Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Ponypoor]

Not all mine were guaranteed. I got 3 guaranteed girls. The rest were straight run. They ended up sending me 13 chicks instead of just 10. In the end I got really lucky for a newbie that didnt know any better and got 3 Roos and 10 pullets.

I will be interested to see what Vals box contains for sure!

Wow that’s a good outcome!

My niece hatched out 7 chicks, 4 Roos and 3 pullets hahaha. I have the 3 hens now, they are lovely gals.

 

[Ponypoor]

Just 10 of them

So when do you get them ?

 

[Ponypoor]

Sure!

Hello Alex glad you got some time to yourself

How is Jaffar today? Is his breathing still off?

 

[Ponypoor]

I’m not sure if what I did was a good thing or a bad thing. Neighbors little chick (or very young rooster) was inside my yard screaming and hiding in the woodpile. I ran to investigate, and found a stray cat pinning the chook to the ground. Both animals got spooked and ran away, in opposite directions. I’m pretty sure that the little guy made it back under the fence. Question: did I starve a stray cat, or did I save the chicken?
In my yard, the chicken comes first!!!

Well I guess from the chickens point of view your a hero, from the cats view - well like a good thing cats don’t speak…

Cats are very resourceful and will find another meal. You did good.

 

[RoyalChick]

I’m not sure if what I did was a good thing or a bad thing. Neighbors little chick (or very young rooster) was inside my yard screaming and hiding in the woodpile. I ran to investigate, and found a stray cat pinning the chook to the ground. Both animals got spooked and ran away, in opposite directions. I’m pretty sure that the little guy made it back under the fence. Question: did I starve a stray cat, or did I save the chicken?
In my yard, the chicken comes first!!!

Cats are resourceful - s/he will find some mice to eat instead.

 

[featherhead007]

Hello Alex glad you got some time to yourself

How is Jaffar today? Is his breathing still off?

He’s been better lately.

 

[RoyalChick]

Cats are resourceful - s/he will find some mice to eat instead.

Ooops. SHRA.
Tax

 

[Ponypoor]

He’s been better lately.

So glad to hear this

Ok time to do evening chores, everyone have a lovely evening

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Hi CB! I am looking forward to more pictures as it progresses!

OK….This run is an experiment, with DH imposing some realistic constraints and agreeing it is hair-brained and insisting it is not what he would prefer to do! Originally my idea was to make a lightweight two-part removable roof on the big 9x12 ft wire cage run (an Omlet Walk-In Run), keeping it modular and moveable in two halves, using it in the trial winter spot now and then moving it to the established summer spot. I planned to do it by myself, so I planned small - small pieces of wood easy to handle, lightweight roofing, metal brackets connecting things with screws, lots of concrete blocks & strapping “staking” it down. The run held up under snow and wind with tarps and tie-downs to concrete blocks last year, so I was thinking along those same lines, keeping the cage exterior to the roofing assembly so that I could tarp the sides, but with a better, sturdier ceiling. I really wanted eaves.

DH offered help, a good thing, which I gladly accepted. He has accommodated my ideas as much as possible but wanted it much more rugged and beefy. Since some materials were already ordered and here, I supplemented per his requests, and thus the FrankenRun was born. My planned shed roof has way more angle than the cage roof had, and is a huge sail. He has experience in construction and went to school for engineering (we built most of our house), a good thing. The result is that it’s obviously not going to be terribly modular or going anywhere without a lot of complicated disassembly. It’s a 3-D puzzle. So it is now the permanent winter run and we’ll see how it holds up and the site works. Hopefully we’ll build the summer run properly and from scratch next year (DH prayers would be answered).

A couple of days ago. Roofing partially on, bracing also only partial, nothing remotely square yet, some blocks there temporarily so it doesn't blow away. Angle bracing staked to the ground, ratchet strapping purlin & rafters to block piles planned. There's been no wind until today thankfully.

Pictures illustrating 3-D insanity. Wire run mesh ceiling not up yet here in the middle, bracing & placement not final. It was a crazy idea I will admit. Especially as the wire run is far from square and everything has to be adjusted three times, and then again later too.

I couldn't get pics of the chicken inspectors today, but they made a thorough tour in the late afternoon early evening, and appeared to approve.

@Ponypoor — this picture of Mr. Pompeii is really nice, I love it. Calendar-worthy!

Good Monday Morning

Everyone says hello!

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[knoturavggrl]

90/10 Rule

I have just responded to the Cracked Corn article today. They quote the 90/10 rule when providing treats to chickens. I thought that perhaps a visualization of what that means might be useful.

Here is a bit of a copy of what I posted.

Chicken feed rates are most commonly expressed in studies as weight or mass not volume. Most of these studies were done to measure the delivery of antibiotics in feed. Despite that they do give a starting point to determine how much your chicken eats per day.

If we use a study done by B.B. Buck in 1985 they categorized feed consumption as a % of body weight.

So if we look at a 3.5 lb chicken, say a Polish or a Leghorn hen, they consumed 6.7% of their weight by day in feed. Let's convert lbs to ounces in order to make determining 10% easier. 3.5 lbs × 16 = 56 oz x 6.7% = 3.752 ounces of feed per day. That is about 3/4 of a cup.

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10% of that would be 0.3752 oz of corn or no more than a palm-full per day.

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Let's look at a bigger chicken, your typical layer. Not a dual purpose bird like an orpington, just a standard hen say around 5 lbs. In the study, a 5.5 lb chicken consumed 5.0% of their body weight. 5.5 lbs × 16 = 88 oz x 5.0% = 4.4 oz feed per day. That is approaching a cup of feed.

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10% of that is 0.44 oz of corn or again, no more than a palm-full per day.

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As you can see despite increasing the size of the chicken, it is still about a palm-full of corn per day.

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Thank you very much for posting this! Math is not my forte the pictures and explication are very helpful