We immediately contacted Phaedra's original breeder to order another sweet Blue Breda asap but the California breeder had already phased out their BBS Breda and were also phasing out their Cuckoo Breda so we ordered a Cuckoo pullet in hopes she would be as sweet as our Phaedra. Because of a brutal summer heatwave the breeder postponed shipment for 3 months so our Cuckoo pullet arrived much older than we wanted so we missed out on socializing a younger bird!

"H.R.H. Charlotte, Princess of Cambridge" OR "Char" for short:
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"Char" was a much bigger framed Breda than Phaedra but we had hopes the two Breda would integrate well once quarantine was complete. We allowed socialization of birds through a fence barrier. Char was a very tall statuesque Breda even as a pullet.
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But Phaedra and Char, the two Breda, would never be together. The same month we received Char our Phaedra was found dead by DH. She had paused to nap under a bench and never woke up. She was still warm when DH found her.

This is a pic of Phaedra with Violet the day before Phaedra died. We were devastated to lose Phaedra after losing sweet Taffy 3 months earlier.
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(Nov 2016) We integrated Char with the two Silkies but we were still down to 3 birds AGAIN No comraderie ever formed with Char. She remained a "loner" the 5 years we had her and she never had the sweet temperament of the BBS variety of Breda. We had to re-home her later.
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saga to be cont'd....

Oh how sad, but sure was a lovely looking hen/

 

[featherhead007]

So pretty!

But she’s always so sad. She’s feeling Blue (that’s her name)