Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[GregnLety]

115 heat index today. My AC crapped out. While I was adding shade cloth to the pens. Been a hot miserable day. Worked on the hvac until dark and not sure I fixed it

It’s still 95f hot here. My poor birds are hot in the coop. I have a fan on them, but the portable A/C isn’t working properly. I had to turn it off. I’m hoping that they will be okay with only the fan tonight.

 

[featherhead007]

115 heat index today. My AC crapped out. While I was adding shade cloth to the pens. Been a hot miserable day. Worked on the hvac until dark and not sure I fixed it

I know that I feel bad for myself, but I feel worse for your situation.

 

[goldenfingers]

Hard to tell at this distance without a reference object, could be cooper sharp shinned redshouldered… but from what you describe there was definitely an attempt on the flock.

Thanks to everyone for the replies. Now that I'm aware I've watched closer and done some research. I now believe we have two threats. I've become pretty convinced that the bird in the photos is a red tail hawk. I've seen two of them together at lower altitudes and they are definitely big, much larger than a Coopers, and from pictures on the www, their underside markings seem to match those of the red tails. If that weren't bad enough, it looks like we've also got a whole nother set of predators (parents and chicks) living in a tree just a couple of houses away. These are smaller but I still can't identify or get a photo of them. Looks like this may be a long summer, but at least the chicken compound is very safe from aerial attack, and the girls seem pretty content to stay inside. Still, I'm not the least bit happy about this.

 

[LozzyR]

For what happened. Was for the girls. This pic was clearly pre-fencing days, when they could come up and 'knock' on the door!

While I am sure you DON"T miss "the poops on the stoops", I bet you do kinda miss the 'Somebody's knocking, mum let us in'... 'You've hearddd about us, but you never dreamed....we'd be so sweet and so keen!

Do notice, the word is KEEN, not CLEAN

I definitely don’t miss ‘poops on the stoops’ but I got some great photos when they could access the back door. Here is one of my original girls, Lucy, who was such a mummy’s girl.

 

[featherhead007]

I had to do it! I brought every bird inside (to the chickens room) thing is, if I feel that they are uncomfortable, then so am I. One at a time from the coop. They didn’t seem to mind that at all! But Jaffar did bite my hand.

 

[Cynthia12]

Sharing a favorite photo for the celebration. Ok a few.

 

[LozzyR]

Ok, I’m over 30 pages behind again (gee, how did that happen?!) so getting my chickie pics in as it’s already Tuesday in Oz. I’ll try to get more than one chook in a photo so there isn’t 12 pictures.

Lucy and Emily

Given that they were ex-battery hens, they were dust-bathing like their lives depended on it!

Chickie and Henny Penny

Ditto for the dust bath!

Charlie and Bessie

Tegan, Nyssa and River

Penguin, Lottie and Snowy

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

Three of my favorite pictures, "What the FLUFF!!! Is that??", "Peepzilla" & "My Friend Kiwi"

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

Toothless is a handsome boy! It is almost like he is wearing a reverse Tuxedo!!

And Henrietta...she has such 'soft' coloring...hints of this and that color in her. She looks like her feathers were super soft to touch, too!

Any idea where she found a Roo to help her with those eggs? (they had to be fertile to hatch!! Such a range of chicks from her!!!

Yes, Toothy was a very handsome guy. Henrietta grew up to be a lovely hen. She was never a lap chicken. She preferred to "supervise" things being done and getting in the way to help. The father of the chicks were either Toothy or Tuff, seeing as how they grew up to appear to be full game I think Tuff was the culprit. It also makes sense seeing as how Momma preferred Tuff at the time and Henrietta preferred to hang out with Toothy. Remember now, Henrietta, Toothy and Tuff came from eggs from a friends flock so were not related to Momma.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

As I said, I won 6 Maran chicks. They were 1 day shy of being 3 weeks old when I picked them up. Their breeder tried to be fair when he split the chicks up. He told me when I picked them up that we each got 2 for sure girls, 1 for sure boy, and 3 that were questionable. I was totally ok with that, surely since I did not hatch, or pick these chicks out that I could at least get 3 hens out of 6. Again, how wrong I was. 6 chicks, 2 girls and 4 boys. Within that first week those 3 questionable ones, their combs popped and wattles appeared. The world hates me at this point, I just need some hens dang it.
Their first night home.

A few weeks later. Oh if you are counting, I now have 8 boys in various ages, and 5 girls. Mom at this point tells me that I even look at a chick I curse it and it is destined to be a boy. I love her humor, and why it was very very painful last week to tell her she was right about Ezzie. Anyway back to the Marans. I was told Marans are in your face friendly and sweet. They were, and were in spades. These being my first, and first time raising chicks myself I was thinking maybe that had something to do with it. Nope, I've come to find out that no matter how they are raised Marans and Marans mixes are sweet, friendly, lap chickens.

Now the pandemic has hit, everyone is in lockdown, and the chickens are keeping me and Rosie sane. Due to being a type 1 diabetic, and not knowing how the virus would affect me I took it seriously and stayed home. I'm normally a home body anyway, but after 3 weeks even I began to get stir crazy. But I have a problem, what am I going to do with all these boys? I cannot keep 8 boys. I decided I would keep Toothless and 1 of the Marans. Covid presents a problem though, everyone is afraid to get out and about, that made placing chickens hard in general, and I have the task of placing roosters. Momma Hen and her daughter Nugget decide it would also be the perfect time to go broody. At the same time and Nugget is just over 6 months old. I have a cousin who has chickens, he is laughing at me over my boy problem. He also swears that you can look at the shape of a egg and tell which is a hen or roo. Ok know it all, you have a huge laying flock bring me some eggs, only girls please and I'll give them to Nugget. Again, I'm swimming in boys. It did take me a few weeks to pick out which of the Marans boys to keep. Eventually we had a winner. Even as a chick my keeper Drumstick knew how to pose.

Once Drumstick was chosen I started trying to place his brothers. Thankfully it took less then a week. Momma Hens 3 boys that appeared to be full game roos, they took a bit longer. It would take some time, but I was eventually able to place them with people I knew who had larger flocks of big stock chickens. I could have gotten rid of them sooner but well, cock fighting though illegal is still big here and some of the people that inquired were hard and fast no's. I felt if it came to a quick ending, or cock fighting, I was prepared to cull them.