Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Ponypoor]

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Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a pullets man, no time to talk

He's getting the glam rock streamers!!!

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.

 

[Ponypoor]

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Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a pullets man, no time to talk

He's getting the glam rock streamers!!!

Is he a cuckoo pattern?

 

[bgmathteach]

I don't think you meant to respond to me. I don't have cockrells.

I did mean to respond to you. I made the extra roost because of the cockerels - but it would work for your Red group to have a place to hop up onto to get away from the older girls if needed - and it will just give them something else to hop onto - more fun/distration/space to roost.

 

[bgmathteach]

Monday mugs

Light's favorite spot to hang lately.
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poopy sunbathing
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That is a lovely photo of Poopy!
How is Light doing?

 

[bgmathteach]

Why do people on the internet have cuter birds than mines!!
Everybody has such talkative birds.. so cute and calm..
But my hens are struggling to get enough courage to take a blueberry off of my hand still!!

patience, grasshopper. Sit quietly in the run, toss a few blueberries out near you, but far enough away that they aren't scared. Do this regularly, slowly dropping the blueberries closer and closer to you...eventually, she will gain enough courage to take one from your hand. It takes time and patience

 

[Ponypoor]

Why do people on the internet have cuter birds than mines!!
Everybody has such talkative birds.. so cute and calm..
But my hens are struggling to get enough courage to take a blueberry off of my hand still!!

Not all my chooks are friendly. Some are very skittish, my rooster is terrified of people, the first time I grabbed him and picked him up he screamed like he was being murdered!

I sometimes wonder what my neighbours think of the noises can Ming from my place?!

 

[Ponypoor]

Oh I forgot to mention. After over a month of Petunia’s crop being grossly enlarged and packed full of heavens knows what, this morning I noted it was almost empty what and how did that happen?!

I hadn’t had a chance to do the surgery on it. BIL was gone, hay needed doing, waiting for equipment….. and now all my hay is in, BIL is back and I have all the equipment and it’s empty.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled I don’t have to stress her out and do that.

Now I think she is moulting, I am assuming it’s her pile of feathers in the roost in the morning I find.

These chickens are giving me grey hair!

 

[lightm]

That is a lovely photo of Poopy!
How is Light doing?

Thank you.

Light is doing well!

 

[Sylvester017]

Tis the season, people raise chicks with their kids or have a broody secret hatch, now the kids are back in school so the pullets and cockerels go up for sale. It does help though, because of zoning rules it is better to buy a known hen or pullet.
These girls are extras from a local farm breeding/egg sales group.

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

 

[Sylvester017]

Oh I forgot to mention. After over a month of Petunia’s crop being grossly enlarged and packed full of heavens knows what, this morning I noted it was almost empty what and how did that happen?!

I hadn’t had a chance to do the surgery on it. BIL was gone, hay needed doing, waiting for equipment….. and now all my hay is in, BIL is back and I have all the equipment and it’s empty.

Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled I don’t have to stress her out and do that.

Now I think she is moulting, I am assuming it’s her pile of feathers in the roost in the morning I find.

These chickens are giving me grey hair!

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!